NOTE: Northbound Broadway is closed at Jackson Avenue today due to utility work. Motorists leaving downtown to attend the City’s public meeting on brownfields at St. John’s Lutheran Church should follow this detour route: Leaving downtown, take either North Gay Street or North Central Street to 5th Avenue, turn left onto 5th Avenue, turn right onto Broadway, and St. John’s will be on your right.
What: Public meeting on two brownfield cleanup projects (former McClung Warehouses site and former Sanitary Laundry site)
When: 6 p.m. on Monday, March 19, 2018
Where: St. John’s Lutheran Church, 544 N. Broadway
Who: City of Knoxville Office of Redevelopment staff and representatives of S&ME Inc., the contractor chosen through a competitively-bid contract to implement the projects
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded $350,000 in brownfield cleanup grant funds that are being used to remediate contamination on two important City of Knoxville redevelopment sites – the former McClung Warehouses site on Jackson Avenue and the former Sanitary Laundry site, 625 N. Broadway. The City has contributed a $70,000 match.
The properties are unusual redevelopment sites in that they’re City-owned – at least for now. The City, motivated by blight-abatement and public safety concerns, purchased the McClung Warehouses in 2013 from a bankruptcy trustee. The next year, the City acquired the abandoned dry-cleaning site on Broadway in a tax foreclosure.
Both properties would be considered prime candidates for strategic private reinvestment – except for the contaminants on the sites. So once the federally- and locally-funded rehabilitation of both properties is complete, the City will seek requests for proposals (RFPs) from private redevelopers for both the Sanitary Laundry and McClung Warehouses properties. A mix of uses is envisioned for both properties, which would revert to private ownership and generate tax revenues.
Anyone needing a disability accommodation to attend the March 19 meeting should contact the City’s ADA Coordinator, Stephanie Cook, at scook@knoxvilletn.gov or 865-215-2034. For an English interpreter, contact the City Law Department at 865-215-2050.
