News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Overton County will pursue tourism grant funding in order to update the Joe L. Evins Community Center.
County Executive Ben Danner discussed the proposal with county commissioners during Monday’s meeting.
“[For] the bathrooms, we’ll try and put new stalls in. The doors aren’t wide enough and we’re going to try cutting the doors out and put wider doors if we get this grant,” Danner said. “We’re also looking at repaving and making more parking there because we’ve had some different places from out of town wanting to use the Joe L. Evins and have events. But, we’re hindered for parking and we think we’ll be able to double the parking with this grant.”
The $75,000 grant would require a five-percent match from the county.
Danner said the grant opportunity was brought to the county’s attention last week by the Upper Cumberland Development District (UCDD).
“They do a really good job, and they’ve made possible a lot of things we couldn’t have done with tax dollars,” Danner said. “We want to keep doing things for the county, but we don’t want to have to raise taxes on everybody every time we turn around to try and do it…. I hope we get this so we can get more parking so it’ll bring more tourism into the city and the county.”
Danner also noted that the grant funding would be used to make the Joe L. Evins center more handicap-accessible.
