News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville is applying for a site development grant to clean up the Lemon Farris Industrial Park for development.
Economic Development Coordinator Melinda Keifer said that the area off of Highway 111 South was probably initially developed sometime in the 70s or 80s, and has since become overgrown. To make the set more marketable to developers, Keifer said the work would do due diligence to get the site ready to move at the speed prospective partners to need it to be.
“Instead of taking a year to make a decision on a state, a lot of them are making those decisions in 60 to 90 days,” Keifer said. “Well if the property is still so very raw and doesn’t have these additional steps already taken then you can quickly get eliminated quickly due to timeline.”
Keifer said that the 32 acres of developable land can house upwards of 300,000 square feet of industrial space. She said that she expects to hear back about grant approval sometime in January.
Keifer said the total estimated costs would come to about $190,400. She said because Putnam County is a Tier 3 Enhancement County, a 10 percent match is required. Keifer said that the latest showing of the property, it became clear that there was necessary work to be done to get the property appealing to potential partners.
She said that the due diligence reports will include archeological surveys, environmental assessments, and preliminary geotechnical surveys.
“Our goal is to clean it up if you will,” Keifer said. “We all know what happens if you miss your weed-eating for a couple of weeks and that same thing applies there. So a lot of scrub brush, fencing that is no longer needed, new fencing that needs to be put up. We’re just going to try and get a better visual (…) So it’ll If we can have those reports prepared when we meet with a prospect we can be one step closer to being able to develop that property.”
