Cookeville to Consider Re-Approving Auxin Ordinance

Cookeville City Council will consider re-approving an ordinance that would pave the way for a hotel and convention center in the downtown area.

The ordinance, which has been approved twice before, will close and abandon alleys along South Oak Avenue and Depot Street for the proposed ‘Auxin Project.’

Planning Department Director James Mills said the ordinance would help move the project forward.

“The next step would be the completion of this ordinance, and then the acquisition or swap and exchange of properties,” Mills said. “Once that occurs, [Auxin] can submit a site plan. That’d be the next step, [which] is submitting a site plan for review in compliance of the various city codes.”

Mills said this new ordinance contains the same conditions as the previous one approved roughly six months ago.

“The action that was approved was never completed, which included the transfer of the properties,” Mills said. “That never happened. There was a 90-day period in which that had to happen in and it didn’t, so the ordinance became void. So this new ordinance replaces that one.”

Mills said Auxin requires the alleys within their project plans, as they bisect the properties in which the hotel and convention center will be built.

Calls made to Auxin representatives last week regarding the project were not immediately returned.