Cookeville To Move Forward With South Jefferson Water Line Replacement

Cookeville City Council will move forward with entering an engineering contract for water line replacement along South Jefferson Avenue.

The replacement would extend from the town square down to I-40 and is a precursor to a TDOT repaving project. Water Quality Control Director Ronnie Kelly said that the contract will allow the department to replace aging waterlines with a history of breaks.

“We’ve asked them to sort of hold up,” Kelly said. “We want to go in like we did on Washington Avenue and Willow to try and redo that before they repave and we’re out there digging it up.”

Kelly said that the contract has been negotiated to not exceed fees of $331,000. He said that the project would hopefully be put out to bid sometime in spring of next year, and work started by summer.

Kelly said the biggest thing to note will be the impacts on traffic. Vice Mayor Laurin Wheaton said that they ask those traveling that way to be patient.

“I think it’s important to remind people that it will get worse before it gets better,” Wheaton said. “And it will get better, and it will be amazing. But it’s going to be a little bumpy.”

Kelly said he estimates that some pipe to be as old as from the 1930s. The work will be conducted by Knoxville firm Consolidated Technologies Incorporated, with whom Kelly said TDOT partnered with for work on Willow to I-40 South. He said the firm is giving the same rates as that project.

In other business, the city council approved the second and final reading of rezoning a property on Salem Church Road and England Drive. The property will be rezoned from Regional Commercial and RS-15 Single-Family Residential to General Commercial. The site will be the future home of a townhome subdivision.

City Council also approved the preliminary engineering and design agreement of an aquatics facility with Lose Design at a fee not to exceed $79,500.