Cookeville Trying To Change TVA Footprint At Jefferson And Neal

Cookeville pursuing an engineering study to see if the footprint of the TVA electrical structure at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Neal Street can be reduced.

City Council will vote on a $30,000 deposit for the study Thursday night. TVA would study whether the transmission tower could be moved or reduced to a two-pole structure. Cookeville City Manager James Mills said either way, the city could potentially move the concrete structure around the tower.

“If we can get it moved back, it would be without doing any kind of transportation improvements,” Mills said. “Moving that wall would allow trucks to make that turn, because that backs up traffic right now. So that’ll happen if we can adjust it, make that happen fairly quickly.”

Electric Director Carl Haney said city officials hope that changing the footprint could actually allow for more turning lanes on both Neal Street and Jefferson Avenue. The city has provided TVA with drawings of best case scenarios. The utility has agreed to study the idea.

“Now, if they look at it and say, ‘hey, we can’t do it,’ or ‘this is what we can do,’ and we decide we don’t want to go through with it, they would return any part of the $30,000 that’s not used up,” Haney said. “They would only use it whatever they need at the time. Or if we decide to go ahead with it and there’s some costs involved with changing that out, then they would apply the remainder of the money to it.”

Mills said the same plans have been shown to T-DOT.

Haney said the towers carry large amounts of electricity. When asked if they could be placed underground, Haney said not without great expense. The two-pole structures have been used to replace the transmission towers. Haney said several of those structures were used after the tornado damage in 2020.

Mills said the deposit will be paid for through the transportation fund.