‘People from all over the world’ moving to Town as Y-12 expands
Judging from new customers at Water into Wine bistro & lounge, according to owner Candace Viox, “there’s people from all over the world moving to Farragut,” including “New Zealand, Australia.”
The main reason: “Y-12 announced that the Lithium plant that they’re building. … (President Donald) Trump gave them the money, I want to say back in February,” added Viox, also chair of Shop Farragut/Farragut Business Alliance during its monthly meeting Thursday morning, July 18, in Town Hall boardroom.
“I have a man who comes in every day, and he’s from Australia, and he’s here for the new project,” she added.
Moreover, according to Farragut Mayor Ron Williams, “The new head of Regal Cinemas moved here from Britain, and he’s renting a house (in Town).
“The reason is so his kids can go to Farragut schools,” the mayor added.
As a result of such growth, “I just don’t know what our high school is going to do,” Viox said about FHS physically accommodating such growth. “I’m serious, because they all have brilliant kids, which is great for our school system. But I don’t know where they’re going to sit.”
“They still have some room,” Vice Mayor Louise Povlin said.
“Everything north of the Interstate goes to Hardin Valley (Academy),” said David Smoak, Town administrator.
“Which, I don’t know where they’re going to sit there,” Povlin added. “Hardin Valley is packed.”
In other updated areas of Town growth:
• “You’ll see development going on where the Swan Farm is, which is right across the street from the Renaissance building,” Smoak said. “They’ve been grading that site for awhile.
“That’s just going to be a mass grading right now, no specific building plans for anything,” he added. “Most of that is to get a road through to the residential area that’s on the back side of that property, and also across the street on Union Road.
“You’ll see that continuing to go on for several months as they grade that property.”
• Asked about the “old Kroger building,” Smoak said, “There’s lots of people looking at it.
“The ownership is now kind of where the landowner can now start doing things,” he added. “So that’s encouraging.”
• Povlin asked Smoak about a time frame for the opening of Villages of Farragut senior living center, which is being constructed a few hundred yards behind the office of farragutpress along Peterson Road.
“I cannot tell you; I think they’re way behind schedule of where they wanted to be at this point,” he said. “They’re still truckin’ along, but they’ve got a lot of work to do.
“It is a huge building.”
• As for the brick facing of Campbell Station Inn, “If you see some holes in the Campbell Station Inn building, the reason for that is there’s a lot of cracked bricks, and (the contractor) should have replaced those during the initial time they did the building back in, say, last year,” Smoak said. “So, as we’re going through the punch-list items, they finally got around to replacing all of those.”
However, “We have to have them out of there by the end of the month ... the next phase is going to start probably around, hopefully, September,” he added.
“The bids are out right now on that project.”
