Mormon regional event center planned for Town gets site plan approval
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received unanimous site plan approval to build Knoxville Tennessee Temple, a regional event center for church members, from Farragut Municipal Planning Commission during FMPC’s meeting Thursday, May 18.
The temple will be located on 5.26 acres at 13001 Kingston Pike, according to Town Community Development director Mark Shipley.
“This is going to be a heck of an architectural piece in the Town of Farragut,” Commissioner Noah Myers said. “... It’s pretty awesome. ...You only have one other one in the state.”
“It’s pretty much all masonry building,” Shipley said.
“It is a 100-year building,” said Daniel Boutte, senior landscape architect with Lose Design. “It’s all-granite veneer (with) steel studding.”
“It’s not open to the general public,” Shipley said. “... They are providing walking trails along the full length of its Kingston Pike’s frontage and Fleenor Road frontage and connections into the site with sidewalks and walking trails.”
Farragut resident Mary Ellen Branan said while she is not opposed to the design or construction of the temple, she had concerns for the applicant’s request for a variance regarding the distance between its access and that of Fast Pace Urgent Care.
“They do have an access that stubs into and connects into the access that was stubbed into this property when the Fast Pace Urgent Care was developed,” he said. “They are proposing to wrap the circulation around the building.
“They are proposing their own access along the eastern part of the development,” Shipley said. He added that access is 307 feet from the Fast Pace access.
“Because Kingston Pike is a major arterial that requires 400 feet of separation between driveways, they would be requesting a variance from that requirement.”
FMPC unanimously approved the variance.
“We’re comfortable with the access they are showing,” Shipley said but recommended a right in, right out entrance.
The proposed granite building will be 122 feet high.
“That’s all the way up to the top of the steeple,” he said, adding the steeple is exempt from the Town’s height requirements.
“And then, they are proposing uplighting to kind of give the building a glow at night. They are going to time that lighting,” Shipley said.
Shipley said uplighting is allowed, and the lights would be behind paraphets arranged around the building.
”The lighting itself also is going to be screened, so the lighting is just hitting the building. There’s no glare coming from the sides,” he said.
According to a traffic impact study, “all study intersections operate within acceptable levels of delay during the peak hours under all conditions.”
”It did mention we might want to eventually consider a signal at Hobbs Road and Kingston Pike,” Shipley said.
“This access could have a knock-on effect should the (adjacent) property be developed,” she said. “In that scenario, the property to the east would also have an aceess that would be within 400 feet of proposed access for the temple property.
“As you know, … we’ve had some lively discussions regarding existing curb cuts along Kingston Pike that have less than 400 feet in distance between them,” Branan said. “We know that, over time, these types of situations — sooner or later — develop into dangerous and unsafe traffic conditions.
Still, “(the temple is) really going to be something different for Farragut,” she added.
