Cookeville Mayor Lauren Wheaton said opportunity is driving the city to consider purchasing the vacant 5-acre property at the corner of Cedar Avenue and Depot Street.
The old Wilson Plant burned down in 2019. After a failed hotel/convention center project, HCA Health of Nashville purchased the property. Wheaton said that when HCA Health Services first listed the property for sale this past November, the city saw a chance for investment.
“The West side, that really is an area that I feel like just illuminates all the great wonderful local aspects of the city,” Wheaton said. “And so we saw this opportunity for a piece of land that you’re right, hasn’t been used, hasn’t been developed yet and we really wanted to be in the driver seat for what could be done with this property.”
Wheaton said the city has plans to use the property for public parking, green spaces, and retail space. Wheaton said the public parking would not be in the form of a parking garage.
“We know that’s a need in the area, and it’s something that has already been utilized for, and so we are definitely going to provide parking in that area,” Wheaton said. “It will not be a parking garage. I know people are already asking for that. That’s just not something that’s in the budget for the city. Those are actually very expensive, and so right now at this time it will not be anything like it would just be open parking.”
Wheaton said green spaces would be in the form of park benches, trees, and areas to walk around. Wheaton said retail space has not been officially planned. Wheaton said the city will look to develop the property if the City Council approves the purchase.
“We want to start right away, in fact, we have already had discussions before the purchase is final, of what we want to do, how we want to get on the ground running,” Wheaton said. “I think we mentioned yesterday in the work session about how we want to kind of have a plan laid out and go ahead and start incorporating project managers and some guides to really, you know, create a vision for what we want and start really realising how we can make that happen and so yeah, once everything gets agreed upon we are already doing the work now so we will be ready to go when it happens.”
Wheaton said her understanding is that HCA Health Services did not develop the property and decided to sell the property as the timeline did not match.
Wheaton said developing the property will have a great impact on the West Side.
