Cookeville City Council approved the purchase of the old Wilson Plant property Thursday.
The city will spend $3.2 million on the purchase from HCA Health Services. Council Member Eric Walker said purchasing the property supports local business owners.
“This gives us the opportunity to take what has been a site that nobody has been able to develop in decades and really do something with it and drive the train on this one and get it back on the tracks, and I just think that this is gonna be something that is great for Cookeville,” Walker said.
City Manager James Mills said the city anticipates creating 100-150 public parking spaces on the property. Mayor Laurin Wheaton said the parking will be free to the public and that the city is not looking to profit from the property.
“We are not looking to make money off this,” Wheaton said. “We are looking at this strictly as an investment for our local area of Cookeville. Like Eric said, it’s fun to have Target and Home Depot across the way, but this is also just as important to invest in our local community, and we want people to see that that’s what we are doing.”
Cookeville Resident Jeff King said as a taxpayer, he strongly supports the city purchasing the property.
“This is the number one thing when I was looking around that I saw that I said that needs to be better, and this is a big step towards dramatically improving the downtown area that I think will be very good for Cookeville,” King said.
Mills said the city intends to retain the services of a local architectural, landscape, and planning firm to prepare the plans for the development of the property in total. Mills said the city expects to spend an estimated $1.5 million to address the environmental concerns and the relocation of utilities on the property.
Mills said the contract includes use restrictions prohibiting competitors of HCA from using the property. Mills said exceptions have been made for Cookeville Regional Medical Center should they want to build an urgent care clinic.
In other business, the council approved a bid to construct phase two of the Spring Street multi-modal sidewalk project. Cookeville Community Development Director Jon Ward said the one bid came in an estimated $20,000 over budget. The bid came in at an estimated $913,582.
Ward said the project will install approximately 2,400 linear feet of sidewalk on East Spring Street, between Raider Drive and the western entrance of the old armory. Ward said T-DOT has approved to cover the overage as long as the city matches five percent of the total cost of the project.
