Rocky Top council moves to rezone former Covenant doctors’ building
Rocky Top’s City Council approved on first reading Thursday an ordinance to rezone a building on South Main Street, which formerly was a Covenant Health doctors’ office, from its current light-industrial designation to commercial use.
The building and its 3.9 acre site are owned by Covenant Health’s parent company, the Fortress Corp. of Knoxville, which wants to sell it, City Manager Michael Foster said.
Sitting just south and east of the intersection of South Main Street and Industrial Park Road, the former medical clinic has been closed since late 2019, and Covenant has no plans to reopen it as a medical facility, Foster said.
“It originally was zoned commercial, but at some point it was rezoned light industrial, which really doesn’t fit with how it’s been used,” he said.
Fortress plans to market the property to anyone who might want to open a medical office or urgent-care facility, or who might just need it for general office space, Foster said.
The clinic building has lots of paved parking around it.
“The Planning Commission recommended rezoning back to what it was,” Foster said.
A public hearing on the proposed zoning change will be held at 5:45 p.m. Thursday, April 15, prior to the 6 p.m. City Council meeting. The council will then consider approving the change on second and final reading of the ordinance.
In other council news:
• Foster said the city’s new fire pumper truck, which has been on order for about a year but was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic, should be delivered no later than June 30, but possibly a few weeks earlier.
But the late delivery cost the city its chance to apply for a state grant for sewer system improvements during the fiscal year that begins July 1, because for the city to be eligible for a new grant, the fire truck would have had to be delivered and paid for by the end of this month, he said.
The city couldn’t apply for a new grant under that program until the previous grant money intended for the fire truck had been spent. Extensive improvements and rehabilitation of the city’s sewer system have been underway for at least two years, most of that paid for with state grants.
• Still on track, though, are plans to seek a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant of $250,000 this year to help pay for a long list of items, including new vehicles and equipment for the city’s police, fire and street departments, council members were told.
During the February council meeting, Foster said the USDA encouraged the city to apply for the grant, which would require Rocky Top to pay an $80,000 local match if the full amount is approved.
Among items the city would hope to buy with the grant and the city’s match are new radios and patrol cars for the Police Department, body cameras for police officers, pagers for firefighters, vehicle-extrication equipment for the Fire Department, a side-by-side off-road vehicle for the Fire Department, and an asphalt recycler and bush hog for the Street Department.
That would include enough police cars so they can be assigned to individual officers to take home with them when their shifts end, Foster said.
The city has not been able to buy enough cars in the past to allow that, which is a common practice in many cities.
• Foster said new LED lights have been installed for the city ballfield, as well as at the sewer plant and Public Works Department building.
