City plans parking lot for Main Street property

June 26, 2024 by G. Chambers Williams III

The city of Clinton has bought a 1.17-acre tract on North Main Street from the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce, and has begun grading the property to create a new downtown parking lot.

City Manager Roger Houck said the city closed on the $150,000 land purchase two weeks ago, and began almost immediately to flatten and prepare the lot for parking spaces.

They initially will be gravel-covered, but eventually will be paved with asphalt.

The lot is about the same size as the lower parking lot on Commerce Street, which has about 120 parking spaces, Houck said.

“We’re doing all the work in-house for now, but will put the paving out for bids,” he said. “We hope to have the lot ready at least with the gravel surface by mid- to late-July, before the start of the new school year.”

The site, at North Main and North Hicks streets, was bought by the chamber in June 2022 to use as the site for a new headquarters building. The chamber even held a “groundbreaking” event on the site in November 2022.

Just across North Main from Knight’s Florist, the vacant lot was purchased from Brenda Lou Hemphill for $199,900. It has road frontage on North Main and North Hicks streets, with the Norfolk Southern Railway tracks at the rear.

Despite the chamber holding the groundbreaking event, no work was ever actually begun.

Then in November 2023, the chamber announced that it would be changing the site for its new headquarters to a 1.35-acre tract at the corner of North Charles G. Seivers Boulevard and West Weaver Street.

That land was donated to the chamber by Joe Hollingsworth Jr., CEO of The Hollingsworth Companies.

No work has yet begun on the new chamber headquarters there, either, but chamber President Rick Meredith said Friday that the Chamber of Commerce expects to finalize its contracts with lenders to finance the construction by mid-July, and to begin work shortly thereafter.

“We are still in negotiations with the lenders,” Meredith said.

The new site, which has an official address of 107 East Washington Ave., is next door to O’Reilly Auto Parts to the north and Y-12 Federal Credit Union, across West Weaver Street, to the south.

Hollingworth acquired the property in October 2023 from AM/PM Mart of Kentucky.

It has been vacant for some time. Records show AM/PM Mart purchased the property in November 2012 for $220,000.

The new chamber site, which sits just east of the R.J. Corman Railroad line (formerly Norfolk Southern), was cleared, filled and leveled using concrete removed from the old Green Bridge in spring 2022.

Fill work was performed by one of Hollingsworth’s companies, Concept Developments Inc. of Clinton. Since that work was completed, the lot had been sitting empty.

Because the chamber was still raising money to pay for the new headquarters, construction had been delayed.

Hollingsworth officially donated the land to the Anderson County Chamber Foundation, which is leading the fundraising drive for the new headquarters.

The one-story headquarters building “will include a diversified room with up-to-date technology for training and videoconferencing, available for chamber members, nonprofits, and community partners,” a Chamber of Commerce announcement said in November.

“A welcoming lobby, a catering kitchen for events, and offices for chamber staff and Anderson County Economic Development Association are included in the building’s plans.

“MBI Companies, Inc., an architectural, engineering and interiors firm with offices in Knoxville and Chattanooga, designed the building and serves as project manager,” it said.

As for the new downtown parking lot, Houck said the chamber property was a good choice, especially since vacant land is in short supply downtown.

Clinton paid for the land out of the city’s “undesignated fund balance” of about $10 million, Houck said.

He expects all but the paving work to be done by the city’s Public Works Department, but plans to seek bids for the paving, which “We think won’t cost more than another $50- to $60,000,” he said.

“We want to pave it and make it look halfway decent, including decorative light fixtures,” Houck said. “Public Works is putting conduit in the ground for the future lighting.”

Houck also expects to work with Clinton Elementary School to encourage parents picking up or dropping off children at the school to make use of the new parking lot, which is just north of the school, rather than lining up along North Hicks Street and Main Street.