Breaking ground
Anderson County Chamber plans event Sept. 10
This is the architects’ rendering of the planned new headquarters for the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce. It will be bult on a tract at the intersection of North Charles G. Seivers Boulevard and Weaver Street.
The land was donated to the chamber late last year by Joe Hollingsworth Jr., CEO of The Hollingsworth Companies, and is the second site chosen for the new chamber headquarters.
This will be the second groundbreaking event for the new facility, which originally was set to be built on a 1.17-acre tract on North Main Street at North Hicks Street.
Parking for the event will be available at the Clinton Church of Christ, 500 N. Main St., the chamber said.
Chamber officials are billing next week’s event as “Groundbreaking 2.0.”
The chamber bought the previously announced site on North Main Street in June 2022, and held a groundbreaking ceremony there in November 2022, but never actually began construction.
Earlier this year, the city of Clinton bought that tract from the Chamber of Commerce, and has since turned it into a new downtown parking lot. It’s also being used by parents dropping off and picking up kids at Clinton Elementary School.
Thes new headquarters 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.
Chamber President Rick Meredith said in June that the chamber expected to finalize its contracts with lenders to finance the construction by mid-July, and to begin construction shortly thereafter.
Hollingworth acquired the property on Oct. 20, 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,” the chsmber said.
“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, City Manager Roger Houck said the former chamber property was a good choice.
Clinton paid the chamber $150,000 for the land out of the city’s “undesignated fund balance” of about $10 million, Houck said.
For now, it has a gravel surface, but the city intends to pave it eventually.
Houck said all of the work on the parking lot, except the paving, is being done by the city’s Public Works Department.
He said the city plans to seek bids for the paving, which “we think won’t cost more than another $50- to $60,000.”
“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.”
The city has worked with Clinton Elementary School to encourage parents picking up or dropping off children at the school to make use of the new parking lot when lining up their vehicles approaching the school, rather than queuing up along North Hicks Street and North Main Street.