Norris will be getting a gun store in former county tax office location
Bryan Welch stands in the front of his Pro 2 Customs gun store, still under construction in Norris on Andersonville Highway where the Anderson County satellite tax office used to be. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Welch, who is moving his gun business to Norris from Tempe, Arizona, said the store will offer a wide range of services for guns, including modifications, after-market accessories and customization – along with selling guns and ammunition.
Construction inside the building at 3310 Andersonville Highway, in the former space of the Anderson County property tax and vehicle registration office, is still underway, and Welch said he is still waiting on several licenses and permits he needs to open the business.
Those include state and federal firearms licenses, along with state, county and local business licenses and occupancy permits.
The business will also handle paperwork for sales and transfers of firearms
.
Welch said he has industrial and commercial customers, along with individual consumers, and that much of his business now is conducted online.
One reason for locating in Norris, he said, is that his biggest customer is a gun manufacturer based in Israel, IWI US Inc., which announced plans this summer to invest $15.7 million on a new headquarters and factory in the industrial park in Andersonville, bringing 72 new jobs to the area.
The company is relocating its U.S. operations from Pennsylvania to a building it purchased earlier this year at 1485 Mountain Road to “manufacture, produce and assemble” handguns, and distribute accessories for them, including night-vision sights.
In the announcement, released by the state Department of Economic and Community Development, noted that IWI US, Inc., was founded in 2012 and specializes in manufacturing firearms for the commercial, law enforcement and government markets.
The center where the new gun store is opening is a strip business center that previously was the site of a supermarket, and most recently served as a location for the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, which had been allowed to use the former grocery’s space free of charge.
Still housed in the center is a hair salon called The Cuttin’ Corner, and another salon called The Olive Branch.
Business partners Ken Seaman and Dave Moore bought the center three years ago.
, and have been looking for tenants since then.