Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs' Weekly Update

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs' Weekly Update

TRANSCRIPT:

It’s Friday! Time for another weekly update.

This week I visited Oakes Farm to film a business spotlight, attended the Halls Business and Professional Luncheon, read to classes at Bearden and Corryton Elementary schools, had a virtual story time with students from Mrs. Armstrong’s class at Concord Christian Academy, spoke to a the West High School football team, and continued my tour of High School Football stadiums.

Last night I was at the Central vs. South Doyle game and tonight I’ll see Carter versus Gibbs.

I was honored to attend the Legion of Valor Bronze Cross presentation for Cadet Avery Burnham from South-Doyle High School. This award is given to a very select group of cadets for outstanding achievement in JROTC, academics, leadership and citizenship. This year, over 300,000 cadets applied for the honor. Avery was 1 of only 29 winners. Congratulations Avery and thank you for your service and for representing Knox County so well.

Red Ribbon Week is the largest drug-abuse prevention Campaign in the United States. I was happy to issue a proclamation recognizing this great work.

Knox County went to the bond market on Wednesday with great results. We issued 20-year bonds for new projects, in the amount of $55.1 million, and received an $8.1 million premium with an interest rate of 1.92%. We also refunded two existing taxable bonds and received favorable results with approximately $4.5 million in interest savings.

If you’ll recall, companies interested in purchasing and developing the Andrew Johnson Building after Knox County Schools move to the TVA building. BNA proposed a boutique hotel with a rooftop lounge, apartments and commercial space. The most attractive part of the proposal and largely the reason for their selection, was the hotel portion.

Last week, BNA Associates and the County were seeking approval of the development agreement. BNA shared that they could not get financing for the hotel portion of the project and proposed just doing the apartment and commercial components of the project, which of course would eliminate most, if not all of the permanent jobs and hotel/motel tax revenue the hotel project would bring.

Accepting such a substantial change to the proposal would not only harm the County’s interests in the project, but it would be unfair to other firms who submitted proposals as well as set a bad precedent for bids going forward. On the other hand, BNA has been a great partner; waiting three years while we finished the contract with TVA, so we have to be fair to them too.

Therefore, we feel our best option moving forward is to extend the deadline until 12/31/2020 to execute the Purchase and Sales Agreement with BNA to see if we can come to an arrangement that's acceptable to both parties. In the meantime, we will continue to move forward on getting Knox County Schools into the TVA Tower.

Hopefully, we can work it out with BNA, if not, we will issue a new request for proposals for the AJ Building Project once Schools are relocated. The AJ building is beautiful building in a prime location, I am confident that we will find the right project.

Another reminder that early voting is going on now. You can early vote at any open voting location until Oct. 29. Lines have been long, but we are so appreciative of everyone who has taken the time and had the patience to exercise this most important civic duty.

Until next Friday, I hope everyone has a great week.