Lawmakers Look to Change “Mega site Authority”

Tennessee lawmakers asked for a proposal today to let several counties work together to create an industrial “mega site,” like the one that landed a Volkswagen plant in East Tennessee. Mega sites have industrial-grade utilities, ready-made for manufacturing.

Currently the law is written as though every potential mega site would be in, and under the control of, a single county.

But State Representative Jimmy Eldridge of Jackson says that doesn’t make sense, given that recruiting a new big employer can benefit surrounding communities.

“We have to be regional now. We can’t be looking at just one area, what can I do for one area. You’ve got to look at what can … benefit that whole regional area.”

The state has two mega sites — one that attracted Volkswagen in Chattanooga and another that landed the Hemlock Semiconductor plant in Clarksville.

A change in the law would be particularly helpful to rural areas like Haywood County, where officials have been trying to get a similar site up and running.

The Joint Committee on Business Taxes would file the bill as a proposal sometime this month.

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Nathan Ridley, who has lobbied for the big four cities in the state, said he would try to have a draft copy of the proposed law ready to file next week. The new idea is to have multiple counties on the board over a big site.

“We’re telescoped, or focusing a bit right now, on this Haywood County site, but our hope would be that in the future this would open up some possibilities that we might not have right now.”