In May 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded the City of Knoxville $350,000 in Brownfield Grants to remediate contamination on two important properties at the former McClung Warehouses on Jackson Avenue and the former Sanitary Laundry site at 625 N. Broadway. The City is providing a $70,000 local match for these grants.
Both sites have unique redevelopment histories and are unusual in that they are City-owned. The City, motivated by blight-abatement and public safety concerns, purchased the McClung Warehouses portion of the Jackson Avenue site in 2013 from a bankruptcy trustee. The warehouses, dating back to the 1890s, were destroyed by fires in 2007 and 2014. The City acquired the abandoned dry-cleaning site on Broadway in 2014 in a tax foreclosure. The laundry had been a leading employer in the 1920s and 1930s.
For additional information, please see the
City media release.
A kickoff meeting to discuss the Sanitary Laundry and McClung Warehouse sites was held on
Thursday, June 1, 2017 at St. John's Lutheran Church at 544 N. Broadway. A project update meeting was held on
Monday, March 19, 2018. Copies of the presentations from these meetings are available under the Public Meetings section.
For more information on the public meetings and EPA Cleanup Grant see the following
informational sheet.
Starting Spring 2018, the City, S&ME, environmental consultants, and Robin Easter Design are providing quarterly newsletters outlining the grant accomplishments during that period. Please find the first edition of the newsletter
here. Check under the Quarterly Newsletters section to see additional newsletters.
Comments or questions can be sent to Anne Wallace at [email protected]