Business park may build in 'Glade'

The economic development boom along State Route 840 could hit the Stewarts Ferry Pike area, with developers eying a 1.2 million-square-foot business park project.
Though local economic development and county officials called the project "very, very preliminary" they did say a large landowner had inquired about sewer for a commercial project at the Stewarts Ferry Pike exit.
Joint Economic and Community Development Executive Director Holly Sears said Nashville developer ProVenture owned around 100 acres of land off the exit and were eying a "business park" style development.
Sears added the company had owned the property for some time, saying the project would be similar in concept to the Eastgate Business Park, home to Dell Computers.
"It would not be of the same magnitude of the Prime Properties Eastgate project, but it would be very similar in concept," Sears said.
Sears said she met with ProVentures representatives last week.
Wilson County Mayor Robert Dedman said he was also aware there was a large commercial interest looking into sewer service along Stewarts Ferry Pike.
ProVenture is a brokerage and development firm based in Nashville known locally for developing the former Flextronics facility in the Highway 109 area.
S.R. 840 has recently become the county's fertile ground for industrial and commercial development.
The stretch of interstate-style highway connects Interstates 40 and 24, making it ideal for logistics and distribution facilities.
This month saw the ground breaking of the Nashville Regional Logistics Center project off the Couchville Pike exit on S.R. 840, a business park with a 500-acre scope that already counts an eight-state ALDI grocery store chain distribution center as its anchor tenant.
The Nashville Superspeedway is also just of S.R. 840 at the Highway 452 exit.
Lebanon city and Wilson County government joined forces to bring city sewer to the speedway in the late 1990s with the advent of the speedway project. The move was designed not only to feed the speedway with sewer service but to enable commercial development along S.R. 840.
Sears said the Stewarts Ferry Pike venture may provide much needed "spec building" space, adding the county is nearly out of available, existing commercial space to market.
"The sewer line was run for commercial and industrial development, and we have been marketing the area heavily," Sears said. "It is nice to see results out there. They are talking spec building, and this is also nice to see."