Local and state officials and business leaders celebrate the new interchange at Centrifuge Way and South Illinois Avenue with a Thursday afternoon ribbon-cutting.
The new interchange at Centrifuge Way and South Illinois Avenue opens land for development on top of Pine Ridge and help a uranium enrichment company reuse an industrial building in south Oak Ridge, officials said Thursday.
The $1.6 million state project to improve the interchange at the former Boeing Road was under way in December 2012 and completed in the summer of 2013.
“Because of this interchange, there will be more land available,” Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan said during a Thursday afternoon ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Officials from the Tennessee Department of Transportation said the new interchange provides access to the mostly empty Pine Ridge property on the south side of South Illinois Avenue and brought 330 jobs to USEC, a uranium enrichment company that has operations in the former Boeing building.
“Access is the key to economic development,” TDOT Commissioner John Schroer said.
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