The Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce could provide an office for the Industrial Development Board, store its files, prepare its meeting minutes and agendas, and take care of its accounting under a proposal endorsed Monday.
The Chamber would do the work for $25,000 per year, IDB Chair David Wilson told board members. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce will lay off some employees, and its support corporation, the Oak Ridge Economic Partnership, will become dormant.
Its funding has been cut, and the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce is laying off some employees, an official said Monday.
It will be a smaller organization, and the Chamber’s support corporation, the Oak Ridge Economic Partnership, will become dormant, its work absorbed by the Chamber, said Parker Hardy, president and chief executive officer of the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.
Hardy declined to name the employees who will be laid off or say how many workers might be affected, although he said the information could be shared later. [Read more…]
The Select Tennessee Certified Site at Horizon Center is pictured at center above. A 28-acre portion of the parcel at left has been identified as a primary data center site. (Submitted photo)
Tennessee officials have identified 110 cleared acres in Horizon Center as one of the first sites in the state to be named a certified site, meaning the property has met certain rigorous standards and is ready for development.
It’s now the second certified site in Horizon Center, a business park on State Route 95 in west Oak Ridge.
The 110-acre site has been designated as a Select Tennessee Certified Site by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. [Read more…]
With a pre-application deadline this Wednesday, the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board agreed last week to commit $750,000 to a project to increase the electrical capacity at Horizon Center Business Park if the city gets a matching grant from the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The project, which would add 14 megawatts to the park’s electrical capacity with the potential to add more later, would extend power from a substation on Blair Road in west Oak Ridge to the edge of Lot 5 on the back side of Horizon Center. It would install 13 kilovolt lines on poles that could hold 69 kilovolt lines later. [Read more…]
Protomet Corp. is having a June 14 groundbreaking ceremony for a $6.25 million expansion that will more than double the size of its current manufacturing space.
The expansion will add 30 jobs to Protomet, and it is the second multi-million dollar investment in the company’s Oak Ridge facility, a press release said. [Read more…]
A 28-acre site at Horizon Center has been designated by the Tennessee Valley Authority as a site that is ready to recruit data centers. (Submitted photo)
The Tennessee Valley Authority has identified a 28-acre site at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge as a potential data center site, a designation that will help Oak Ridge recruit companies, an official said.
“Having a primary data center site in Oak Ridge is a tremendous advantage and will definitely give us a competitive edge when recruiting data center prospects,†said Kim Denton, president and chief executive officer of the Oak Ridge Economic Partnership. [Read more…]
Answer Financial Inc. is relocating from this building on Union Valley Road to Bridgewater Road in West Knoxville.
Answer Financial’s decision to relocate its local sales center to Knoxville, taking several hundred jobs, will have a significant impact on Oak Ridge, but another tenant could be interested in moving into the office building on Union Valley Road, business leaders said.
One of the largest auto and home insurance agencies in the United States, Answer Financial broke ground on its new 32,775-square-foot facility on Bridgewater Road in Knoxville last week. It could be open by early fall and serve as the company’s primary sales center. It will be able to house more than 400 employees, including more than 100 new employees the company plans to hire in the next two years.
Estimates of the jobs lost in Oak Ridge ranged from about 200 to 300, and officials said Answer Financial workers earned $40,000 to $50,000 or more.
