More than 100 businesses, clubs, and community organizations have registered for the Oak Ridge Christmas Parade on Saturday.
The parade will start at 6 p.m. Saturday at Corporate Center on the corner of Lafayette Drive and Laboratory Road. From there, it will travel down Lafayette to the Oak Ridge Turnpike. It will continue west on the Turnpike to Oak Ridge High School.
An Iris Circle home is held up by steel beams and wooden piers Monday, one of several homes that could be moved to make way for a 25-acre Kroger Marketplace shopping center.
Work has started to move homes on Iris Circle and Robin Lane to make way for a 25-acre Kroger Marketplace shopping center at Oak Ridge Turnpike and North Illinois Avenue.
Five homes were off their foundations in the small neighborhood in central Oak Ridge on Monday, raised on steel beams and stacked wooden piers. Work had started on a few others.
Among those relocating their homes is George Royster, a five-year neighborhood resident who helped lead the crusade against the $30 million development.
The northeast corner of the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Illinois Avenue, where a 25-acre Kroger Marketplace shopping center has been proposed. The Oak Ridge City Council approved rezonings for the $30 million project on Monday.
In three 6-0 votes Monday, the Oak Ridge City Council approved a new stoplight on North Illinois Avenue for a new Kroger shopping center, approved rezonings for the project, and agreed to give up two neighborhood roads—Iris Circle and Robin Lane—to make way for the development.
The stoplight for the $30 million Kroger Marketplace shopping center would be at North Illinois Avenue and Ivanhoe Road. The 25-acre project will also need new entrances on Oak Ridge Turnpike and North Illinois Avenue. Those roads are state routes, so the stoplight and entrances will have to be approved by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
The shopping center will replace a neighborhood of about 55 homes, two hotels, a restaurant, day care center, and church northeast of the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Illinois Avenue.
Kroger Marketplace Site Plan
In response to a question from a neighborhood resident, Paul Xhajanka, Kroger real estate manager in Atlanta, Ga., and Parker Hardy, Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce president, said the developers had looked at other possible commercial locations in Oak Ridge, but weren’t able to make a deal work for several reasons, including property owners who didn’t want to sell and existing leases that hindered potential developments.
Xhajanka has said home demolition at the shopping center site could begin in February. The center would include 12,000 square feet of shop space and five outparcels, and it could open early in 2014.
Xhajanka has said it will be like Kroger stores in Farragut and at Cedar Bluff Road and Kingston Pike in Knoxville. The Oak Ridge store will include such stores as a bank, Fred Meyer jeweler, and Starbucks.
The new shopping center is expected to add about 250 jobs.
He said Kroger is leasing its current space and is trying to find a tenant to sublease it.
Council first approved project rezonings for the Kroger Marketplace during an Oct. 8 meeting.
Cars driving east on Oak Ridge Turnpike could soon be required to stop before turning right onto South Illinois Avenue.
And those vehicles will no longer be able to use the short acceleration lane on South Illinois Avenue, a city press release said.
It’s part of a series of changes that include new traffic signals, pavement markings, and traffic control signs at that busy intersection.
City workers expect to start implementing the changes on Thursday, the city press release said. The new systems are meant to make the intersection safer for pedestrians, but they could be delayed due to bad weather.
For more information, contact the Oak Ridge Public Works Department at (865) 425-1875, City Engineer Steven R. Byrd at (865) 425-1807, or visit the city’s website at www.oakridgetn.gov.
Oak Ridge emergency personnel respond to a three-vehicle accident on Tuesday morning at Oak Ridge Turnpike and Melton Lake Drive. (Photo by Tom Scott)
One left turn led to a three-vehicle collision at Oak Ridge Turnpike and Melton Lake Drive on Tuesday morning, an accident report said.
The report said a Mazda pickup driven by Robert L. Ensor of Clinton turned left off the Turnpike in front of a Ford pickup driven by Daniel J. Hendricks, also of Clinton. Hendricks was unable to stop and hit Ensor’s truck as well as a Chevy pickup that was being driven by Jose G. Avalesfernandez of Oak Ridge, the report said.
Kroger Marketplace Site Plan
Note: This story was last updated at 12:09 p.m.
A Kroger Marketplace store could be the primary tenant at a new $30 million shopping center on the northeast corner of the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Illinois Avenue.
The new 113,000-square-foot store could open in the spring of 2014, according to a Thursday morning press release from the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.
The announcement ends months of community speculation about what was being proposed at the busy intersection.
Four children and one adult were taken to the hospital after an accident Wednesday morning at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Lafayette Drive. (Photo by Tom Scott)
Four children and one adult were taken to the hospital after a car accident Wednesday morning at the intersection of Oak Ridge Turnpike and Lafayette Drive.
The accident happened just before 8 a.m. Wednesday when a car driven by Jessica Nicole Sessoms of Oak Ridge allegedly ran a red light and hit a car driven by Melissa D. Carlisle, an accident report said.
