Oak Ridge Today

Oak Ridge receives $500,000 housing grant

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Oak Ridge has received a $500,000 state housing grant from the Tennessee Housing Development Agency.

The city will use the THDA funds to renovate and weatherize 63 owner-occupied, single-family homes in the Manhattan District Overlay zone, a press release said.

The grant award will be presented to the City of Oak Ridge at 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 8, at 138 South Purdue Avenue in the Woodland neighborhood.

That property at the corner of South Purdue Avenue and Northwestern Avenue is the site of a recent project that is part of the city’s effort to renovate substandard houses. The City of Oak Ridge bought a blighted home there in April 2014 and demolished it in June 2014. [Read more…]

City buys, demolishes blighted home in Woodland

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South Purdue Avenue Home Demolition

A work crew demolishes a blighted home on South Purdue Avenue in Woodland on Thursday. (Photos courtesy City of Oak Ridge/Matt Widner)

 

The city of Oak Ridge bought a blighted home at the corner of Northwestern and South Purdue avenues in April and demolished it on Thursday, June 26.

“It was in really bad shape,” Oak Ridge Community Development Director Kathryn Baldwin said. “This one was past saving.”

The home, which had been vacant, was extremely contaminated and dirty inside, and there were problems with every system in the small, single-story house, including the electrical and heating and cooling systems, said Matt Widner, Oak Ridge Community Development housing specialist. The ceilings were collapsing.

“It was a mess,” Widner said.

The straw-covered quarter-acre lot is now vacant. Before the demolition, a yard sign said the project was “Turning Blight into Right.” [Read more…]

More development possible on South Illinois Avenue

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South Purdue Land Use Plan

The Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission on Thursday will consider amending the Land Use Plan to change the designation on parcels 39 and 40 above from residential to business. The parcels are next to Aldi grocery (Parcel 43 at right) and between South Purdue Avenue (white road center right) and South Illinois Avenue (yellow road at bottom). The Planning Commission could consider rezoning the property in July. The new Weigels gas station and convenience store is off the map to the left on Parcel 41. Potomac Circle is at top left. (Image courtesy State of Tennessee)

 

The Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission on Thursday will consider amending the city’s Land Use Plan to change the designation of more than two acres on busy South Illinois Avenue from residential to business, possibly to allow a small multi-tenant building to be constructed.

The two parcels being considered are sandwiched between two other recent developments—Weigels gas station and convenience store on one side and Aldi grocery on the other—and also near the new Aubrey’s restaurant, Panera Bread, Ole Ben Franklin Motors, and Bojangles’ restaurant.

A Nashville development group has a contract on the property, Oak Ridge Community Development Director Kathryn Baldwin said Monday. [Read more…]