Morristown brownfield redevelopment first success from new TDEC program

By KATE COIL

TT&C Assistant Editor

The contaminated site of a former rubber company in Morristown has become the first success story of the state’s Brownfield Redevelopment Area Grant (BRAG) program. 

Vacant for nearly a decade, the 9-acre Plumley Rubber site is now the home of R&S Logistics and is also benefiting the Hamblen County 3rd Judicial Drug Court. Morristown Chamber of Commerce President and Morristown Industrial Board Secretary Marshall Ramsey said the grant fund made possible an innovative local project that is both restoring an environmentally hazardous site to the tax rolls and giving community members the skills they need to return from addiction.   

“Every community, no matter what size, has vacant buildings with issues like this,” Ramsey said. “This program shows that TDEC is willing to help. I’m sure that the building is worth $1.5 million, and most people aren’t going to spend $1.5 million to buy the building and then another $500,000 fixing it. There are some buildings that remain abandoned because of those additional costs.” 

The rubber parts manufacturing plant was contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE) vapors stemming from manufacturing activities in the 1960s and ’70s. The level of contamination at the site meant that employees would only be legally allowed to work in the building for an hour a day, Ramsey said. 

“Over time, they had some cracks in some drains – and this may have been before there were certain chemicals you couldn’t put down the drain,” Ramsey said. ““The Plumley family had done everything they were supposed to and had worked with TDEC. They just didn’t want to finance the cleanup because they were in their 80s, and they wanted to donate the building to a nonprofit to get a tax write off.” 

The chamber of commerce and Morristown IDB identified the non-profit drug court as an ideal partner for the project. 

“We knew they needed money, so we got the building donated to them,” Ramsey said. “We had the industrial board do a PILOT for 0% savings. Usually, when you do a PILOT you do a tax savings, and the title to the property was then given to the IDB. With us holding the title, we were eligible for the grant program.” 

With the $500,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) Division of Remediation, the Morristown IDB was able to work with the drug court, Canon & Canon, R&S Logistics, MTN-INC, and Land Science to remediate the property. A sub-slab ventilation system and chemical vapor barrier coating were used to mitigate the dangers on the site.  

Ramsey said R&S Logistics has worked with the Morristown IDB and chamber before and has also relocated into former brownfield sites. Having a logistics company take the facility was a great fit to cater to the number of manufacturing operations in Morristown. With the remediation complete, they have officially moved into the site with the drug court as their landlord. 

“The chamber is holding it under the pilot until the grant is all paid out,” Ramsey said. “We are then handing it back to the drug court. Some of the recovery court people will also work at the facility, getting some skills and experience in logistics. The drug court is getting rent for a three-year term, and we believe at the end of that period, the company will buy the property. This way, the drug court is getting some recurring revenue.” 

Ramsey said the entire project would likely not have happened without funding from the BRAG program.  

“We definitely would not have been able to do this in this time frame,” he said. “We probably wouldn’t have been able to find a tenant either. Most people don’t want to get handed a building they can’t use. The grant really helped us find a tenant who was willing to work with it. If you are doing the right thing, TDEC is willing to work with you. They are less about penalizing you and more about helping you be successful in redevelopment, and we have had a lot of success in the past couple of years with these projects.” 

Morristown is eager to share the redevelopment success story with one chamber employee using it as the basis for her economic development certification capstone project.  

“She wrote her paper on redeveloping brownfield sites, and how to turn that into non-traditional workforce development opportunities” Ramsey said. “As soon as we presented, someone from the state economic development agency came up and asked us to do the presentation at the Governor’s Conference this year. TDEC is also asked us to come speak at a few conferences.”  

Ramsey said Morristown officials are ready and willing to share their story with others also considering doing something similar in their own community. 

“I would say think outside the box,” he said. “Talk with partners like TDEC, TNECD, and TVA and come up with a plan. Your picture may paint differently than ours, but they can all work. If it’s good for your community, it’s good for the region and the state. That’s the goal.”