Alcoa, Maryville and Blount County are quietly working on a very big move: a joint purchase of roughly 160 acres wrapped around the former Alcoa South Plant, a long-idled smelting complex on the city’s southern edge. The deal, if it comes together through the Blount County Industrial Development Board, would give local leaders rare control over one of the region’s largest vacant industrial sites and, they say, help steer it toward a planned redevelopment instead of data center uses.
According to WATE, the proposal on the table is pegged at about $20 million. The tentative cost split has the city of Alcoa covering roughly 30 percent, Blount County about 40 percent and the city of Maryville the remaining 30 percent. The outlet reports that the Industrial Development Board could ultimately acquire around 160 acres that include the former smelting footprint.
Site Features And Long-Running Talks
Greg McClain, who spent 15 years working at the plant, told WATE the site is “graded flat, has two rail services, four-lane roads and an airport less than a quarter mile away,” a lineup that makes it a unicorn of industrial real estate. He added that conversations about a public acquisition have dragged on for roughly 15 to 20 years, with this latest push representing the most concrete effort yet.
Alcoa City Manager Bruce Applegate told the station that if the property changes hands, the three governments could move to rezone the land in order to block a data center use and instead draft a shared master plan that lays out how the South Plant site should grow over time…