CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Efforts are moving forward to develop an office park off Ted Crozier Boulevard that would include a conference center and hotel, and now, if all goes as planned, Clarksville’s massive new VA clinic as the anchor tenant.
The land for the office park was turned over to the IDB with the promise that it would feature a hotel and conference center. Such a center could host events such as military balls from Fort Campbell and spillover convention needs from Nashville. A master developer, E2L Real Estate Solutions, has come on board, and has been working to pin down primary tenants for the site.
VA clinic plans
Clarksville is targeted for a new 235,000-square-foot multi-specialty VA Clinic, which will be six times the size of the existing facility, VA officials previously told Clarksville Now. The existing Weatherly Drive VA Clinic will transition to a VA facility for physical, medical and rehabilitation services, such as physical therapy.
The big question has been where that new clinic will be located.
Two other possible sites have already been publicly discussed: A location the city annexed just north of Exit 4, and a property that developer Rudy Johnson has proposed for rezoning between Clarksville High School and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.
Office park site
This third potential location would pair the longstanding plan for the conference center near the interstate with the VA clinic project. The 69-acre site, currently owned by the Clarksville-Montgomery County Industrial Development Board (IDB), is roughly bounded by Ted Crozier, Dunlop Lane, Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville, Interstate 24 and the railroad track.
For the last several months, the master developer, E2L Real Estate Solutions, has negotiated with Community Health Systems, Tennova’s owner, to remove a restrictive covenant that had prevented building a health care clinic on the land. And on Wednesday, the IDB voted to remove industrial park restrictive covenants.
The IDB is now looking to prepare the land for development at a cost of $16 million. In addition to water, electric, sewer, sidewalks, roadways and pad-ready sites, this would include a “spine” road connecting on the north to Athletic Avenue at Ted Crozier, and on the south to Dunlop Lane. That road will also provide an additional access point to Tennova, Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council CEO/President Buck Dellinger told the board.
Preparing the land will increase its value from the current $4 a foot to $6. Having the land prepared will allow the developer to build the VA clinic, and the presence of the VA clinic as the anchor tenant will then double the value of the rest of the property, from $6 per foot to over $12. Taxes paid on that higher-value land, about $300 million per year, will help pay for the conference center, Dellinger said.
“We can get all of that money ($16 million) paid back to us with the sale of the land, and then what is developed on that land will then pay the taxes to pay for the conference center,” he said. “That’s the strategy that we’re working out right now.”
The developer will get the most out of the deal when building the retail-heavy portion, in the northwest portion of the site, Dellinger said.
The next step will be for the developer to present to the VA, and for the IDB to draft a sale agreement with the developer, which will then be presented to the board.
Correction: The owner of Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville is Community Health Systems. The article has been updated.