CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – It’s been another dramatic year across the country, from the COVID vaccine rollout to radical changes in employment and hiring. But locally, we’ve seen plenty of big changes of our own.
Here are the top 10 Clarksville news stories of 2021, all of them brought to you by Clarksville Now.
1. Amazon coming to Clarksville
Gov. Bill Lee announced in August that Amazon will build a state-of-the-art fulfillment center in Clarksville. Amazon will start with 500 full-time jobs with comprehensive benefits at the new 1 million-square-foot facility, where employees will pick, pack and ship larger customer items, such as bulk paper goods, sports equipment, patio furniture and larger home goods and electronics. It’s a $100 million investment, and the facility is expected to launch in 2022.
Also this year, electric vehicle battery maker Microvast announced in February that it will set up its first American factory in Clarksville, bringing almost 300 jobs in a $220 million investment, and LG Electronics announced in April a $20.5 million expansion of its plant, adding over 300 new jobs.
2. Winter storm shuts down city
A winter storm dropped ice and snow over Middle Tennessee on Monday, Feb. 15 and Tuesday, Feb. 16, shutting down Clarksville. Thousands of people lost power with the temperature at only 10 degrees. Wind chill values took that down to single-digits.
For two days, the sheriff and both mayors urged that all residents stay home. Public schools and Austin Peay State University went on remote, Fort Campbell dropped to mission-essential personnel only, and many local agencies closed for the day. Even the grocery stores closed, with parking lots covered in sheets of ice. In Clarksville, there were 30 wrecks in 24 hours, though none were serious.
The storm brought out some heroes. Members of Clarksville Jeep Crew patrolled the streets, assisting stranded motorists after their cars got stuck in the ice and snow, and giving rides to essential workers. By the end of the storm, the club had assisted more than 250 stranded motorists and provided 292 rides for medical personnel and other essential workers.
With everyone stuck at home, there was also plenty of winter wonderland fun going on, particularly snowman building.
3. F&M Bank Arena takes shape
During 2021, what was once referred to as the MPEC (multi-purpose event center) went from being, literally, a hole in the ground to an impressive steel-girder skeleton, to truly taking shape with exterior walls and a roofline in place. It also got a name: the F&M Bank Arena.
The arena, with an estimated construction cost of $115 million, will open in the fall of 2022 as a 250,000-square-foot facility with seating capacity for up to 6,000 people for basketball, concerts, hockey, figure skating and more. Austin Peay State University basketball will be the primary leasing tenant.
As envisioned, the arena has already created a surge of nearby economic development. Plans to build the Riverview Square retail center between Riverview Inn and the arena moved forward, and a three-story restaurant, Shelby’s Trio, is under construction across College Street from the arena.
4. COVID surges, vaccines and masks
The story that dominated the year, of course, was COVID-19. To put things in perspective, the year started with Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools still in remote learning, Austin Peay State University on remote, and government offices sporadically closing because of COVID outbreaks. The vaccine was just becoming available, and local first responders were finally able to get their first doses, with people age 75 and older right behind them.
In mid-January and for a few weeks, we had around 2,000 active cases. CDC data shows that was a high, and from there, active case counts declined. They stayed low from about March until the beginning of the school year, when they climbed again and reached their highest level yet, at close to 3,000 active cases, in part because of the Delta variant outbreak. That spike began to overwhelm Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville, as COVID patients filled up the ER.
As the vaccine rollout continued, some began to balk at getting the vaccine. Vaccines were eventually required for all Fort Campbell soldiers, and for all civilian federal employees, including those at Fort Campbell and at TVA in Cumberland City.
In September, amid spiking numbers from the Delta surge and after the deaths of three teachers, the School Board was ready to resume a mask mandate for students. That led a group of objecting parents to disrupt a School Board meeting. While the mandate was in place on paper, a state rule allowed students to opt out. The mandate was then dropped in November.
As of Dec. 22, we have been running steady with about 500 active cases, under growing concerns about the twin dangers of a post-holiday outbreak and the Omicron variant rolling across the country.
In 2021, Montgomery County had 340 COVID deaths, according to the Montgomery County Health Department, with 466 COVID deaths total since the pandemic began in early 2020.
5. Road upgrades, tax increase
People have complained for years about the need for road infrastructure improvements in Clarksville. In May, Mayor Joe Pitts proposed a solution: his Transportation 2020+ Plan and a tax increase to pay for it.
The plan includes road improvements, sidewalks, two roundabouts and various other upgrades for Clarksville drivers and pedestrians. It’s divided into three tiers. Tier 1 includes large and immediate needs, such as widenings of Needmore Road, Tylertown Road, Rossview Road and Whitfield Road. The Transportation 2020+ Plan is on the City of Clarksville website.
Paying for it, of course, would be the trick, and the plan included a 20-cent increase in the local property tax rate. In June, after approving it on first reading, some City Council members switched their votes and rejected it. But Pitts came back and was able to push through a final vote for approval as part of the city budget.
6. Blackhorse catches fire
Blackhorse Pub & Brewery, the Clarksville restaurant that has been an icon of downtown since the mid-1990s – and helped restore downtown to life after the 1999 tornado – took a big hit on March 3 with a kitchen fire that destroyed the roof and caused smoke and water damage. “Everything in there is either wet or ruined or it’s dirty. Smoke and soot. It’s a big damn mess,” co-owner Jeff Robinson told Clarksville Now. The restaurant has been closed ever since for repairs and renovation. They expect to open in the new year with an improved front facade.
Meanwhile 100-some employees who were already suffering from business declines during the pandemic were suddenly out of work. Benefit events were held to help cover an employee fund, supported by several other downtown businesses.
7. School director loses raise, resigns
An effort to bring the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System’s director salary in line with statewide standards hit a snag when people got wind of the price tag: It amounted to a $60,000 raise for then-Director Millard House, taking his annual salary up to $230,000. While the School Board approved the raise as part of a budget amendment, the Montgomery County Commission balked. For several weeks, the raise became a matter of dispute between the government bodies. Ultimately, the commission refused to approve the amendment with the raise, and the board was forced to take it back.
One month later, House announced he was leaving for a new job as director of the Houston, Texas, Independent School District, with a projected salary of $350,000. With around 30,000 employees serving more than 200,000 students in 276 schools, Houston ISD is over five times larger than CMCSS.
The CMCSS School Board appointed House’s chief of staff, Angela Huff, to be the interim director, and 2022 will see a search process for a new local schools director.
8. Justin Sawyer mystery
Justin Sawyer, a 20-year-old graduate of Rossview High School, went missing in December 2020. Just a few days into 2021, his car was found in Georgia, and by the end of January, police made three arrests on evidence that Sawyer was killed in a robbery. However, investigators were still missing one key piece of evidence: Sawyer’s body.
Despite having his car, video footage from a gas station in Kentucky where the robbery allegedly took place and a confession from one of the suspects, police leads on finding Sawyer’s body ran cold. There was also a dispute over jurisdiction, with both the Clarksville Police Department and Kentucky State Police investigating his disappearance. Family and friends spent several weeks conducting public searches for him. Finally, on March 2, his body was found near Spring Creek at the end of Kennedy Road.
Of the men that were arrested, one was from Clarksville and two others from Oak Grove. Their court cases are ongoing and, for now, are being conducted in Kentucky.
9. Tik Tok challenges cause chaos
Local schools might have expected their biggest 2021 challenge would be student health and learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic. Who would have expected the real challenge would come from a fairly new social media platform called TikTok? Short videos distributed nationwide that encouraged students to engage in vandalism, violence and what the schools perceived as threats.
In October, students participating in TikTok challenges to steal or destroy property engaged in over 100 incidents, causing over $20,000 in damage, including ripping a urinal off a wall and the theft of teachers’ personal belongings. The schools responded in part by establishing new limits on restroom access.
The next month, over 50 students were suspended from West Creek High School after a video went viral that showed local students raising their hands or phones simulating a weapon. While CMCSS couldn’t comment on student discipline, several families reported the suspensions.
10. Housing market skyrockets
Anyone who’s tried to buy or sell a house in Clarksville lately can tell you 2021 will go down as a hectic year for housing prices. At one point in May, there were only about 100 houses on the market in Montgomery County, when normally there would be 10 times that many. Every house was drawing multiple immediate offers. In one year, the median price for a house rose from $210,000 to about $240,000, as of May. Real estate experts attributed the pricing change to “Nashville spillover” in home values coupled with Tennessee’s low property tax, moving season at Fort Campbell, and a stall in new construction due to lumber prices.
The surge got so bad it caused a dip in veteran home-buying, with the above-market-value house prices making VA loans impossible. In June, the Clarksville metro area experienced 122.3% growth in single-family home permits, and it was ranked fifth in the nation for the fastest growth in building permits issued for single-family homes.
All of this growth was reflected in 2020 Census data released this year: Clarksville’s population rose to 166,722, a 25.4% change over the last 10 years. Montgomery County’s population rose to 220,069. That’s a 27.7% increase over the past 10 years.
Compiled from previous Clarksville Now reports.
Update: New information released Dec. 29 indicates Montgomery County had 340 deaths from COVID-19 in 2021, for a total of 466 since the pandemic began. The article has been updated.