Scott Broden, Daily News Journal, February 22, 2015
“We as a community would want every property to have the maximum potential for redevelopment,” said Sam Huddleston, an environmental engineer for the Murfreesboro government.
The city has had other factories joining Chromalox in getting torn down through the years, including General Electric last year. Other factories have been renovated for new purposes.
Prior to Chromalox being torn down in 2003, the factory had up to 850 workers while it operated from 1956 to 1998, according to press reports and the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation. Owned by Emerson Electric, the factory closed November 1999, and the operation transfered to La Vergne.
The old factory grounds offered potential, Huddleston said.
Redevelopment benefits the city because it’s more cost-effective to use existing roads and utility lines than to build something new and the needed infrastructure to go with it on a green space in a rural area, Huddleston said.
Environmental
cleanup
Chromalox also manufactured specialty-woven heating elements after it opened in 1956 near Lokey Avenue, which has since been widened and redeveloped to be part of Medical Center Parkway. By 1998, the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation began inspecting the removal of contaminated soil at the empty factory for what was classified as a brownfield site, acreage previously used for industrial or commercial purposes, TDEC spokesman Eric Ward said.
TDEC has watched over the clean up and removal of the Chromalox facility, along with the tearing down of the old General Electric factory on Northwest Broad Street. There are no other brownfield sites in Rutherford County, Ward said.
About five years after TDEC began inspections of removal of contaminated soils, Charlie Carpenter of the Carpenter Group of Marietta, Georgia, purchased the old Chromalox site in 2003 and joined in the state efforts to tear down the factory and clean up the property for redevelopment, Huddleston recalled.
“His vision was for that to become a retail facility with a variety of national companies,” Huddleston said during an interview in his office at City Hall.
Tearing down the factory also involved a major effort that included removing of asbestos and salvaging what could be recycled, Huddleston said.
“He completed a redevelopment plan to stage the property, so it could be reused,” Huddleston said. “Charlie expanded drainage in his plan.”
The large drainage area by the tall trees at the southwest intersection of Memorial and Medical Center Parkway handles the significant water that can accumulate on the 23-acre property, Huddleston said.
Carpenter also participated with the city’s efforts to widen Lokey into a five-lane portion of Medical Center Parkway by providing right of way and easements, said Huddleston, adding that the private-public partnership included plans pertaining to all infrastructure.
The environmental engineer recalled how the local government raised up the road and bought land on the opposite side of the new parkway area from the old Chromalox grounds to address the drainage problems in the area.
The former Lokey stretch re-emerged as a high-speed connector parkway between Memorial, which is part of U.S. Highway 231, and Northwest Broad Street, which is part of U.S. Highway 41, Huddleston said.
Carpenter’s project in 2004 first attracted Office Depot to build a store. Since then, a Regions Bank, Burger King and a strip shopping center that in 2010 included a U.S. Census office has also developed on the old Chromalox grounds.
Businesses operating at the strip center at this time include the Center for Spine, Joint & Neuro Muscular Rehabilitation, Strong Body Nutrition, Achieve Medical Weight Loss and Fast Signs. A Dunkin’ Donuts is also supposed to open in the next 10 weeks where a drive through window sits at one end of the strip center.
An entrance to the redevelopment off Memorial Boulevard entices drivers with “The Village” name attached to the decorative curved brick walls that lead shoppers to the businesses operating on the old Chromalox grounds.
Although Carpenter’s work was a key in transforming the Chomalox grounds, his business project failed, Huddleston said.
Carpenter had to give up the property to Branch Banking and Trust Co. for two reasons: The Avenue Murfreesboro shopping center attracted many of the national retailers that Carpenter sought and then the Great Recession created slumping economic conditions starting in 2007, Huddleston said.
Latest redevelopment
To keep the redevelopment effort moving, Murfreesboro developer Mark Pirtle ended up buying the remaining 7.2 acres to pursue new projects there, he said during an interview at his office. This includes a Dollar General that he’s leasing and will open soon.
Pirtle is also developing a Beauty Lounge on the old Chromalox grounds, and the Murfreesboro Planning Commission has approved the initial site plan for this project.
In addition to the Dollar General and Beauty Lounge, Pirtle sold a portion of the property to Dr. Craig McCabe, who is building a $6 million eye clinic and surgery center.
Another Pirtle development will bring three duplex offices to the former Chromalox property to serve up to six professional services, such as accountants, engineers, architects.
All of this means increasing jobs and property tax rolls and sales tax revenues, said Pirtle, who was also involved in the redevelopment of the former State Farm regional office that used to sit on Northwest Broad Street off Memorial Boulevard, a short distance from Chromalox.
Old used cars
and buildings
Older buildings are similar to used cars, said Huddleston, the city environmental engineer.
Sometimes cars no longer can operate in an efficient way and end up in a salvage yard, and buildings can be the same way, Huddleston said.
The old Middle Tennessee Medical Center, which included the original Rutherford Hospital, is an example of a building in which the owners relocated the staff and were unable to sell the former building for another purpose after constructing what is now called Saint. Thomas Rutherford Hospital on Medical Center Parkway, Huddleston said. So the hospital owners tore down its older buildings off Highland Avenue and Lytle Street, and were able to sell their grounds, a more modern Bell Street Building, parking lots and a parking garage to nearby MTSU.
“We see redevelopment and repurposing of buildings all the time,” Huddleston said. “A lot of our properties are second-hand properties. Whether they’ve been torn down, repurposed and reused, a lot of our properties have been redeveloped.”
Sometimes a used car must be modified for a new purpose just as older buildings are, Huddleston said. Sometimes older cars end up being well-preserved antiques, such as the way buildings that pre-date the Civil War continue to operate.
“For us, we have been able to maintain our Rutherford County Courthouse,” Huddleston said.
The community, he said, has done a good job also preserving many other buildings in addition to a Courthouse that opened in 1859 in the center of the public square. This includes:
• Oaklands Historic House Museum that dates back to 1815
•Central Magnet School (a building that served Murfreesboro Central High School starting about 1950 before it became Central Middle from fall semester 1972 through spring semester 2010)
•Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center (a campus constructed in 1917 on Academy Street for a relocated school that served black students starting in 1884 prior to desegregation and has a lineage that included being the first school in Rutherford County in 1809 at a different place during a period in which the institution educated white males, including future President James K. Polk).
Unlike the historical buildings, Chromalox no longer exists, and its grounds emerged for redevelopment for other commericial buildings.
“Some buildings may not last the test of time,” Huddleston said. “If it lasts 50 years, it’s a temporary building. From a community stand point, we would want every property to have a clean bill of health, but some of our properties don’t have clean bill of environmental health but may have potential for reuse and redevelopment.”
Contact Scott Broden at 615-278-5158 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ScottBroden.
About Chromalox
The torn down Chromalox factory was located on a 23-acre parcel at the intersection of Memorial Boulevard and West Lokey Avenue, which the city has since widened to make it part of Medical Center Parkway. The factory operated from 1956 and to 1998, and manufactured of a variety of tubular metal electrical heating elements and specialty-woven heating elements. Chromalox employed up to 850 employees in Murfreesboro and had a workforce of 113 in production and 25 in adminstration in during an environmental site assessment with the state in 1995. Owned by Emerson Electric, Chromalox closed its Murfreesboro factory November 1999 and relocated the operation to La Vergne.
Sources: Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation spokesman Eric Ward and press reports