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Business Chugs Along I-75
From Chattanooga to Knoxville

Heading out of Georgia, the I-75 corridor makes its way into Tennessee, leading straight into Chattanooga. In Chattanooga, I-75 meets with a number of other transportation options, including three rail lines, two interstates and barge access. "We also have two very large trucking companies that are headquartered here that service the southeastern and eastern parts of the United States," says Walter Sprouse Jr., vice president of economic development with the Economic Development Dept. of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

This infrastructure network once supported the huge metalworking cluster in Chattanooga, but today it supports a much wider group of employers. In fact, last year saw a $110 million investment by Signal Mountain Cement and a $44.4 million investment by Seaboard Farms. But the metalworking industry hasn't left Chattanooga altogether. In 1999, Wheland Foundry invested $30 million to expand its Chattanooga facility.

"Most people still think of us as being primarily a metal working community," says Sprouse. "And we still have a lot of metal working companies, but we also have a number of other manufacturers, including a great number of food processing facilities."

For instance, Seaboard Farms announced a 700-job expansion at its Chattanooga operations, and Nabisco expanded with a $12.5 million investment. Nabisco is adding the new Creme Savers product line to its Chattanooga operations.

From Chattanooga, I-75 treks through the Knoxville-Oak Ridge area, where high-tech development seems to be the order of the day. In fact several business parks are being developed to fill the need of today's and tomorrow's high-tech space needs. Just 2 miles (3 km.) off I-75, the Development Corp. of Knox County is building a 150-acre (61-hectare) park, called Pellissippi Corporate Center, which will "target high-end manufacturing and more of the higher skilled positions that we have here because of the technology base in East Tennessee," says Rhonda Rice, director of business development with the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership. "Currently there are no spec buildings in the park, but we do have one tenant: The National Transportation Research Center."

The National Transportation Research Center is a joint venture between the University of Tennessee, the Oak Ridge National Laboratories and Knox County. It will provide a location for research in transportation-related issues.

The high-tech culture of the Knoxville/Oak Ridge region has caught the eye of many relocating and expanding firms. Among those is a new entity created by the merger of Interactive Pictures Corp. and Bamboo.com, two Internet-based companies. "They primarily deal in the 360-degree type photographs," says Allen Neel, president of the Tennessee Resource Valley. "With the merger, they're about a $1 billion company now that's headquartered here in Oak Ridge."

Other high-tech projects include the University of Tennessee/Battelle management contract for the Oak Ridge National Lab, and the Spallation neutron Source (SNS). SNS is a $1.36 billion research facility to be constructed over the next five years.

ClientLogic and United States Cellular also located operations in the Knoxville/Oak Ridge region. United States Cellular opened a $20 million regional customer service facility in Knoxville, where it will employ 300 workers. ClientLogic has opened two new facilities, employing approximately 500 workers, to provide technical support for software.

Just north of Knoxville along the I-75 corridor, Clinton, Tenn., is just realizing the economic opportunity the north-south interstate provides, says Hollingsworth, whose development firm has several facilities located along I-75 in Anderson County. "In the last couple of years, we've had Advanced Auto Parts locate on the corridor," he explains. "They built their first PDQ Quick Response System for parts in Anderson County. We've also located CMS, which is a logistics company for residential and commercial door units. And much of what we see are these companies that are coming in are exceeding their productivity and are expanding."