Fri
May 5 2006
08:53 am
Alcoa R&D park sounding fishy already
By: R. Neal

With more details in the KNS yesterday and today, and today's Maryville Daily Times, there are some interesting aspects/questions about this deal...

  • Taxpayers are putting up $20 million to buy the land from Rarity Communities, who will develop it. (CLARIFICATION: Blount County, Alcoa, Maryville, and Knox County will purchase the property from Rarity for $10 million and spend $10 million more on infrastructure. The county is not buying the property for $20 million.) There are no reports on how much Rarity paid for it. The database where I would normally look for such information is down. Maybe I'll stop by the courthouse, or maybe somebody out there has access to the records and can tell us? The media certainly isn't telling us. Why does Rarity need the county and taxpayers to buy it? Why can't they just develop it?
  • I am not aware that Rarity has ever developed a "technology/R&D" office park. What is their background that qualifies them for such a project? (NOTE: Rarity will not be developing the technology/R&D office part part of the project. That will be handled by the Blount County Economic Development Board.)
  • The deal is being announced as if it were done, yet there has been no public input. Blount officials say they will have a public meeting for residents in the area to discuss traffic concerns.
  • News reports say the first phase to be developed by Rarity will involve condos and retail. There is no mention of any office parks. Officials talk about "technology" and "scientific" jobs, but there are no prospective tenants for these offices that aren't planned yet. The condos and retail are supposed to attract these imaginary high-tech R&D companies and jobs to the development.
  • The I-140/Pellissippi Parkway extension cuts right through the property. For this to work, it will have be be elevated. TDOT says they haven't planned or budgeted for that.
  • Knox County will invest in the development and will receive property tax revenues. Presumably, the Knox County mayor and county commission will have to approve the initial $5 million Knox County taxpayer investment. Presumably they will expect some sort of oversight of the project to keep an eye on their investment. Does this mean that the Knox County mayor and county commission now have jurisdiction over a portion of Blount County?
  • Regarding the arrangement with Knox County, the Maryville paper reports that this is so unusual that State Sen. Finney has introduced a bill to "clarify language in the Tennessee Code Annotated concerning multicounty development partnerships." Nobody's ever reported about this legislation before. Is it even legal without the legislation? The Alcoa City Manager says it is.
  • Similar to Finney's bill to raise the building height restrictions on I-140/Pellissippi Parkway that he refused to answer questions about, all of this seems to have been put together in secret, including legislation being pushed to make it all happen, without any reporting or public discussion. Why has this been kept such a big secret?
  • Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and Jobs Now! are involved. This cannot be a good sign.
  • Although there are no tenants as of yet for the "technology R&D" office park that isn't planned yet, officials say it will have a $1 billion impact on the local economy in 10 years (according to the Maryville paper) or 20 years (according to the Knoxville paper). Today's report in the KNS defends the project as "not pie in the sky". So it sounds like people are already suspicious of these optimistic projections. Why is that?

    UPDATE: I called the Blount Co. Register of Deeds, and they do not show any company named "Rarity Communities" or "Rarity" anything as owning any property in Blount Co. Maybe there's a shadow company or a bunch of lawyers acting as trustees or something.

    UPDATE: The properties are apparently in the name of Mike Ross, owner of Rarity Communities. There are multiple parcels involved. I was able to find what appear to be two of the parcels on the TN Property Appraiser's website. These two transactions are from 2000 and total $2,094,245 for 210.61 acres.

    The TN Property Appraiser's website hasn't been updated in several months, so the rest of the purchases may have occurred more recently.

    UPDATE: The Mrs. was running some errands and stopped by the courthouse. She found some more stuff, including a more recent quit-claim transfer (meaning there is no report of what money, if any, changed hands) apparently from the Jackson family to Mike and Dale Ross and Darrell Tipton, a local realtor, developer, and former member of the Blount Co. Planning Commission. More when she gets back with the documents.

    UPDATE: The quit-claim deed, prepared by Long, Ragsdale, and Waters P.C. of Knoxville, is for two parcels totalling 214.64 acres, transferring ownership from the Jackson family to Michael L. Ross, Dale M. Ross, and Darrell L. Tipton for $1.00 on March 29th, 2005. With the previously identified 210.61 acres, that brings the total to 425.25 acres, which (assuming all this is correct) would be the bulk of the property involved. So the answer to the question re. how much Rarity paid for the property will probably never be answered. (There are some cryptic notes with some amounts on the appraisal cards for the properties, but I can't decipher them.)

    • Topics:
    Oren Incandenza's picture

    Monorail? Monorail!

    Submitted by Oren Incandenza on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 10:03am.

    Great questions.  And unlikely to get answered substantively by the local media.  This sounds so half-baked and crony-rich, I'm surprised Lyle Langley hasn't appeared iin downtown Murvl to add convenient monorail service.  As Lyle said, "A town with money is like a mule with a spinning wheel.  No one knows how he got it and danged if he knows how to use it."

    Number9's picture

    IF YOU BUILT IT THEY WILL NOT COME

    Submitted by Number9 on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 10:27am.

    If you keep analyzing news like this it is only a matter of time before the Knoxville News Sentinel makes you an offer you can't refuse.

    $1 billion impact on the local economy my foot. This is another taxpayer White Elephant. Grab your wallet and hang on dearly.

    As far as multi-county development projects are concerned you do not have to be an economist to know there is a wicked screwing coming to taxpayers. If Jobs Now (the only remanent of Nine Counties One Scam) is involved you know there is bad karma.

    Can we just learn the most important lesson of all:

    IF YOU BUILT IT THEY WILL NOT COME.

    There is plenty of undeveloped land on Pellissippi Parkway that NO ONE is buying. What would make anyone think if taxpayers fund this idea that it will work?

    bizgrrl's picture

    Fer it, now agin it.I

    Submitted by bizgrrl on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 10:54am.

    I thought I was going to be for this development, once I heard the details. Now that we know there are no real details, except that a golf course community development company is developing a condo/retail development with no known R&D/Tech companies in the works, I think it might be time to protest. I was already wary of anything involving Knox County and apparently justified. Time to go speak to local officials.

    R. Neal's picture

    Yes, but maybe there will be

    Submitted by R. Neal on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 10:56am.

    Yes, but maybe there will be a Starbucks?

    SayUncle's picture

    Your answer is here. Looks

    Submitted by SayUncle on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 1:16pm.

    Your answer is here. Looks like the guys that do rarity bay are moving in. That'd be my guess.

    ---
    SayUncle
    Can't we all just get a long gun?

    R. Neal's picture

    Yes, I'm familiar with

    Submitted by R. Neal on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 1:29pm.

    Yes, I'm familiar with Rarity Communities and their website. That's the first place I looked but I didn't see anything there about this project. Maybe I missed it? The register of deeds shows no Rarity anything owning any property in Blount Co.

    StephenC's picture

    Rarity ownership of two properties

    Submitted by StephenC (not verified) on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 3:31pm.

    The two properties identified below are in the area of the new technology center proposal in Blount County. I found these both on the Blount County property tax assessor's web site ((link...)) as well as the state website with Blount County tax records (http://170.142.31.248/).

    Address: OLD RESERVOIR RD (apprx. 126 acres)

    Map: 037 Grp: Ctrl Map: 037 Parcel: 016.02 PI: S/I: 000

    Address: SAM HOUSTON SCHOOL RD (apprx. 85 acres)

    Map: 027 Grp: Ctrl Map: 027 Parcel: 073.00 PI: S/I: 000

    The owner of the properties is:

    ROSS MICHAEL L ET AL
    P O BOX 5898
    MARYVILLE , TN 37802

    Mike Ross is Rarity Communities.

    StephenC's picture

    Great minds think alike

    Submitted by StephenC (not verified) on Fri, 2006/05/05 - 3:35pm.

    I see that while doing my research on the Mike Ross properties, you had found the same two parcels.

    Anonymous's picture

    Rarity R&D Park

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 2006/05/06 - 9:20am.

    On the bright side, if Mike Ross stays busy on this R&D Park, maybe he *won't* try to install one of his upscale, gated communities at Camp Montvale... 

     

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