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Oak Ridge Positions Community for Economic Rebound Through Reindustrialization Effort

Despite tough economic conditions, Oak Ridge has been tremendously successful at continuing its redevelopment efforts and creating one-of-a-kind land and building space that are attractive to a diverse industry base.

The most recent example of these efforts was showcased at the ribbon cutting for the new speculative buildings at East Tennessee Technology Park's Heritage Center. With a strategic partnership between the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee (CROET), the Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office (DOE-ORO), the City of Oak Ridge and the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board,the speculative buildings became a reality and set a milestone achievement for the community as it looks toward the future of its economic development.

Read entire article.

For more information about the new speculative buildings at the East Tennessee Technology Park's Heritage Center, please click below.

200 Europia Avenue

100 Europia Avenue

EnergySolutions buys Oak Ridge
short-line railroad
By Frank Munger

OAK RIDGE - EnergySolutions is purchasing a short-line railroad that traverses the former K-25 uranium-enrichment site - now Heritage Center - and joins the main Norfolk Southern rail system at Blair Station a few miles north of the site.

The Utah-based company and Heritage Railroad Corp., a subsidiary of the nonprofit Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, confirmed the execution of an asset purchase agreement. Terms of the sale were not released.

Troy Eshleman, EnergySolutions vice president for the Commercial Processing Division, said Thursday the company would continue to use the 11 1/2-mile short line in the same manner it has for years. EnergySolutions makes about one rail shipment a week from Oak Ridge, typically moving radioactive materials from the company's waste-processing facility on Bear Creek Road to the EnergySolutions landfill at Clive, Utah, he said.
More from Knoxnews.com.

Spec Building Planned for ED-5 Parcel

Above is a rendering of the new spec building to be constructed by the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee and the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board on Land Parcel ED-5 East, north of K-1007. The building will be approximately 50,000 square feet, expandable to 100,000 square feet. Site preparation is currently underway.

Investment firm pays $2M for fifth DOE building
By Bob Fowler (Contact)

OAK RIDGE — An investment firm has purchased a fifth building that was part of the Department of Energy uranium enrichment complex.

Manhattan Project LLC, an affiliate of Fulcra Enterprises Inc. of Cornelius, N.C., paid $2 million for Building K1007, a 132,000-square-foot building that the Bechtel Jacobs Co. now leases.

More from Knoxnews.com.

High-Tech Building Targeted for Waste Work

OAK RIDGE - A company that processes radioactive debris is buying an abandoned, high-tech building for treating low-level waste and for classified research.

IMPACT Services Inc. is acquiring the Theragenics Corp. building in the Horizon Center Business Park, said Sammy Jones, IMPACT chief operating officer.

IMPACT Services plans to operate a "white-glove" waste processing facility in the back of the 67,000-square-foot plant. More from Knoxnews.com.

Photo: Bob Fowler

Tennessee Valley Energy Enterprise
“Energy Parks Initiative Workshop"
March 12, 2009

The Tennessee Valley Energy Enterprise Workshop welcomed over 220 people from the Tennessee Valley Corridor (TVC) region and beyond who learned firsthand how to leverage valuable Corridor assets and partnerships into economic development opportunities for the energy sector. Combining available assets with science and technical expertise from both the public and private sector in this region, the TVC is in a unique position to offer opportunities for energy research and development, demonstration and deployment in a variety of energy applications, creating an Energy Enterprise that can serve as a model program for others to emulate. The Tennessee Valley Energy Enterprise can provide diverse, integrated and sustainable solutions to help solve this country’s energy challenges.

Click here for more info.

Knoxville News Sentinel
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Another Step in DOE's Reindustrialization Program
By Frank Munger

The Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge office announced today it had signed an agreement with the city of Oak Ridge to transfer the first phase of electrical distribution system at the East Tennessee Technology Park (the former K-25 uranium-enrichment plant).

The Oak Ridge site. as it's being cleaned up, is being transferred to private hands after decades of federal ownership. According to DOE's statement released to the press, this agreement will supplement the agency's existing utility agreement with the city and include the electrical infrastructure "outside the main plant area at ETTP." As more work is completed at the site, the city will assume portions of the electrical distribution infrastructure, DOE said.

The agency also said the transition will enable the city to provide electrical service to two speculative buildings planned for a 40-acre parcel of land previously transferred from DOE to the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee.

K-1401 Site Ready for New Industrial Tenant

BJC and DOE have completed another step in cleanup of ETTP with the demolition of the 500,000-ft2 K-1401building and reclamation of the site for future industrial use. Debris from the 11 acre site totaled more than 50 million pounds, enough to fill 3,444 dump trucks or cover a football field to a depth of 15 feet.

The facility, constructed in 1944 as part of the Manhattan Project, was used to prepare and condition equipment that was used to enrich uranium using gaseous diffusion. After passing through K-1401, the equipment was installed in the K-25 building. The facility later became the maintenance hub for the entire ETTP site and was used most recently by private sector tenants as part of the DOE’s reindustrialization efforts.

Hazardous materials, such as process piping and asbestos, were removed, and demolition of the structure was initiated in August 2006. Following demolition, workers broke up the concrete slab, and used most of the resulting pieces, supplemented by clean dirt brought in from off site, to backfill the building’s basement. The basement was approximately 25 % the size of the 10-acre building footprint and required 5,304 dump truck loads of backfill material totaling 84,864 yd3. The demolition and reclamation was completed in November.

Since beginning demolition in August 2006, the project worked more than 500,000 hours with no lost work day away accidents. During this time, the project experienced two first aid cases and one recordable accident.

CROET Sells K-1036 to Private Company

The Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee (CROET) has sold K-1036 to Sun River, LLC, an affiliate of Fulcra Enterprises Inc., which is headquartered in Cornelius, North Carolina. K-1036 is the fourth building at ETTP to be sold to private interests. The others are K-1225, K-1330, and K-1580. The ETTP Fire Station, K-1652, and the ETTP Water Treatment Plant Complex have been transferred to the City of Oak Ridge, while CROET retains ownership of K-1007 and K-1400.

Recent article in TN Business Magazine
Grounds for Improvement
K-25's uranium enrichment site makes the transition from half-life to new life.
By Alexei Smirnov

Highly skilled, security-clearance-wielding scientists like Bill Bostick or Doug Hoffman had nowhere to go in the mid-1990s. The U.S. Department of Energy had cut off their funding as it was shutting down hundreds of facilities across the country due to a sweep of budget cuts across the federal government. Not trained to wait tables, they were equally unprepared for early retirement, so the scientists banded together to form Materials and Chemistry Lab, a private entity of 12 people who can do everything from industrial forensics (figuring out which materials work in which conditions) to environmental consulting. They negotiated a lease of a building and equipment at DoE's old K-25 site—a 1,500-acre bastion of buildings that were used to enrich uranium for the Manhattan Project—and went to work as a private contractor. (Read)

Recent Articles from The Oak Ridger (more articles at bottom of page)

building 1330 Sale of three buildings marks milestone at ETTP

History was made last week at the East Tennessee Technology Park's Heritage Center, the site of the former K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, as three buildings were sold to a private company, JMM Realty LLC, an affiliate of Fulcra Enterprises Inc., out of Cornelius, N.C. (Read)

fire station 4 Firefighters move into Fire Station No. 4.

A new fire station, Station No. 4, located at the East Tennessee Technology Park, is now officially part of the Oak Ridge Fire Department. With the addition of the new station, west end residents and businesses will have faster firefighting and emergency medical services.

The ETTP fire protection and advanced life support emergency medical services, and more than two acres of real property, are part of the ORFD package. With the agreement between the city of Oak Ridge and the Department of Energy/Bechtel Jacobs, the city will add firefighters, ambulances, a rescue truck, a hazardous materials truck, utility vehicles, a storage tent, and other equipment to its firefighting force.

Firefighters on Monday moved reserve fire equipment to Station No. 4 to the site temporarily until the equipment and trucks housed there can be tested to be sure they meet the city's standards.
Scott Fraker/Oak Ridger Staff

Reindustrialization Team wins P2 Award

Pollution Prevention (P2) is a part of the way BJC does business and it is also part of ISMS and EMS and is required by DOE Order and Executive Order. BJC initiated an awards program this year to recognize P2/Waste Minimization achievement among all of the projects.

A number of entries were received in a wide variety of categories ranging from Affirmative Procurement (Green Purchasing) to Waste Prevention, which was awarded to the Reindustrialization Team for outstanding achievement in the transfer of six ETTP facilities and the approval to transfer two additional facilities. Facility transfers save valuable landfill space and offer significant cost savings to the ACP (such as the $1.1 million in avoided D&D costs for the transfer of K-1652). Building transfers achieve P2 goals by providing adaptive reuse of facilities, and support the success of Heritage Center as a brownfield site. Further, the Reindustrialization Team has supported overall sustainable use objectives at ETTP via the meadows restoration initiative and other cooperative efforts with the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee.

Native grasses and wildflowers will replace fescue and weeds at Heritage Center. This effort will save thousands of dollars in mowing expense and reduce gas-burning emissions. It will also create a more interesting campus setting.

The meadow restoration project is directed by Bob Greenwell of CROET and a team of environmental planners and architects. The project began in Fall 2006 with herbicide applications to remove the non-native grasses and weeds. By late Winter 2007, the team will turn the soil of the 100-acre area. After a spring planting, native grasses and wildflowers will begin to emerge and should look meadow-like by late summer. Maintenance will continue for several years. The meadows should be self sustaining within 3 to 5 years. The photograph above shows a business campus where meadow restoration was successful.

Plans announced for motorsports facility. Fast Visions of Tennessee has announced initial plans for the construction of Thousand Suns International Road Course at the historic Heritage Center (more at Thousand Suns Motor Sports web site).

DOE Completes Another Step in ETTP Site Reindustrialization. Two Additional Buildings Transferred for Use in Private Sector (more). PDF fact sheet.

Government Office Buildings Transferred for private sector use at East Tennessee Technology Park
(more). PDF fact sheet.

ETTP tenant M&EC Corporation recently completed the landmark K-1200 Center and South Bay Cleanup Project, restoring the facility to productive use and saving American taxpayers $2 million in the process. Click here to see how it was done.

News Archive

Donated DOE Trailer Aids Roane County Humane Society. No longer needed trailer that formerly housed ETTP workers will soon be home to a much-needed spay/neuter clinic in Roane County (more).

Reindustrialization Team awarded 2003 Phoenix Award. The ETTP Reindustrialization Team has been awarded EPA's prestigious 2003 Phoenix Award for excellence in brownfields development (more).

Articles from The Oak Ridger:

Click here for news archives