Sawmill Road project moving forward
Clearing and grading of a nearly quarter-mile extension of Sawmill Road from the industrial park in Norris is now underway, with completion of the new road expected by November. It will connect to Norris Freeway (U.S. 441) next to Covenant Life Church. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Whaley Construction, LLC, of Sevierville was the winning bidder on the project, with a total cost of just over $4.42 million.
All of the construction is being paid for by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
“We’re excited that it’s coming along quickly,” Whited said of the work, which so far has been focused on clearing trees and brush, and grading the route for the roadway.
“They’re not looking to delay it further, and we’re happy about it,” he said.
Length of the project is 0.236 miles, which extends the road from its current terminus at the Norris Industrial Park to a point just north of Covenant Life Church and across Norris Freeway from the Norris Memorial Gardens cemetery.
It will exit onto Norris Freeway near Cross Pike Road, which goes past the cemetery and feeds onto Andersonville Highway (Tenn. 61) near the entrance to the Museum of Appalachia.
This project, which has been under development since about 2015, was nearly abandoned by the city in 2022. The delays came primarily because of the right-of-way acquisition from Sawmill Road’s current terminus near Orchard Road.
In July 2022, the City Council gave the project new life by voting to spend an additional $213,000 of city funds to help pay for right-of-way acquisition.
On June 20, 2022, residents and council members agreed during a public meeting on the issue that the city should go ahead with the project, and the council made good on that decision during its July 2022 regular meeting.
Mayor Chris Mitchell said during that public meeting that the city would still be on the hook to pay the state at least $167,000 for engineering work already completed, even if the council chose to abandon the project.
Mitchell said at that time that continuing with the extension plan would cost the city only about $40,000 extra.
The city paid $35,000 of TDOT’s estimated cost of $125,000 for right-of-way acquisition in 2019, which should have been all Norris would have had to pay for the extension.
Originally, Anderson County paid a matching amount to cover the $70,000 the state wanted in local funds to buy the property; TDOT was then expected to pay all of the engineering and construction costs of the extension.
But when the state began right-of-way acquisition in 2022, TDOT determined that the price for all of the required property had ballooned since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020.
Residents on Pine Road have pushed for the extension because it would allow trucks from the city’s industrial park area to exit the city directly onto Norris Freeway.
Now, those trucks must drive through the residential neighborhood on streets designed for 1936 traffic flows and vehicle sizes, city officials have said.
Property values along the proposed route have increased recently because of overall inflation and because some of the property owners have made improvements to their property, which raised their values even more.
