Hear the radio version of this story.
Ten years after it started construction on a giant industrial site halfway between Memphis and Jackson, the state of Tennessee still hasn't found anyone to move into it.
Now, Gov. BillHaslam'sadministration is saying that one of the barriers to development of theMemphis Regional Megasitemay be the size of the site itself.
The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development is working on a plan to split up the massive industrial park it has assembled alongside Interstate 40 in West Tennessee. At 4,100 acres — nearly six-and-a-half square miles — the industrial park is bigger than the state'stwo other megasitesput together.
"Nissan, Volkswagen, Hankook and Boeing could all fit on half that space," says Randy Boyd, the state's commissioner of economic and community development. "There was a time when people thought we could put one factory in 4,100 acres. But as it turns out today, there's nobody that needs 4,100 acres."
Working with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the state put together three megasites a decade ago. They hoped to attract major manufacturers to Tennessee with the promise of top-quality power lines, industrial-capacity sewage, new roads and plenty of room to build and expand.
The megasites outside Clarksville and Chattanooga were snatched up quickly by the solar industry's Hemlock Semiconductor and automaker Volkswagen. But the West Tennessee megasite has foundered: So far, no company has built on the site.
(Hemlock Semiconductor has also struggled. The company announced last year that it had decided to mothball its $1.2 billion polysilicon plant permanently.)
There have been questions about the West Tennessee megasite from the beginning, ranging from where workers would come from to the fact thatsome of the land was owned by relatives of then Lt. Gov. John Wilder.
Subdividing the megasite could answer more than one objection. Not only would it give the state more flexibility in attracting buyers, officials say; it also means the state won't have to spend as much building water treatment facilities and sewage.
Some environmentalists and local residents have opposed the state's sewage plan for the megasite — to dump wastewater into the nearby Hatchie River, a slow-moving stream that the state has designated "scenic." That will no longer be necessary, says Boyd.
Officials haven't determined yet what they'll do instead. Options include putting wastewater in a less pristine river, like the South Fork of the Forked Deer River, or recycling it on-site.
Protecting the Hatchie is a positive development, says Renee Hoyos of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, but she's not sold on subdividing the megasite.
She says multiple users might mean more parking lots, which could mean more runoff into the Hatchie.
"We've won the battle but the war rages on. This is agricultural land and, honestly, we should not be putting agricultural under industrial production."
Hoyos says she'd rather the state turn its attention to redeveloping brownfields inside Memphis itself, rather than marketing the megasite 45 minutes away.
Copyright 2015 WPLN News