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Exit strategy for White Pine
Posted By katie allison granju
One of the great hopes of White Pine’s leaders is that they can prevent further needs for tax increases that would be due solely to the high cost of fuel by spurring the development of restaurants, hotels and related businesses at Interstate 81 Exit 4. There are good reasons why the city wants to spur development there. Not only would that development dramatically increase our tax base and naturally increase city revenue, but it would bring the sit-down restaurants that nearly everyone in and around White Pine says that they want more of.
The one problem with this reliance on Exit 4 as a potential revenue windfall is that Exit 8, with its myriad of restaurants and hotels (including the Cracker Barrel, where most of White Pine, including myself and my wife, regularly dines and where Aldermen are known to take lunchbreaks when formulating the budget), is nearby. It is competition for the revenue White Pine is seeking because the vast majority of its business lie within Hamblen County and White Pine does not see much of their collective tax revenue at all. That it is no way the fault of city leaders in White Pine, as development at Exit 8 is a Hamblen County prerogative that began before Exit 4 became a serious development opportunity. The trouble is that local consumers are already headed for Exit 8 in droves and have become quite accustomed to it. Exit 8 has thus become the prime spot for restaurant and hotel development in the area thus far.
May 29th, 2008
