T he state of Tennessee has recently awarded Manchester City a $6 million non-matching grant to fund an engineering study related to the I-24 Industrial Site.

According to Mayor Joey Hobbs, the grant will cover research into what infrastructure improvements would be needed to get water and sewer to the site.

“There is no work involved. It is just engineering,” Hobbs said.

The current plan for the site by the state, which in recent years purchased the area near the convergence of Highways 55 and 53, has shifted from a proposed megasite to a more modest industrial park with about seven factories.

Hobbs said that recruitment for the site has also shifted from automotive to aerospace industries that the local infrastructure could accommodate with less strain.

“There’s been a lot of concessions made on what was going to go in out there. It will probably be four to five different sized factories. It will probably not be automotive because we cannot handle those flows.

With the focus on aerospace, Hobbs said the state “has committed a fair amount of money for us to start having a conversation on what that looks like. They also understand that as a city we cannot give all our capacity to them.”

The state would be willing to invest in the sewer system to help accommodate the growth that will come with the I-24 Industrial Site going online. The study will help the state better understand what that investment is going to be, according to Hobbs.

“They are not going to leave it to us and our residents to find all of that,” Hobbs said.

The project will take about a year to complete.