John Coffelt, Editor

Little Leaf Farms have a site plan approved for a two-phase industry on Asbury Road that when complete will include roughly a 1.8 million square-foot facility with an initial 820,000 square foot greenhouse.

The initial building space will equal 5 ½ Dot Foods or 14 football fields.

Coffee County Industrial Board clarified flowing the meeting that Little Leaf is currently has not made a commitment to come to Tennessee.

“This is still an active project, and I expect it will be at least a month before we have a final decision.  Once a decision is made the company and the state will make announcements but until that day, we have no guarantee the company will locate,” said Industrial Board Executive Director Anne Hosea-Majors.  

During the meeting, engineer Scot St. John said there are a lot of moving parts.

“The city and the county have a grant to install a sewer pump station on the northwest corner on Asbury Road. There are discussions going on related to the water service to the facility,” he said. 

 The site will collect rainwater from the roof for irrigation to be collected in onsite basins. To supplement that, well water and then city water will be used. Sewer returning to the city collection system is projected to be minimal and Little Leaf will coordinate with the city to meet pretreatment requirements including storage.   

St. John said the site will have an employee entrance on Asbury Road, while truck traffic will gain access through the Manchester Industrial Parkway Road.

The amount of employee traffic was not available at the meeting and will be determined in the traffic study, according to Mayor Joey Hobbs.   

Little Leaf Farms is in the process of having a traffic study performed and have agreed to facilitate any improvement the traffic study requires.

St. John said the orientation of the building is laid out to maximize sunlight for growing.

“They have found a site location that got their layout and additional flexibility to expand,” St. John said.

The Planning Commission unanimously approved the site plan during the April 21 meeting. No timetable of when the project will open has been announced.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.