FedEx is putting an $8 million ground distribution center at the new business park. 

By RICK WAGNER
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   KINGSPORT — The road sign says “Dead End,” but the Tri-Cities Crossing road to Gateway Commerce Park instead may be a path to prosperity for the Model City.
   Twenty years ago, in 1987, Kingsport economic development officials bought the 166-acre Garland farm near the intersection of Interstates 81 and 181, the latter of which is now Interstate 26.
   On Halloween afternoon in 2007, they gathered on the gently rolling land to celebrate the ribbon cutting for a business park there and a groundbreaking for its first tenant, the new FedEx Ground distribution center for the greater Tri-Cities.
   “It says ‘Dead End’ down there. You kind of wonder,” quipped Steve Carter, senior manager of the Kingsport FedEx operations.
   NETWORKS – Sullivan Partnership — a joint effort of Kingsport, Sullivan County, Bristol, Tenn., and Bluff City — owns the park.
   FedEx is putting an $8 million center on more than 13 of the park’s 60 developable acres. It will have 90,000 square feet, with plans for a 20,000-square-foot expansion within 10 years. FedEx initially plans to hire an additional 80 employees.
   The FedEx center will serve the Kingsport, Bristol, Tenn.-Va. and Johnson City areas, as well as down to Greeneville and Bulls Gap, Hawkins County and up to Grundy and Pound, Va.
   A larger sister center is being built in Chattanooga.
   The new Kingsport center, slated to open in June 2008, will consolidate existing operations in Kingsport and Gray.
   GoinsRashCain Inc. of Kingsport is the general contractor for the project.
   Betty Martin, director of economic development for NETWORKS, has seen the project to fruition over two decades.
   In 1987, she worked for the Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce and later with the Kingsport Industrial Development Board, which became the Kingsport Economic Development Board.
   “It took about 15 years to get the interchange,” Martin said of the Exit 56 Tri-Cities Crossing exit off Interstate 81.
   NETWORKS CEO Richard Venable and Kingsport Alderman Larry Munsey said officials like Alan Hubbard, a Board of Mayor and Aldermen member in 1987 and later a state representative, and Bill Ring, who served on the KIDB in 1987, should receive credit for having the foresight to buy the land two decades before it was put to its potential. The KIDB bought the Garland farm for $830,000 for future development, and in 2004 the KEDB contracted with Brooks-Petzoldt for development of the park.
   Alderman Pat Shull also attended the groundbreaking, as did state Rep. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, City Manager John Campbell, and city and county elected and non-elected officials.
   “We appreciate the vision of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen and KEDB at that time,” said Larry Estepp, KEDB chairman and immediate past chairman of NETWORKS.
   “I think it’s going to be an exciting next couple of years,” Sullivan County Mayor Steve Godsey said of the park, calling FedEx the catalyst that will lead to further development there.
   Scannell Properties, which will build and rent the facility to FedEx, purchased the site from NETWORKS earlier this month for $976,800.
   NETWORKS earlier this year purchased the entire park for $2.7 million from the KEDB and developers Jerry Petzoldt and Andy Brooks, but NETWORKS did not assume the potential liability of repaying a $1.6 million forgivable loan to the state of Tennessee.
   The state in 2001 agreed to spend that much for the access road to the park, as long as the park generated at least $5.5 million in new capital investment and 100 new jobs or a $3.3 million annual payroll by November, which will mark five years after completion of the state-funded road.
   Venable and Estepp said state economic development officials have given preliminary verbal indications that the FedEx center will satisfy that requirement and the debt will be forgiven — or at least that the city will be given more time to attract other tenants.
   For more information, visit w w w. n e t w o r k s t n . c o m .