'A good move': Knox County School Board approves moving offices to TVA East Tower

The Knox County Board of Education has given the OK to move the Knox County Schools central offices into the Tennessee Valley Authority's East Tower.

The vote comes after much debate, and after the Knox County Commission  unanimously approved moving the KCS offices to the tower at the end of January. The school board approved a memorandum of agreement on Wednesday night, saying they are willing to move central offices just over half a mile into the TVA Tower.

The debate continued on Wednesday night, and the memo passed by a vote of 5-3. Board members Patti Bounds, Jennifer Owen and Tony Norman voted against approving the memo. 

The memo will now go back to the County Commission for approval, said KCS spokeswoman Carly Harrington. It also depends on an opinion from the attorney general that says it is legal to move into the building.

Susan Horn, school board chair, told Knox News she thinks this is a good move for the central offices. Since the idea was originally introduced, Horn said she feels like any issues that have been brought up have been resolved. 

Superintendent Bob Thomas' willingness to move also signaled to Horn that this was a good move for central office staff, she said. 

"All in all, I think it really is a good move and I feel like the superintendent is agreeable and that makes me more comfortable," Horn said. 

More:Knox County unanimously approves TVA Tower swap, gives legislative victory to Mayor Jacobs

Some board members uneasy over the unknown

Other board members protested approving the move while some things, including the attorney general's opinion on the legality of the move, are unknown. 

Jennifer Owen brought up several issues she had with the memo, including security at the tower being handled by TVA and not the schools. She questioned what would happen if a visitor who did not have a driver's license showed up to the building, and said the full legalities and "impacts of that have not been explained to us."

"This impacts the entire community and it will impact the entire community for decades," Owen said. "It’s something that we need to take very seriously."

Moving means saving money

Horn pointed to the savings that will come from moving, and said she thinks putting that money toward mental health services is a huge step. Superintendent Thomas announced his support of the proposal in November along with a promised $1 million in savings the county would give the school system to use as it chose.

Moving offices into the TVA Tower is expected to save the county $4 million over 20 years. The county will pay 37.5 cents a square foot, a mind-bending number compared to the typical $12-18 a square foot for downtown office space.

In all, the county will spend roughly $13.4 million for the deal, which will be offset if the commission approves the sale of the Andrew Johnson Building. 

Sale of the Andrew Johnson Building

Related to this memo is the sale of the Andrew Johnson Building that has housed the Knox County Schools central offices since 1992. While it is a separate vote from the Knox County Commission, the two have been linked together. If the school board hadn't approved the move, the county could have still moved forward with the sale of the building. 

The county has an offer to sell the building for $6 million to Nashville-based BNA Associates LLC to create a boutique hotel and apartments. The sale has been on the table since October 2017.

More:Is $6 million enough to ask a buyer for the downtown Andrew Johnson Building?

The building was built in 1929 and has been renovated, but would likely need to be gutted in order to transform into a boutique hotel.

In July 2015 the building was appraised for roughly $8 million. That figure, however, was for the “highest and best use,” which the county says is office space or a mixed-use building with office space and residential condominiums, not a boutique hotel.

Still, BNA’s $6 million offer was higher than six other companies when it was selected in 2017.

More:What we learned on our tour of TVA Tower that could house Knox County Schools and UT offices

UT offices will also make the move

The University of Tennessee approved moving their system offices to the TVA Tower in November and will pay $1 per square foot to rent their portion of the building. The system offices, which are currently located mainly in Andy Holt Tower on UT-Knoxville's campus, will take up the top six floors of the TVA Tower. 

Andy Holt Tower, where UT System Interim President Randy Boyd's offices are housed, is in need of renovations. Estimates said it could cost between $46 million and $51 million and take up to 8 years, Boyd told UT's Board of Trustees in November.

With the move, 257 UT employees who currently work at 4 different locations around Knoxville would be united under one roof. The deal also includes parking for employees in the Summer Place Garage.

UT-Knoxville's offices, meanwhile, will remain on campus. The TVA East Tower is only about one mile from the Knoxville campus. 

Knox News Reporter Tyler Whetstone contributed to this story.