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Southern Middle Tennessee Today
News Copy for January 31, 2025
All news stories are aggregated from various sources and modified for time and content. Original sources are cited.
We start with local news…
Retail Leases Announced for Shadybrook (Press Release)
Highland Capital, a Nashville-based real estate investment firm, is pleased to announce the signing of several major retail leases at the former Shadybrook Mall property, located at the corner of James M. Campbell Blvd and Brookemeade Dr. Highland Capital acquired this prime real estate in December 2024 and has swiftly initiated a transformation to revitalize the local shopping landscape.
The newly redeveloped shopping center will soon welcome Academy Sports, Bealls, and Five Below, all set to open in 2025. Construction is currently underway for all tenant spaces, ensuring that each store will offer a fresh and modern shopping environment tailored to meet the needs of Columbia’s residents and visitors.
"We are thrilled to have Academy Sports, Bealls, and Five Below join our Columbia location," said Wyatt Woeltje, Principal of Highland Capital. "These new leases and the ongoing construction signify a pivotal development in our strategy to rejuvenate and enhance shopping experiences for the Columbia community. Our commitment is to deliver premier retail destinations that meet the needs and desires of our customers."
Additionally, Highland Capital is in advanced negotiations with several other national retailers and restaurants, aiming to further expand and diversify the offerings at the center. These prospective deals are expected to bring more exciting developments to the site in the near future.
This project is part of Highland Capital's broader strategy to invest in and rejuvenate retail environments, driving new economic activity and vitality to communities across the nation.
City Acquires Aquatics Center (Press Release)
The City of Columbia is excited to announce the successful acquisition of The Columbia Aquatics and Recreation Center, formerly Muletown Rec, located at 1446 Oaks Springs Drive, for $4.3 million. This significant purchase is a key step forward in the city’s ongoing commitment to expanding and improving recreational opportunities for residents.
“I am especially proud that this acquisition adds an aquatic facility back to our portfolio of public facilities. A community our size, of any size, needs access to aquatic facilities and resources,” said Mayor Chaz Molder. “The acquisition of this facility is a significant step forward for Columbia. This is a part of the City of Columbia’s broader strategy to support smart growth and improve the quality of life for our growing community. As our city continues to evolve, we're dedicated to providing facilities that meet the diverse needs of our residents, and this is a key part of that vision.”
The Columbia Aquatics & Recreation Center, will continue to offer all the services that residents have come to enjoy. City Manager Tony Massey said, “This is not just about preserving an important community asset; it’s about enhancing it. The future of this facility will better serve our residents and provide a space where everyone, from families to fitness enthusiasts, can gather, stay active and stay healthy.”
The Columbia Aquatics & Recreation Center features three pools and a splash pad, offering an inclusive environment for individuals of all ages and abilities. In addition to its popular aquatics programs, the facility will provide a wide range of recreational activities to meet the needs of Columbia residents.
Parks and Recreation Director Mack Reagan added, “We’re excited about the possibilities ahead. In addition to maintaining the current offerings, we’re already planning improvements to the surrounding outdoor spaces to create a more inviting and accessible recreational environment. Our goal is to ensure that this facility remains a community asset for years to come.”
The City is committed to ensuring The Columbia Aquatics & Recreation Center remains affordable and accessible. “We are committed to ensuring that everyone in our community can take advantage of these resources,” said Mayor Molder. “Affordable recreation is a core priority, and we want to make sure this space is accessible to all residents, regardless of
their background or income level.”
Columbia continues to grow with purpose, investing in its people and creating spaces that foster community and wellbeing.
For more information about The Columbia Aquatics and Recreation Center visit ColumbiaTN.gov.
Spring Hill Considers Water Source (MSM)
At its Jan. 21 meeting, the Spring Hill Board of Mayor and Aldermen made plans for the next month to vote on sponsoring a water pipeline feasibility study. If ultimately built, the pipeline would be used by multiple Maury local municipalities in drawing water from the Cumberland River.
The possibility of building such a pipeline was off the table until recently. In 2024, political support began to accrue to the idea of drawing water from sources other than the Duck River, especially after Gov. Bill Lee signed the initiative to protect the Duck River.
“For years, we had been under the impression that… if we took water from a different basin, and moved it into the Duck River basin, [that] would be heavily frowned on, and had almost no chance of approval,” said Assistant City Administrator Dan Allen. “That changed this past year, when Maury County Water was able to get an inter-basin transfer agreement approved with HB&TS [Utility District].”
Last summer, the Mallory Valley Utility District (MVUD) asked Columbia Power & Water Systems for help building a pipeline from the Cumberland River, in cooperation with the Harpeth Valley Utility District. Before Christmas, CPWS sought further help from the water districts of Spring Hill, Mount Pleasant and Maury County, promising them a percentage of the water that matched their initial buy-in. The Tennessee Valley Authority also indicated that they would allow the pipeline to go along TVA land, which would save the plan time and money that would otherwise be spent buying land.
“It is a very large project, certainly not one that Spring Hill could take on, on its own,” said Allen. “We are likely talking in excess of a billion dollars.”
The first cost Allen asked the city to approve was the down payment on a feasibility study for the pipeline, which would cost the city $130,000-$140,000 up front, probably out of the Water Development Fees fund.
Spring Hill could get its water one of two ways: either by hooking directly up to the planned line as it passed by the city on the west side, or by letting the line flow straight to Columbia and getting the water from CPWS (which would require a new deal with CPWS). Either way, the Harpeth Valley Utility District plans to build or update the facilities to treat the water at its source before sending it down the line.
“I think that [sending the water straight to Columbia] would need to be looked at, to make sure we’re not paying marked-up rates on a project we’re equally participating in,” said Alderman Trent Linville, who seemed more favorable to the west-side pipeline. Allen replied that between the feasibility study and other research conducted by Spring Hill city employees, they would learn which route would best serve Spring Hill.
“When we sit at the table, I can say with a high level of confidence where we’re at and where we’re headed,” he said.
Spring Hill’s share of the cost would amount to 34.3 percent of the total, the same as Columbia’s; Mount Pleasant and the county utility would split the remaining share. By 2075 the planned pipeline could draw up to 50 million gallons per day from the Cumberland, giving Spring Hill the option to daily claim more than 17 million gallons.
Mayor Jim Hagaman questioned Spring Hill’s assumption of a third of the cost and asked why the bill wasn’t split equally between Columbia, Mount Pleasant and the county. Allen replied that the one-time investment would earn Spring Hill the same share of the water in perpetuity, and the city would need not only the rights to that share, but maybe even all the water it would afford them.
“We’ll use every bit of water we can get if this project were to occur, plus the water we’ll get from the Duck, with our future growth,” agreed City Attorney Patrick Carter. Mayor Hagaman accepted the explanation.
Allen admitted that if the WIFIA project with CPWS had been completed on time in 2024, instead of being held up by species-conservation concerns, there would be no immediate need for this pipeline.
“The best advice I can give you at this point is, I think you should consider both options,” he told the board. “I think we should also participate in this as well so that we have a contingency plan.”
With Spring Hill’s projected growth, however, the city will eventually need every drop of water it can claim.
“You still need the reservoir, you still need the Advanced Purification Project, and you still need to make withdrawals up to your limit out of the Duck. This just supplements that and gets us to our full build-out, hopefully,” Allen said. “This gives you an extra source of water that you’re gonna need as you grow.”
Star Hill, LLC Petitions to Move Cemeteries (MSM)
For years, the tiny 19th-century cemeteries of the Hodge and Joyce families stood undisturbed on the property of the Monsanto Company as it did its business. When the company moved away in the 1980s, they built a fence around the site and padlocked it. Plants grew over the cemeteries and the gravestones aged and weathered, until all but six were broken or illegible. Eventually the whole 5,000-acre property was declared a Superfund site because of the chemical company’s operations.
Now, the out-of-state company that owns the land is making moves to build its TDEC-approved tire shredder on the toxic, uninhabitable property. They want to move the graves into an equally old church cemetery on an accessible corner of the property, but the Maury County Historical Society is objecting to their efforts, claiming that they haven’t searched the entire area for gravesites and that new construction could erase irreplaceable history.
Trinity Business Group, a firm based in Louisiana, owns part of Monsanto’s old land along the Duck River through a Tennessee company called Star Hill, LLC, and in the last three years they’ve tried to put it to a use that Columbia and Maury County would accept. In 2022 they made plans to dig a landfill on their two parcels of the property, which total about 1,200 acres.
In the days of its dominance in the county, Monsanto buried tons of toxic materials on the site, turning the property into the Superfund site that it continues to be, today. Anyone seeking to build on it for quasi-domestic use, or even to dig in its soil, must get the permission of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC). TDEC permission was all Star Hill, LLC needed, however – legally, they didn’t even have to inform the community nearby. The people of Maury County only learned about the landfill plan when one of them noticed trucks rumbling in and out of the deserted Monsanto property.
The owners figured that given the toxicity of the property, there wasn’t anything to ruin by digging out a landfill there. More and more urgently, Maury County needs to find a place to dump its trash, as the Middle Point landfill which receives most of the Midstate’s waste expects to run out of space by 2028. The destination of the county’s future garbage was raised as late as this fall during at least one County Commission subcommittee meeting. Back in 2022 Sid Brian, the CEO of Trinity Business Group, described the demand for landfill space as a growing “crisis,” but also as a huge economic opportunity for the county.
The landfill project failed not for lack of need, but because the community rallied against it from top to bottom. State legislators Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) and Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) protested the out-of-state company’s plan to turn Maury County land into a dump without consulting the residents. The Monsanto land is also bounded on the north and east by the Duck River, and some worried that toxins from the planned landfill (parts of it hardly 1,000 feet from the river) could leach into the Duck.
Citizens put on a “Duck River Jam” concert to protest the dump proposal. The County Commission wrangled with Trinity over technicalities, like whether the property is subject to the Jackson Law which requires local approval of the landfill, or whether the company’s planned “thermal demanufacturing” facility would be allowed even where an “incinerator” was legally prohibited. Eventually Hensley and Cepicky got the state legislature to designate the Maury County stretch of the Duck as a “Scenic River,” which banned activities like the landfill for two miles on either side, over Trinity’s protests that the designation made the already-toxic land “useless.”
Back in 2022, before the dust-up, TDEC had already approved the tire-shredding plant that was part of Trinity’s original plan for the site, and the company is now working again to make at least that plan a reality. On tiny plots (totaling about a quarter of an acre) of the intended site, however, stand the old family cemeteries of the Hodges and the Joyces.
In late October, Star Hill filed a petition in Maury County Chancery Court for permission to move the graves in those cemeteries. They argued that they were “practical[ly]… inaccessible,” having grown over “in[to] an abandoned or neglected state.” They also claimed that they had found no descendants of the known dead living in Maury County in popular online databases, including the National Archives, Find-a-Grave and FamilySearch.
“The current location of the cemeteries is unsuitable as a resting place for the remains of the deceased,” Star Hill claimed in the petition. “[C]onditions or activities above or near the burial ground would render the further use of the burial ground inconsistent with due and proper reverence or respect for the memory of the dead.” They attached photos of the few surviving headstones.
To give them a cleaner, quieter resting spot, Trinity petitioned to move them to the Concord Cemetery in the southwest corner of the Monsanto property, the designated burial ground of the old Concord Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the largest of the eight known historic cemeteries on the Superfund site. They promised to re-mark the graves and reinter the remains “with all due care and decency,” and they sweetened the offer with “appropriate and necessary rights of access [to Concord] for all who wish to visit the cemeteries.” When contacted, Star Hill’s lawyer referred Main Street Maury to the petition, declining to elaborate on anything said there. Representatives of Star Hill or Trinity Business Group have not responded to inquiries from Main Street Maury.
Star Hill also submitted the results of a ground survey by Forrest Environmental Services. Because of the dense overgrowth, Forrest could only survey the areas 60-100 feet around the known burial sites in each plot. The surveyors detected eight underground “anomalies” (likely buried bodies) in the two cemeteries, though they found at least 15 grave markers.
After the county Historical Society learned of the plan in December, however, they came out in opposition to moving the graves, filing several letters that challenged Star Hill’s petition. If “the cemeteries are abandoned and… neglected,” the Society stated, it was because Monsanto had locked the gate behind them in the 1980s, allowing the land to grow wild.
“State law says there has to be access to it,” said former Society president Eric Previti. “But… everybody turned a blind eye to [the needs of the cemeteries,] so everything grew over.” For 40 or 50 years, there hasn’t been a practical way for the descendants to maintain the graves if they had wanted to.
They also suggested that the burial grounds may be much bigger than they appear, especially since the dense overgrowth forced Forrest Environmental Services to conduct a “limited survey.” They reminded the court that in 2022, the Greenwood Cemetery north of the square was revealed by a “detailed survey” to contain many unknown gravesites – possibly twice as many graves as headstones. In their report, the Forrest technicians themselves “recommend[ed] clearing the areas adjacent to the Hodge and Joyce headstones to continue with a thorough GPR survey.”
Also, historic graves in the South, especially those of enslaved persons, were often marked with wooden crosses or unconventional stones, which have caused many of them to be forgotten after they wear away or get buried.
“Finally, locations of cemeteries matter.” Maury County contains over 600 known historic cemeteries, and some of them (especially on the Monsanto land) are the last existing traces of rural communities that disappeared long ago. Several existed in the county northwest of Columbia before Monsanto moved in, including the African American Harlan-Joyce community and the white community who gathered around the Concord Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
“Monsanto… saw fit to keep the cemeteries in their place,” though the chemical company had put profits ahead of history when they demolished the historic Peter Joyce homestead, they still had too much respect for the dead to move the graves in the Joyces’ yard. “To remove cemeteries unnecessarily, destroys historical context and continuity. Cemetery removal should be a last resort.
It is not known when the chancery court will issue a ruling. Per Tennessee Code Annotated, relatives of the deceased must be given legal notice but no permission from said relatives is required. A property owner possesses the right to remove and relocate the graves at his/her expense after complying with state statutes. The removal must be conducted with proper care and civility, and the landowner must provide a suitable place for reinterment of remains.
And now, Your Hometown Memorials, Sponsored by Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home…
Benjamin Irwin “Ben” Clark, 27, died Monday, January 27, 2025 at his residence in Columbia.
Visitation with his family will be Saturday, February 1, 2025 from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM at Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home. Memorials may be made to Maury County Animal Shelter 1233 Mapleash Avenue Columbia, TN 38401.
James Allison Brunson, 60, resident of Columbia, died Tuesday January 28, 2025 at Maury Regional Medical Center.
Funeral services are scheduled for Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 1:00 PM. Burial will follow at Polk Memorial Gardens. A visitation will be held Friday from 4:00 PM until 7:00 PM. Online condolences may be extended at www.oakesandnichols.com.
And now, news from around the state…
School Choice Bill Passes (CDH)
Republican lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to a $447 million statewide publicly funded school voucher program — a long-sought victory for Gov. Bill Lee and a host of school choice advocates who have spent millions pushing the plan.
The Senate passed the bill in a 20 to 13 vote after just over 90 minutes of debate.
House members passed the bill with bipartisan opposition in a vote of 54 to 44, with one member not voting, after more than four hours of debate on Thursday.
Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, voted for the measure in error, and requested to change his vote to a no.
Immediately prior to the vote, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, warned that troopers would remove spectators if there were any outbursts from the gallery after the vote. Inside the chamber was quiet following the vote, but a roar of chants from the rotunda was audible as demonstrators yelled "No vouchers! No vouchers! No vouchers!"
"This isn't about politics, this isn't about any of that," said Sen. Adam Lowe, R-Cleveland. "This is about whether or not the kid can be where they are safe, where they can grow, and where they feel they can learn ― and no one is better suited to ascertain that environment than a parent."
The new taxpayer-funded Education Freedom Scholarship program will offer 20,000 scholarships of about $7,300 to Tennessee students, including both those enrolled in public school and those already attending a private institution anywhere in the state. Initially, half the slots would include income requirements.
It also guarantees school districts will not see a decline in state TISA funding allocations, offers one-time bonuses of $2,000 for each public school teacher in the state, and sets aside funds for school construction and maintenance.
The bill now goes to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk, where – as one of his top legislative priorities – he is expected to sign it into law. It will take effect as soon as he signs it, allowing the Tennessee Department of Education to begin implementation immediately – with an aim to get it running by the 2025-26 school year.
Final Story of the Day (Maury County Source)
The Columbia Arts Building, 307 W. 11th St., will play host to the first of two massive flea market events.
Muletown Flea will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the CAB's first level.
The market will feature multiple vendors featuring a range of items from handmade to vintage and artisan goods. It could also be a great opportunity to pick out a unique gift for Valentine's Day.
Kids can participate in the Crafty Kids Corner, with complimentary drip coffee provided by Vida Nova Coffee Lounge.
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