Despite plans for a hotel, Johnson Building still sits

County threatens legal action if construction not started

One of downtown Knoxville’s most anticipated renovations could be in jeopardy if work does not begin soon.

While Nashville-based BNA Associates shared plans to bring a hotel back to the historic Andrew Johnson Building on Gay Street, that hasn’t happened, and Knox County has made its next steps known with a letter to the developer requesting construction begin to avoid legal action.

Because BNA was patient with the county, which didn’t turn over the building until five years after the company’s $6 million bid was selected in 2017, the county has been patient with the developer. Chris Caldwell, the county’s chief financial officer, told Knox News “we feel some responsibility” for the delays.

Perhaps, you remember BNA’s plans for the Andrew Johnson Building

The Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge has signed a landmark labor agreement that will increase pay for hundreds of high-hazard construction workers in a bid to retain its skilled local workforce in a competitive labor market.

United Cleanup Oak Ridge joined the DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and the North America’s Building Trades Unions to sign the 10-year agreement on March 20. The new contract will provide higher pay, retention incentives and, for the first time, paid holidays for 550 laborers working on nuclear cleanup sites.

The labor agreement was driven by the Biden administration, which issued a 2022 executive order requiring such agreements on all federal construction projects valued at over $35 million.

It’s also a response to an increasingly competitive labor market for highly skilled construction workers in Tennessee as advanced computer chip and electric car manufacturers expand with the help of federal funds.

The agreement gives workers a 20% pay increase over a three-year period, including a 12% increase in the first year that is retroactive to Oct. 1, 2023. For the first time, it gives UCOR’s trades workers nine paid holidays. It also provides a contract ratification bonus and a retention incentive

CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL FILE The Andrew Johnson Building welcomed the Knox County School System in 1992, despite being designed as a hotel without office uses in mind. It took five years after the county accepted BNA Associate’s $6 million bid in 2017 to move forward with plans for a new hotel in 2022, but the Gay Street project is now in jeopardy as developers have not met the construction timeline outlined in the development agreement.