TORNADO REFUGE
Arlington to build safe room
The town of Arlington will build a $1.4 million community safe room to provide protection for up to 1,300 people.
The town of Arlington pulled a building permit this week for a new, $1.4 million building that lacks charm, windows, even furniture.
But for all it lacks, the Arlington Community Safe Room will provide protection for up to 1,300 people when tornadoes threaten the town.
The concrete building will soon start rising at 11842 Otto Lane in Douglas Street Park, adjacent to Arlington Elementary School and within a halfmile of many homes and businesses. Construction should be finished in nine months, Town Planner Heather Sparkes said Tuesday.
It’s one of a number of safe rooms being built across the Mid- South thanks to federal and state grants requiring relatively small local matches.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides 75 percent of the money, the state 12.5 percent and Arlington 12.5 percent, Sparkes said.
The building permit estimates construction will cost $1 million, but with architecture, engineering and other soft costs the total price is $1.4 million.
“It’s going to be very plain,” Sparkes said of the building’s appearance.
“The space has to remain completely open in the event of a tornado so we can get the residents inside the building.”
The building, designed by the engineering/design firm Fisher & Arnold, can be used for other purposes, such as training. “We are paying to put in a refrigerator and some cabinets. So if the town desires we can use the room for training and other uses such as that,” Sparkes said.
But once a training session is complete, “everything has to be cleared and put away when the room is vacant,” Sparkes said.
The idea stemmed from meetings the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency hosted a few years ago in the region. Local officials were told that the hazard mitigation grants would be available.
Fisher & Arnold has done or is in the process of designing eight safe rooms, principal and architect Howard Glatstein said in an e-mail Tuesday.
“Two in Dyersburg, one in Halls and one in Arlington are all under or beginning construction,” he said. “We are in the construction document phase
for projects in Atoka, Newbern (2) and Martin. The building in Martin will serve as a Senior Center as well as a safe room. The building in Atoka will serve as a police station as well as a safe room.”
A number of other MidSouth communities have signed up. DeSoto County Schools is building safe rooms at six of its schools. Those cost about $850,000 each.
The Lakeland-based engineering/architecture firm A2H designed the DeSoto and other safe rooms for a dozen Mid- South communities or school systems, including: Paris, Haywood County, Ripley, Rankin County (Miss.), Bethel University, Milan, Alamo, Southaven, Crockett County, Bolivar and Tipton County Schools.
“We’ve done more of them in the state than anybody else,” A2H marketing director Patrick Mullins said.
In Arlington, a town of 12,090, the safe room can’t hold everybody. But there has been substantial interest among residents building their own tornado shelters. Sparkes said they often call Town Hall asking if a building permit is required. It is not. age offered to Eastman compared favorably when held against some of the notable deals offered under the Bredesen administration. In 2008, the state offered $256 million toward a $1 billion project that lured Volkswagen to Tennessee, which comes out to taxpayers footing 25.7 percent of the bill. Also in 2008, the state promised $107 million for the $1.2 billion Hemlock Semiconductor project in Clarksville, which came out to 8.9 percent of the entire project.
According to job data provided by ECD, the Haslam administration spent $172 million on 380 economic development deals during the first two years of the administration. It is anticipated those deals will bring 55,455 new jobs.
The $3,104 average per job before the Eastman project compares with $5,586 per job during the Bredesen administration, according to ECD.