Cookeville News

[jmtunafish]

A few updates from Cookeville.

The $62 million Ashraf Islam Engineering Building at Tennessee Tech is coming along nicely.

The greening of Tennessee Tech is continuing.  What used to be Peachtree Avenue is being transformed into a pedestrian mall.

The parking lot behind the University Center has been replaced with a pedestrian plaza, and Foster Hall (pictured here) is going to be torn down to create a lawn between the UC (right) and the library (left).

 

Several new restaurants have opened, but a couple of particularly notable ones opened to great fanfare.  One, Drake's, is pretty big with nearly 200 employees and 53 televisions.  The only other locations in Tennessee are in Bristol, Chattanooga, Franklin, and Knoxville.

The other is Fire & Vine, a pretty swank, locally owned place in downtown's Westside entertainment district.  It's owned by the same guy who owns the posh Putnam House restaurant on the courthouse square, a chef who has won national cooking awards.  Fire & Vine replaced a very nondescript industrial building and has downtown Cookeville's only rooftop bar.

Also in the Westside, an organic grocery store has opened across the street from the infamous Ralph's Donuts.  The store is run by the same people who run Meg's Bread next door.  Meg's makes the best croissants and baguettes I've had outside of France.  West Side Grocery uses as much locally sourced produce, meat, and dairy products as possible, even the ice cream, but most of its sodas are imported.  It's like an obnoxiously hip bodega.  But I still like it.  It also has an outdoor patio so we can enjoy Meg's delicious sandwiches, pizzas, and salads on site.

 

Other restaurants that are under construction are Crumbl, two new Checker's, a 3rd Waffle House, a 3rd Wendy's, and a 3rd Domino's.  A couple of vacant lots on Restaurant Row have been leased, so there will likely be more chain restaurant announcements.  A Cuban restaurant is under construction behind JCPenney (sorry I didn't get a picture, but they've painted it Pepto Bismol pink).  A Filipino food truck is opening this week, and a Thai food truck should be opening in another couple of weeks.  There are rumors of a food truck park coming to the Westside adjacent to the Depot museum sometime this fall.

What used to be a dry cleaners downtown is now a coffee shop, but a coffee shop with a mission:  all the employees have a disability of some sort.  It's become wildly popular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXs0-AS2Rgs

Several large housing developments are underway.  Two are by D R Horton, so far the only national homebuilder in Cookeville.  Timberwalk (stupid name) will have 300 homes, and Paddington Place will have 600.

There are several other housing developments by local builders, but my favorite is the one being carved out of the side of a big hill behind the Honda dealership.  There will be about 150 homes here and a bunch of big retaining walls.

Edited September 3, 2023 by jmtunafish

[MLBrumby]

You'll enjoy Drake's. Great little chain (I think) out of Kentucky with a very good menu, including sushi. Beautiful sports bar and al fresco section. We go to ours several times each month. 

[chc3]

21 hours ago, jmtunafish said:

A few updates from Cookeville.

The $62 million Ashraf Islam Engineering Building at Tennessee Tech is coming along nicely.

The greening of Tennessee Tech is continuing.  What used to be Peachtree Avenue is being transformed into a pedestrian mall.

The parking lot behind the University Center has been replaced with a pedestrian plaza, and Foster Hall (pictured here) is going to be torn down to create a lawn between the UC (right) and the library (left).

 

Several new restaurants have opened, but a couple of particularly notable ones opened to great fanfare.  One, Drake's, is pretty big with nearly 200 employees and 53 televisions.  The only other locations in Tennessee are in Bristol, Chattanooga, Franklin, and Knoxville.

The other is Fire & Vine, a pretty swank, locally owned place in downtown's Westside entertainment district.  It's owned by the same guy who owns the posh Putnam House restaurant on the courthouse square, a chef who has won national cooking awards.  Fire & Vine replaced a very nondescript industrial building and has downtown Cookeville's only rooftop bar.

Also in the Westside, an organic grocery store has opened across the street from the infamous Ralph's Donuts.  The store is run by the same people who run Meg's Bread next door.  Meg's makes the best croissants and baguettes I've had outside of France.  West Side Grocery uses as much locally sourced produce, meat, and dairy products as possible, even the ice cream, but most of its sodas are imported.  It's like an obnoxiously hip bodega.  But I still like it.  It also has an outdoor patio so we can enjoy Meg's delicious sandwiches, pizzas, and salads on site.

 

Other restaurants that are under construction are Crumbl, two new Checker's, a 3rd Waffle House, a 3rd Wendy's, and a 3rd Domino's.  A couple of vacant lots on Restaurant Row have been leased, so there will likely be more chain restaurant announcements.  A Cuban restaurant is under construction behind JCPenney (sorry I didn't get a picture, but they've painted it Pepto Bismol pink).  A Filipino food truck is opening this week, and a Thai food truck should be opening in another couple of weeks.  There are rumors of a food truck park coming to the Westside adjacent to the Depot museum sometime this fall.

What used to be a dry cleaners downtown is now a coffee shop, but a coffee shop with a mission:  all the employees have a disability of some sort.  It's become wildly popular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXs0-AS2Rgs

Several large housing developments are underway.  Two are by D R Horton, so far the only national homebuilder in Cookeville.  Timberwalk (stupid name) will have 300 homes, and Paddington Place will have 600.

There are several other housing developments by local builders, but my favorite is the one being carved out of the side of a big hill behind the Honda dealership.  There will be about 150 homes here and a bunch of big retaining walls.

Impressive! Houses from the mid-$300k!

[jmtunafish]

TDOT has informed the Cookeville city council that it (TDOT) intends to make some improvements around Cookeville but specifically between Cookeville and Baxter.  It said it'll cost around $230 million.  Included is widening Hwy 70N between Cookeville and Baxter with the Cookeville portion to be 5 lanes with (mercifully) sidewalks.  TDOT also said that Tennessee Ave, which the city of Cookeville built a few years ago in conjunction with the new I-40 interchange that TDOT built, needs to be extended to Hwy 290 (aka 12th Street/Gainesboro Grade).  In this map, the orange road is the current Tennessee Ave.  In blue is what TDOT said needs to be built.  In red is what the city of Cookeville wants to eventually see built.  

At the Tennessee Ave/I-40 interchange are the Ficosa plant (high tech car rear view mirrors), the Academy Sports distribution center, and a large FedEx facility which have a combined total of around 2,000 jobs.  Under construction at the interchange are the new county fairgrounds/expo center/hotel and a new $20 million Hyundai dealership which, they say, will be the largest in Tennessee (I guess that's something to brag about).

The next exit to the west just saw the grand opening of Portobello, a Brazilian tile manufacturer which built a $200 million factory and its North American HQ.  It's a half mile long and is (barely) located in the Baxter city limits.  Since Portobello started construction, little Baxter (pop. 1,578 in 2020 census) has had over 250 new homes built and currently has another 2,000 new homes either under construction or approved, 300 alone in a D.R.Horton neighborhood within spitting distance of the Portobello plant.  In this picture the Portobello plant (Baxter) is in the foreground and the Academy Sports distribution center (Cookeville) is in the background.

 

In Cookeville, a very swank new restaurant has opened downtown to great fanfare.  It would be considered a pretty swank restaurant even if it were in downtown Franklin or Nashville, so you can imagine how it's viewed in Cookeville.  It's really elevated the restaurant scene in downtown Cookeville which was already pretty impressive.

 

A food truck park called Trackside (it's adjacent to the RR tracks) has opened downtown with space for six food trucks as well as live entertainment and games.

Chain restaurants that are either under construction or about to get started include another Waffle House (3rd), another Wendy's (3rd), 7 Brews Coffee, and two Checker's.

[bnacincy]

Utterly unrecognizable from when I was there-1978-1983.

[jmtunafish]

On 10/18/2023 at 10:27 AM, bnacincy said:

Utterly unrecognizable from when I was there-1978-1983.

I moved here 10 years ago from Knoxville, and it's unreal how much has changed just in the last 10 years.  I know some of the old timers don't like all the change, but I think it's all been for the better.  Well, maybe not the increased traffic.  Because I'm a geek, I keep track of things like restaurant openings.  In the last 10 years there have been over 80 new restaurants in Cookeville/Algood/Baxter, not including food trucks.  Most are locally owned although we've had our share of chains.  The WestSide area of downtown alone has morphed into quite a cool little entertainment district with some fantastic restaurants, breweries, and cafés, and now a couple of organic grocery stores, too.

In other news, a couple of small job announcements came this week on the heels of the Portobello ceramics factory opening.  A pharmaceutical company is going to open a compounding facility in Cookeville.  Not many jobs at first (14) but some will be pretty high paying for around here.  And a company that moved here in 2015 from Massachusetts that makes shelving for bookstores and convenience stores is now going to start making high end wooden garage doors for the German company Hörmann which opened a large plant here in 2020.  That will add 56 jobs, the kind of jobs for specialized woodworkers.  Not as sexy as landing IT jobs, but definitely good for around here.

https://newstalk941.com/compounding-pharmacy-buying-location-in-highlands-business-park/

https://newstalk941.com/new-said-us-pillars-job-expansion-began-with-leadership-putnam/

Edited October 21, 2023 by jmtunafish

[jmtunafish]

2023 saw record numbers of new homes built in Putnam County and Cookeville.  From city-data.com:

The city of Cookeville and Putnam County both set records for new home construction in 2023, topping the previous records set just the year before in 2022. In Cookeville, there were 309 new housing units permitted in 2023 which included no apartments (which is unusual). The previous record was in 2022 with 234 which included 50 apartments.  And in rural Putnam County (outside the four cities) there was also record-breaking construction with 408, up one from the 407 in 2022.

The housing boom has continued into 2024, at least for the city of Cookeville. In January there were 81 new single family homes started in Cookeville which is a record for a single month since the city started keeping track in 2006. And January is usually one of the slower months for new homes, especially considering much of January was brutally cold with more snow than we usually get around here.

I wish the city of Baxter had its permits online as I wouldn't be surprised if it outpaced Cookeville in 2023.  There are housing developments going up all over Baxter.  The Baxter mayor was on the radio a few weeks ago and said there are 1,500 new homes either under construction or approved which, considering the 2020 population of Baxter was only 1,578, is phenomenal.

 

[Luvemtall]

Love to see all our communities doing well, thanks for the update! 

[jmtunafish]

Gallatin's Prince Street Pizza has expanded into Cookeville, opening Cookeville Pizza & Pub today.  They have 24 Tennessee-brewed beers on tap.  Those who went to Tech would probably recognize the location:  the former Sunshine Laundromat on Mahler Ave behind Jere Whitson Hall.  I've heard really good things about Prince Street Pizza so I have high hopes for this place, too.  Being within walking distance of the dorms and frat houses should make this a popular hang out spot.

Edited April 6 by jmtunafish

[jmtunafish]

I never thought I'd see something like this in Cookeville, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  A developer is proposing 850 new homes on 560 acres in an area just southwest of Cookeville/southeast of Baxter on Burgess Falls Road @ Ditty Road..  They plan on donating 16 acres to the county for a new elementary school.  This is the only image I could find that shows the proposed development (the county planning department doesn't update its webpage very often which is really annoying).  Since it's out in the rural part of the county, there's no sewer service and I can't imagine 850 new homes and a school all on septic tanks.  So I imagine it'll take a while to get all this done, but a friend of mine who lives on one of those side roads nearby said the farm that used to be on those 560 acres has already been demolished and metal utility poles have already started being installed to the area.  UGH.  But I guess this is better than 850 homes on 850 acres.

Edited April 10 by jmtunafish

[Luvemtall]

Yeah, that’s still a remote area. Burgess Falls might be able to barely handle the increased traffic, but last time I was out that way Ditty was still a narrow road. And I would guess most likely the route that would be most likely used , coming off the I-40 exit.

[jmtunafish]

OK I found the planning commission agenda at the county website.  This is what they call a "concept plan" and not a preliminary plat, meaning it'll likely be changed quite a bit before earth is moved.  But it's still interesting.  And I agree with Luvemtall, Ditty Road will need to be upgraded all the way to I-40 in Baxter which should probably be done anyway, whether this neighborhood is built or not.  At any rate, social media comments are already fast and furious about this potential development, almost all negative.