Jackson City Council approves property transfer for downtown development

JACKSON, Tenn. — City leaders met Tuesday morning in downtown Jackson to discuss tourism and redevelopment in one local community.

The City Council meeting kicked off talking about Dyslexia Awareness Month and National Night Out, which is happening throughout the area Tuesday night, then began to discuss the city’s economic impact numbers.

“We saw state tax grow a tremendous amount at over 8 percent as far as the tourism expenditures, and locally we saw tax grown over 4 percent, so when you look at that impact, that’s helping our essential services — our firefighters, our school system — and that money is staying here locally,” Jackson Chamber’s Director of Tourism Lori Nunnery said.

The city was also presented with the request to transfer the property of the old Zion Baptist Church and West Elementary School to the Jackson Community Redevelopment Agency to expand on the Jackson Walk.

“It’s a plan to build single-family homes and apartments in the area to continue the great successes we have had in phase one,” Planning Director Stan Palint said.

Phase II will feature homes and apartments like the current ones, encouraging those in the Hub City to expand their downtown.

“We start with a smaller experiment and it’s been very successful, so now we are wanting to broaden that and then provide other opportunities for people to live in the downtown area,” Palint said.

The council unanimously voted to transfer the property.

Officials said they hope to start construction on Phase II of the Jackson Walk in the spring.