Weakley County Finance, Ways and Means Committee Commits to Funding Economic Development Project

The Weakley County Finance, Ways and Means Committee discussed the Weakley County Economic Development Grant Application presented by Justin Crice who spoke on the plans for the grant application.

The grant, a 33-million-dollar connective community facility program that has some federal funding in it and Crice originally wondered what they could do with this kind of money.

Crice said he looked at adding to Dresden downtown in the sense of it being located right next to the courthouse.

“Broadband throughout the county is an important piece of county development and the Weakley County Chamber has enough to be considered a broadband connection,” Crice stated.

 Similar to the REED Center in Martin, Crice wanted to bring something like that to Dresden as well. This would bring a co-working space, space for multi-use, and a dedicated space for telehealth, which is a big part of that grant.

Crice proposed ground-up construction on the existing Chamber building, but to also build a new chamber building right next to it at 2,000 square feet with a financial empowerment center operated by United Way open 2-3 days a week working toward meeting with people that may need education on financial literacy and organization. This would also include a multi-purpose room upstairs at 500 square feet of space.

The grant is reimbursable with committed funding of $31,000 from United Way for programming which was funded through the County Commission last year. The cost to use the facility would be $10 per month for space and internet access.

Crice stated that the full costs would be 1.9 million with a 10% match and $190,000 of that a reimbursable portion. The timeline for the project would be 12 weeks to make a decision and Crice stated that he thought with their revisions, upon commitment from the County Commission, that they had a really good shot of receiving the grant with a contract signed in January of 2025 with construction in October of 2026.

“We hope that you’ll see this request as an ability to add to our quality of life,” Crice stated.

The amount that Crice requested the county to commit to totaled $159,708.

Crice stated that this was a Joint Economic Development Board project.

Finance Director John Liggett stated that due to the grant not yet being awarded, that the committee should probably not do a full resolution right now, and just commit funding without revising the budget.

Trustee Marci Floyd informed the committee that Opioid Abatement funding and ARP money could be used for this.

A motion was made to approve commitment of funding with the source of funding to be determined via resolution in the event that the grant was awarded.