City officials welcome kick-off of Welcome Center construction
KINGSPORT – City officials are pleased the final phase of a federal and state project years in the making is kicking off today, with a groundbreaking for the northern most Welcome Center on the Interstate 26 system.
This Welcome Center, funded by the federal Appalachian Regional Commission and TDOT, is unique in several ways, City Manager John Campbell said Wednesday. First, it is the northern most Welcome Center in the I-26 system. Second, many people do not realize I-26 is part of the Appalachian Corridor B highway system running from North Carolina to Kingsport. From Kingsport, Corridor B continues through Eastern Kentucky to Columbus, Ohio, along US 23.”
ARC was formed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 to determine how best to combat poverty in Appalachia, with a third of all Appalachian residents living in poverty at the time.
According to ARC, the Appalachian Development Highway System was born with a 1964 report to Congress that concluded Appalachia would remain economically isolated without transportation corridors to cut through the rugged, mountainous terrain.
Connecting Appalachia to both a domestic and a worldwide chain of suppliers and markets is essential to the economic and employment success of its businesses, communities, and people, the ARC website states.
The completion of the Welcome Center project will actually mark the completion of Corridor B in Tennessee, which runs 57.4 miles from the North Carolina state line at Sams Gap to the Virginia state line in Kingsport.
It is widely acknowledged that Corridor B is one of the most economically successful ARC highway projects, Assistant City Manager for Development Jeff Fleming said. At the same time, Kingsport is really the gateway to the I-26 corridor if you are heading south from Michigan, the Great Lakes region or the Ohio Valley to the Carolina coast. The entire Corridor is at least four lane highway, with Interstate quality from Kingsport to the Carolina coast, and is easily accessible to nearly 4 million people from Columbus, Ohio, to Charleston.
Another distinctive feature of the Welcome Center is the fact that it can be accessed from both eastbound and westbound traffic. Many Welcome Centers feature access from only a single direction.
While materials in the Center will highlight the region, it also represents yet another opportunity to market the City and region to motorists passing through the region. The Center should be complete by June 2014.
In all, the total Welcome Center project is estimated to cost $16.5 million.
The new welcome center will sit on a 20-acre site and will be similar in appearance to the one built in Unicoi County a few years ago. It will have approximately 50 spaces for vehicles and 20 spots for tractor-trailers.
A ground breaking for the Welcome Center is slated for 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 23, 2013, and will feature TDOT Commissioner John Schroer, Tennessee Department of Tourism Commissioner Susan Whitaker, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, Rep. Jon Lundberg, Rep. Tony Shipley, Sullivan County Mayor Steve Godsey and Kingsport Mayor Dennis Phillips.