Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Here’s the story:
Cookeville was dubbed “Asheville West” by New Jersey’s Wadley-Donovan Group during last year’s commissioned community assessment. In that assessment, Wadley-Donovan targeted the region’s nascent aesthetic and culture endeavors as primary attractive features worth promoting. Top of the list was the Bryan Symphony Orchestra, which sets the community apart by being one of the few small towns in the country boasting such an ensemble.
Such micropolitan sophistication will help draw what Halford calls the “creative class”—artists and artisans who would prefer a pastoral and collegial setting over rural boondocks. But these aren’t retirees looking for a cheap place to launch a mail-order porcelain doll company. When the chamber’s public relations arm touts Cookeville’s arts-and-crafts community as world class, it’s talking about a community of downtown art galleries that feature people like Brad Sells, whose carved bowls are featured in Smithsonian exhibits and sold in Neiman Marcus.
So is Putnam County really within a decade of becoming the next big spot for white-collar relocation?
“You’re on to something pretty good,” says economic development consultant Mark Sweeney, senior principal of Greenville, S.C.-based McCallum Sweeney Consulting (MSC).
“Clearly we thought on the manufacturing side, Putnam was strong,” says Sweeney, who advised Oreck Vacuum to relocate manufacturing operations to Cookeville from the Mississippi coast in 2007.
But the man that helped relocate Nissan’s corporate headquarters to the Nashville area likes the Upper-Cumberland region for mid- and upper-management relocations, as well.
“For the most part, when you look back ten years from now, you will see a staged expansion of white-collar jobs,” Sweeney predicts. But Sweeney admits Cookeville still has work to do. “The downtown has a ways to go,” he says. But Putnam County’s biggest problem is not downtown development—or even its distance from Nashville.
“The challenge for Cookeville and Putnam is that there are a lot of closer choices to Nashville.”
