Knoxville and Marion County officials have announced plans for the old Veterans Administration campus.  Documents were signed Wednesday (1/15) that give the city and county control of the 153 acre property.  Marion County Board Chairman Mark Raymie tells us what the County paid for the land.

“We’re allocating about $5.1 million to the workforce development project… housing development project there.  One of the reasons the County is getting involved,  A: we have the largest financing capacity in Marion County of all of our municipalities.  And it’s very difficult to get large developers to come to our areas to put in the infrastructure necessary to support these types of developments.”

By “workforce housing”, Raymie says those would be homes in the $200,000 to $250,000 range.  Raymie says the first order of business will be demolishing the current buildings on the VA Campus site.  It’s hoped construction of homes could begin by the end of the year.  The Knoxville VA Campus was a psychiatric hospital that closed in 2009; around 1200 jobs were lost when the campus closed.