The City of Knoxville is going to move forward with the construction of a new public safety/city hall facility despite losing out on $2.7 Million in funding from Congresswoman Miller-Meeks.

The city was told they were going to receive $2.7 Million in funding for this project from the Miller-Meeks Community Project Fund for the new facility, but last week this funding was cut out of the bill it was originally part of by Congress. Despite the loss of funding, the city still plans to move forward as long as budgets for some other projects are still within the engineers estimates, according to City Manager Heather Ussery. 

“That is unfortunate. We were kind of holding out in the whole process of moving forward. That was $2.7 Million so that was a significant amount for that project so we were holding out to see if we were able to receive those funds before moving forward. Since that has been cut we are waiting on a couple of budgets to come in from our architects on other projects to ensure that we are still within that engineers estimate that was originally discussed with council. If that is the case we will still move forward.”

Ussery says the goal is to have the bids out by early summer and break ground in August. The new facility will be off of Highway 14 at the site of the former Knoxville Middle School.