Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

An $883 million development project on Norris Lake off Lone Mountain Road took another step forward last week as the Claiborne County Planning Commission approved preliminary platts and granted a variance for Tennessee Vues.

Plans for the project include a gated mountaintop community with estate-style homes along the ridges overlooking the lake, a 1200 slip marina with a shipstore and restaurant, multiple cottages in the marina district with a hotel and spa, event venues and shops as well as a campground.

County Mayor Joe Brooks said the development is being done by New Jersey-based Hexa, LLC. They have purchased 884 acres that includes three miles of coastline accessible at Owen Payne Lane off Lone Mountain Road.

“I think this is probably the biggest investment in Claiborne County’s history to date,” Brooks said. “They want to make that a destination, so to speak.”

Work at the site is being done by a Knoxville engineering firm Robert G. Campbell & Associates.

Campbell and his team shared maps of their plans with the Planning Commission. They include a four-lane boulevard from Lone Mountain Road to the marina district with the gated side roads leading to the home sites.

The variance granted will allow the side roads to have a 40-foot easement instead of the 50-foot easement that is usually required. It was granted due to the topography of the land and the fact there is also an additional 10-foot utility easement on both sides of the road.

Site preparation is already underway but the variance and preliminary approval means work can begin on building the roads and installing water and sewer lines. There are plans for approximately 500 homes in the community.

Brooks said that he had met with the state in regard to some of the impact the new development will have on the county.

“We are estimating that if all of those home sites are built, that would bring in an additional $5 million-plus just in property tax revenue alone. That’s something the county won’t have to raise the property tax level to get, it’s just going to be here,” he said. “Now that’s going to be a multiple-year build out to get to that, but if it were here today we would see an additional 5-plus million dollars of revenue, which we desperately need. And it’s not costing the taxpayers of Claiborne County anything to do that development. We have zero pennies in it.”

While the homesites will be gated and private so only the owners can enter, the rest of the property and marina will be public access.

For the marina, the group is working with Dock It, a national group that specializes in marinas. Brooks said they have preliminary approval for up to 1218 slips in the marina and compared the planned marina to Deerfield on the Powell River side of the lake.

“This is going to be Deerfield-esque, but I think a lot grander. They have preliminary approval for a 1218-slip marina,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s going to finish at that number or be less. They’ve had meetings with the TVA about what they can do and the marina plan has changed three or four times based on what TVA will allow. I think having that Dock It group involved is going to really help out with that.”

The developers are also funding upgrades to the water and sewer system in the area to increase their capacity.

“We’re working in lock step with the Claiborne Utility District for that to come online and not impact any of the current residents. Some of the things they are doing to make it all work for the development is actually going to help the county in general,” Brooks said. “To be able to get water and sewer to the property, they are proposing upgrading the pumps of the Claiborne Utility District for free. That’s going to allow more development to happen in that area for future growth of the county. Upgrading those pumps, putting in new pump stations, new water tanks for holding capacity for fresh water is just going to help that whole area of the county.”

He added there were colloquial benefits of having upscale property owners coming to the area.

“The people that will be moving to live here will be coming from different places that have a lot of amenities — attractions, restaurants and shops,” Brooks said. “We hope some of them will spur some economic growth by identifying some of those things that we don’t have and then taking upon themselves to bring them into the community that they’re moving into.”

Construction on the homesites is expected to begin in around late summer or early fall of 2025 once the utilities are in place. The marina will be built up in steps as well with construction going on in 2025 and 2026. The hotel at the site will be built a few years down the road once more people are coming in.

“Once they get that four-lane boulevard built going into the property, you’re going to start seeing a lot of traction down on Bear Paw,” Brooks said. “I think within the next couple of years they will have those individual cottages from 500 to 2500 square feet. That’s going to be the destination to start drawing people into the property so they can look at the community and check out some of the lots.”