OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WVLT) - With the biggest investment in Tennessee history opening on Thursday morning in Oak Ridge, city leaders are talking about further expansion moving forward.
Thursday's ribbon cutting comes with a multi-billion-dollar investment with the addition of a uranium enrichment facility.
"Well, right now, the nuclear industry is probably the hot topic," said David Wilson with the Industrial Development Board.
The city has received more than 300 acres of vacant land that's been transferred from the federal government. At the industrial parks in the city, there have been over 1,800 acres of that federal land that is now in use.
Some of that federal land looked like an old vacant lot where a company used to be, or it could come in the form of an overgrown field.
As far as what city leaders intend to use it for? There's no final decision on that quite yet. While there are already plans for further development in the nuclear energy space, Wilson said they look at everything from apartment complexes to international businesses.
While Wilson and the IDB will mull over options on what to do with the vacant land they have under their control, they will continue to strongly consider options to expand the business of nuclear energy.
"If you go to almost any to their city in the United States, and you go in there and say we'd like to buy 100 acres and we want to manufacture nuclear fuel, well they'll go bat crap crazy because they don't understand it. Everybody in Oak Ridge understands nuclear," said Wilson.
Wilson said that there's 20,000 to 30,000 additional acres of land that will take some time to clear and prepare that they could potentially use in the years to come.