Sohn: Fall Creek Falls needs to shine again

Staff photo by Doug Strickland / The park inn is seen at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Spencer, Tenn., last November. A plan to demolish the park's existing inn and replace it with a new facility would take more than 2 years.
Staff photo by Doug Strickland / The park inn is seen at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Spencer, Tenn., last November. A plan to demolish the park's existing inn and replace it with a new facility would take more than 2 years.

Perhaps sooner or later, Tennessee officials will get their act together about bringing Fall Creek Falls State Park into the 21st century.

For years, the Haslam administration has frittered away time with an erstwhile plan to privatize operations at all state parks with resort-style amenities. The effort failed, thanks to a combination of opposing lawmakers and the fact that for-profit companies balked when they took a look at our dilapidated park facilities.

The administration then put its outsourcing focus entirely on Fall Creek Falls, the "crown jewel" of the state's park system and one of the most visited of Tennessee's non-urban state parks. But that effort failed also, despite the state's sweetened contract proposal in which a vendor would not only operate the hospitality service but also be given $20 million to tear down the existing 1970s-era, prison-looking inn and build anew. Not one formal bid was received.

Now Haslam plans to use previously appropriated state dollars and begin the inn replacement as a state project. The inn will close in April for demolition, and the construction of a new facility will take about two years.

But that means 31 full-time and another 27 part-time workers are "potentially" part of a "reduction in force."

The state says affected full-time hospitality staff will be eligible for a severance package consisting of a one-time lump sum payment of $3,200, as well as tuition assistance for two years at public higher education institutions.

Inn and restaurant staff also will be placed on the state's reduction-in-force list for one year, making them eligible for consideration for employment elsewhere in the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation or in other areas of state government. But there's no guarantee laid-off workers will get those jobs - a major and understandable concern.

This has Van Buren county officials worried not just about the fate of workers in this tiny, economically distressed Upper Cumberland Plateau area, but also about two years' worth of loss in county tax revenue.

Van Buren officials want the state to build the new inn on another site in the park and keep the old inn open until it is complete. The state says that will cost more. Now Van Buren officials are exploring the possibility of seeking a court injunction to block the inn's closure.

There isn't a completely wrong or completely right answer here.

Several state administrations have contributed to the deferred maintenance and poor funding that left this beautiful park in disrepair. And the people of Van Buren County are right to be worried about their livelihoods in the short term.

What is certain is that Fall Creek Falls State Park does need a new inn and visitor center. With the right kind of lodge, Fall Creek Falls can become more profitable in years to come for both county residents and the state.

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