The reports of the death of terminal tower – a historic two-story brick building behind the Choo Choo Hotel – may have been exaggerated.
It’s true that on Tuesday a construction crew knocked down the building that was built in 1908 and used as the control tower from which trains were switched between tracks.
But the bricks, wood and other salvageable items were hauled off Wednesday so they could be cleaned up and used to recreate the terminal tower at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.
That’s according to those involved in the effort to clear the land at the Choo Choo hotel complex to make way for Bluebird Row Apartments, a $45 million luxury apartment complex to be built by Birmingham, Ala.-based LIV Development LLC.
“They said they were going to reassemble it. That’s what they told me, that they were going to rebuild it,” said Blake Stapleton, project manager estimator for Knoxville-based E. Luke Green Co. Inc., who added, “I’ve never seen a building like that taken down and reassembled.”