A community organization focused on reindustrialization around the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee will close up shop within two years, the group said last week.
The Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee (CROET) is starting the “orderly, planned closing of the CROET Corporation and its affiliate organization, Heritage Center, LLC,” CROET announced in an Aug. 9 press release.
“This is exactly the right time to undertake an orderly close-out of CROET activities,” former Oak Ridge mayor and long-time CROET board member David Bradshaw said in the release. “We are fortunate currently, through good past management practices and a little good fortune, to have the capital to undertake the needed projects to finish our mission.”
This work includes transforming the former K-25 uranium enrichment property into a fully-functioning industrial park and projects to support the planned Oak Ridge general aviation airport that could open in 2025.
CROET was formed in 1995 to lure DOE grant money to East Tennessee as the federal agency cut back on its Cold War-related defense work at Oak Ridge, according to the release. CROET landed $60 million in DOE grant funds over the years and also became the hub of brownfield reindustrialization efforts around the site, according to the release.
“After a period of success with leased facilities the organization pivoted as more and more of the older facilities were demolished by DOE and its contractors—Bechtel-Jacobs and UCOR,” CROET President and CEO Teresa Frady said in the release. “This resulted in a handful of the most reusable buildings becoming owned and operated by CROET.”
In recent years, CROET has sold former DOE buildings and lands to nuclear-related business interests including the planned Kairos Power’s Hermes demonstration reactor, according to the press release.
A CROET official could not immediately be reached Monday for additional comment. News of the planned CROET phaseout came a couple of weeks after Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced a major push to develop carbon-free electric power generation on DOE Cold War and Manhattan Project sites.
