Settles, whose farm is about a mile away, is fighting the interchange. The Williamson County ruling has some residents in Rutherford County thinking the argument used in the 840 lawsuit that a thorough environmental study should have been performed before the road was built could stall construction of a major interchange in the fast-growing Blackman community. Meanwhile, opponents of a nearby interchange at Manson Pike and Interstate 24 say they are willing to fight in court to stop heavy development where the Civil War Battle of Stones River was fought. The battlefield is next to the commerce center land. The project fell through, and the city decided to sell the land to developers to try to make back what the city had put into the land.
Developers say the two interchanges are important to the success of the commerce center land sales.
Losing them ''would damage the traffic flow, and in my opinion it would make the commerce center land less valuable,'' said developer Howard Wall, who, along with partner Johnny Jones, made an offer late last year to buy some of the land from the city. A recent ruling by Williamson County Circuit Court Judge Russ Heldman halted construction of State Route 840 until the state does a full-scale environmental study of the area. The state did the same type of assessment in Rutherford County as it did in Williamson. Because a state court deemed that study insufficient in Williamson County, Ed and Dawn Settles say, the state should be required to look harder at the impact of its interchange in Blackman, where they live. The Settleses say they and a group of their neighbors have been fighting the Beesley Road interchange since 1994.