‘Surpassed our expectations’: UT research projects more rapid growth for Rutherford County

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) – Rutherford County is growing nearly two times faster than the state of Tennessee as a whole, according to the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee .

The rate of growth has been faster than Murfreesboro Mayor Shane McFarland anticipated.

“That’s our number one issue we deal with right now is growth,” McFarland said.

McFarland said paying for that growth while keeping current residents happy has been a balancing act.

“Honestly, you can’t have everything; you can’t have low taxes; you can’t have low crime; you can’t have the best schools, the best parks, and not pay for it,” he said.

According to data from UT Knoxville, Rutherford County is expected to gain more than 30,000 new residents in the next four years and 100,000 more in the next 10 years.

“We’ve created, in my opinion, one of the most attractive places to live in the country,” he said.

In order to maintain that quality of life, McFarland has been conscious of making sure the city has enough money to pay for growth.

He said he’s done that by partnering with private businesses to build and maintain city infrastructure, adding an impact fee for new developments, and making sure the city has a consistent source of funding.

“If you’re relying on a source of income that is not standard, then you’re doomed to fail. So I think it’s very important to find ways to build our tax base through sales tax through other means,” McFarland explained.

However, he said some things do have to give.

“Honestly, you can’t have everything; you can’t have low taxes; you can’t have low crime; you can’t have the best schools, the best parks, and not pay for it. So I think what we’re trying to do is be creative to make sure there’s a balance in that,” he said.

He said as far as roads and traffic, the majority of the City of Murfreesboro’s main roads are owned by the state. Therefore, he is working with the state to get the roads ready for more cars. McFarland explained that 70% of the money the city is borrowing is specifically for transportation and traffic.

The Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce said while growth is costly, it’s better than the alternative.

“It actually surpassed our expectations. I mean, really, if you look over the last 10 years, we’ve been growing at a tremendous rate; it seems to be accelerating quite a bit, or at least a little bit more than than we thought,” said Chamber President Paul Latture.

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Latture said the chamber not only thinks about attracting new talent and businesses to the region, but keeping current residents and families in the county.

“You can literally grow up here, go to a post-secondary….whatever attainment level you want to do or to whether that’s the TCAT, Motlow Community College, or through MTSU. And those, those three schools combined are really one of the largest generators of workforce in the entire region,” he said.

Therefore, he said the future of Rutherford County can be just as bright as he views the present.

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