Program of Work & Initiatives

Program of Work

Overton County is competing for jobs, capital, and people with every county around us, and the communities that win are the ones that build a place where people want to live, work, and invest. The Livingston/Overton County Chamber of Commerce leads a comprehensive economic and community development program designed to grow our economic base, improve quality of place, and make sure that when opportunity calls, Overton County is ready to answer.

Our program is structured around the core competencies established by the International Economic Development Council and adapted for the realities of a rural county in the heart of the Upper Cumberland. The work is guided by the Chamber's Economic and Community Development Committee, an advisory body that brings together Chamber leadership, county and city government, the Industrial Development Board, the Joint Economic and Community Development Board, and private sector members with experience in finance, law, and business management.

We measure our success by jobs created, capital invested, and grants secured, and by the harder-to-quantify measures that matter most: whether our young people are choosing to come home, whether our existing employers are expanding here, and whether Overton County is a place people are proud to be from.

Business Retention and Expansion

Existing industry is our most reliable source of new jobs and new investment, so our first priority is the employers already invested in Overton County. Every primary employer receives a structured in-person visit at least once per quarter covering operations, workforce, infrastructure, regulatory environment, and expansion plans. When an existing employer hits a problem, the Chamber is the first call, and we work directly with the County Mayor, the City of Livingston, and our regulatory bodies to make sure permitting, planning, and inspections move at the speed of business. Annual industry roundtables and surveys give our employers a place to speak candidly about workforce, supply chain, and policy, and every concern raised is tracked through to resolution.

 

Business and Industrial Recruitment

When a real project comes to Overton County, we move fast, because speed and certainty win deals. Working with the Industrial Development Board, we maintain a current inventory of available industrial property and document water, sewer, electric, gas, broadband, and road capacity at every site. We answer prospect inquiries the same day, respond to requests for information on deadline, and maintain pre-cleared incentive frameworks so we are never negotiating from scratch. Our recruitment targets include traditional manufacturing, distribution, and value-added agriculture, and we are actively positioning the county for emerging opportunities in data centers, advanced energy, AI infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing.

 

Retail Recruitment

Retail recruitment is its own discipline, and it starts with taking care of the retailers and restaurants we already have. From there, we use current trade area data, including daytime population, drive-time analysis, and consumer expenditure profiles, to build a targeted prospect list of national and regional brands that fit our market and fill category gaps. We represent Overton County at ICSC and other retail trade shows with a professional pitch package and current site availability, and we inventory and market commercial property along our highway corridors and in our downtown footprint.

 

Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development

Most of the jobs we create over the next decade will come from businesses that do not yet exist or are very small today. We connect Overton County founders to the Tennessee Small Business Development Center for no-cost counseling and capital advising, to The Biz Foundry for incubator space, mentorship, and pitch competitions, and to Tennessee Tech University's Center for Rural Innovation. We tell the stories of local founders, host pitch events, support founder-to-founder networks, and create on-ramps for high school and college students who want to build something at home. With Tennessee Tech fifteen minutes down the road, we are also developing a pathway for technology transfer and IP-based startups to land and grow in Overton County.

 

Workforce Development

Workforce is the number one issue raised by every employer we visit, and it requires deep alignment across systems. The Chamber convenes a workforce alignment table that brings together Overton County Schools, TCAT Livingston, Vol State, and Tennessee Tech with rotating employer representation, so that career and technical education, work-based learning, dual enrollment, and registered apprenticeships all connect to real employer demand. We build sector-specific strategies for manufacturing, healthcare, skilled trades, logistics, agriculture, and hospitality, and we stay engaged on the childcare, housing, and healthcare challenges that shape whether people can take the jobs we create.

 

Community Development and Grant Coordination

Quality of place is built on infrastructure, parks, downtowns, broadband, healthcare access, and recreation, and most of those projects require outside funding. The Chamber serves as a grant writing and coordination resource for Overton County, the City of Livingston, and aligned community organizations, maintaining a master grant calendar across state, federal, and foundation sources including TNECD, TVA, USDA Rural Development, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Economic Development Administration. Current catalytic projects include the Bright Futures Initiative childcare and workforce training facility, historic preservation of the Overton County Courthouse, expanded lodging capacity, downtown revitalization, and recreation and parks infrastructure.

 

Real Estate and Infrastructure Readiness

You cannot recruit what you cannot show. The era of marketing raw acreage is over, and site selectors want answers in days, not months. We conduct a formal readiness review each year covering our site and property inventory, utility capacity, incentive frameworks, and local government responsiveness, and we work with the Industrial Development Board on site control, due diligence, and pursuit of Select Tennessee Certified Site and Advantage Tennessee designations so that Overton County is ready to compete on the day a real prospect calls.

 

Downtown Revitalization

Our downtown is the front porch of the county and the place where retail recruitment, tourism, and quality of place all meet. Working in close coordination with our Tourism and Main Street Director, we support building rehabilitation and facade improvement, second-story redevelopment, storefront tenant recruitment, streetscape and public space reinvestment, and the programming and events that bring people downtown. A downtown that is working tells a story about the entire county that no recruitment brochure ever could.

 

Forward-Looking Strategy and Advocacy

The biggest opportunities ahead require us to position now for what is coming. We are working to market Overton County's land, power, water, and workforce assets to emerging sectors, aligning our education partners on the skills those sectors will require, and advocating through our Tennessee General Assembly delegation and congressional offices for the policy changes that benefit Overton County and the Upper Cumberland.

 

Ongoing Initiatives

Alongside the ongoing work of member service, recruitment, tourism, and advocacy, the Chamber leads a set of defined projects aimed at specific problems in this county. Some are years long. Some depend on funding or approvals we do not control. All of them are efforts to change something structural rather than to manage around it. 

This page is where we report on that work honestly, including the parts that are not finished. 

 

Bright Futures Initiative 

Focus: Childcare capacity as workforce infrastructure. 

Overton County, like most rural counties in Tennessee, does not have enough licensed childcare capacity to support the workforce its employers need. The result is a group of people who want to work and cannot, and a group of employers who cannot fill positions that are open right now. 

The Bright Futures Initiative is the Chamber's proposal to address that gap by developing a childcare and workforce facility in Overton County. The Chamber has pursued funding through the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and has brought the proposal before county leadership for consideration. 

This item is pending a county commission decision.

 

Downtown Revitalization 

Focus: The historic commercial core of Livingston. 

Downtown revitalization in Livingston is led by Main Street Livingston, an independent 501(c)(3) organization housed with the Chamber and operating under the nationally recognized Main Street Approach. Recent and ongoing work includes historic preservation and facade improvement, streetscape and public space investment, downtown business recruitment, and heritage interpretation. 

Livingston is one of only six Tennessee municipalities receiving an allocation under the Courthouse Square Revitalization Pilot Project, a program extended through 2038, which represents a generational commitment of state resources to this square. 

Visit mainstreetlivingston.org for the full downtown program. 

 

Tourism Development 

Focus: Growing the visitor economy countywide. 

Overton County's tourism program operates under a multi-party tourism development agreement that brought the county's primary tourism stakeholders into formal partnership for the first time, with a dedicated development fund, the county's first Tourism Advisory Board, and a new countywide visitor brand. Current work includes wayfinding signage installation across the county, destination development around Dale Hollow Lake and Standing Stone State Park, heritage tourism interpretation, and event programming including the Live in Livingston concert series. 

VisitLivingstonTN.org for visitor information.

Retail Recruitment and Site Development 

Focus: Recapturing retail sales that currently leave the county. 

Every dollar an Overton County household spends in Cookeville, Crossville, or another city takes local sales tax revenue and local employment with it. Closing that gap requires actively pitching this market to retailers, restaurants, and service providers who have not yet evaluated it, and it requires having sites ready when they look. 

The Chamber represents the county at retail recruitment conferences, maintains current market and traffic data, works with landowners along the Livingston bypass and in the county's outlying communities to identify developable sites, and pursues the financing tools that make rural retail development work. 

 

Opportunity Zone Designation 

Focus: Preserving and expanding federal tax incentives for private investment in Overton County. 

The federal Opportunity Zone program was made permanent in 2025, with an entirely new round of census tract designations taking effect January 1, 2027 under tightened eligibility rules and substantially enhanced benefits for rural areas. The Chamber prepared and submitted Overton County's designation request to the State of Tennessee. 

 

Historic District and Preservation Framework 

Focus: Positioning downtown property owners for preservation grants and incentives. 

Livingston's H-1 Historic District has been part of the city's zoning framework since the 1980s, and the Chamber has supported the City in formally adopting the district map and reactivating the Historic Zoning Commission. The purpose is not new restriction on property owners. Existing properties are grandfathered, and review applies principally to exterior alterations of older commercial structures against established preservation standards rather than personal preference. 

The purpose is access. A community with an adopted historic district and a functioning commission is eligible for federal and state preservation funding for facades, roofing, masonry, storefronts, fire suppression, and accessibility that is simply unavailable otherwise. 

This item is pending before the Livingston Board of Aldermen.

 

Livingston Wellness Loop 

Focus: Connecting residents to the places they need to reach. 

The Chamber is a partner in a consortium application for the Livingston Wellness Loop, a project designed to connect residents to healthcare, services, the senior center, the public library, technical education, and the downtown square. The Chamber's interest is straightforward. Transportation access is a workforce issue, a small business issue, and a quality of life issue at the same time. 

 

Leadership Overton 

Focus: The next generation of community leadership. 

Every rural county faces the same underlying question, which is whether there will be enough capable and willing people to run its institutions a generation from now. Leadership Overton is the Chamber's most direct answer. 

 

Get Involved 

Most of the work on this page moves faster with more people behind it. If one of these initiatives matters to your business or your family, call the Chamber at (931) 823-6421 or email admin@overtonco.com.