Drive down Hunt Road on a Wednesday evening in July and the Springbrook Farm project looks nothing like it did last summer. Two new restaurants are open, a third steakhouse is framed in, a big-box announcement has crews staking utility work along Werner Avenue, and the greenway that ties it all to the Duck Pond is finally starting to feel like a downtown spine instead of a park trail.
For most of the last twenty years, "Alcoa's town center" was a phrase in a master plan. In the twelve months between summer 2025 and summer 2026, it stopped being a phrase. If you live here, that shift changes small things first: where you meet a friend for dinner without driving to Turkey Creek, which errand you fold into a greenway loop, whether you keep your Costco membership pointed at Knoxville. This post is a map of what actually opened, what's next, and how residents are already using it.
The last twelve months, in one table
Alcoa officials have described Phase I of Springbrook Farm as focused on retail, with completion targeted for early 2026. Here is what that phrase translates to on the ground, based on city updates and local reporting.
| Business | Status as of July 2026 | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q | Grand opening January 2026 | Springbrook Farm |
| DosBros Fresh Mexican Grill | Ribbon cutting January 19, 2026 | 1143 Franck St, Suite 103 |
| Super Chix | Open | Springbrook Farm |
| The Chop House (~8,000 sq ft) | Under construction, spring 2026 opening announced | Springbrook Farm |
| Texas Roadhouse | Remodeled, part of Phase I retail | Springbrook Farm |
| Food City (54,000 sq ft) | Open, daily anchor | 1388 Tesla Blvd |
| Vital at Springbrook (300 apartments) | Leasing | Corner of Tesla and Centennial |
| Costco | Announced April 2026, site prep underway | Springbrook Farm |
| Company Distilling | Building conversion planned | Repurposed West Plant building |
Alcoa City Manager Bruce Applegate has counted DosBros, Super Chix, and other new arrivals among two new buildings opening within Springbrook Farm, and the Jim 'N Nick's grand opening happened alongside DosBros in the same window. The density matters. Two years ago, "going out in Alcoa" for most residents meant either a chain by the airport or a fifteen-minute drive to Maryville's downtown. That list is now a four-corner walk.
Why The Chop House is the anchor to watch
Of everything on the table above, the one that reshapes evenings the most is the steakhouse. The Chop House, part of the group that introduced Connors Steak & Seafood to the Southeast, announced plans to open in Alcoa in spring 2026 with a menu of hand-cut steaks, in-house seafood, and signature cocktails. City Manager Applegate has put the footprint at roughly 8,000 square feet, which is large enough to book a rehearsal dinner or a work team without leaving Blount County.
The context that makes this interesting is the existing Texas Roadhouse at the site. Deputy City Manager Bruce Applegate has said that Texas Roadhouse is among the busiest in Tennessee. Placing an upscale-casual steakhouse a short walk from one of the state's highest-volume Texas Roadhouses is a bet that Alcoa now supports two tiers of steakhouse traffic on the same block. If you live in Springbrook, Hall Road, or Wildwood, you have probably already noticed the wait times at Roadhouse. The Chop House is designed to absorb the overflow that used to drive to Knoxville.
The Costco announcement, translated
Work is starting on Costco in the Springbrook Farm development, and Alcoa City Manager Bruce Applegate said the city, Costco, and developer Realty Link spent the past three years working on bringing the store to town. The city announcement in spring 2026 laid out the mechanics: brownfield site preparation, traffic signal infrastructure, utility improvements, and construction of a section of Werner Avenue, financed through bond financing structured around future sales tax generation from the project, without affecting existing property tax levels.
That last clause is the one to read twice if you own here. The city is paying for site work by pledging future sales tax from the store itself, not by raising the millage. Whether Costco delivers those receipts is now a municipal-finance question worth watching, but the structural point stands: Applegate has framed the store as retention of sales tax that used to leave for Knoxville, saying it allows Alcoans to stay in Alcoa.
For a household comparing membership renewal timing, the practical answer is still "not yet." Site prep is underway, not the store. But for anyone weighing a home purchase in the Hall Road or Springbrook Corporate Center corridor, the trip to warehouse groceries is about to move from the Papermill exit in Knoxville to a signal at Werner Avenue.
Company Distilling and the food-hall piece
The most under-discussed part of Springbrook Farm is on the north edge. Springbrook Farm's near-future plans include activation of the connecting greenway trail and development of Company Distilling, which will feature outdoor event space and a food hall element for food trucks or prep kitchens while adaptively reusing components of the existing structure.
Two details worth pinning:
- The 20,000-square-foot refurbished building is planned with a tasting room, restaurant, brewery, and retail store on 31 acres, plus a live music venue, corn hole, pickle ball courts, bonfire pits, and access to greenway trails.
- The founding group includes former Jack Daniel's Master Distiller Jeff Arnett, former Tennessee Distillers Guild president Kris Tatum, Clayton Homes CEO Kevin Clayton, and H. Clark Distillery founder Heath Clark.
Timelines on this piece have moved more than once since the original 2021 announcement, so treat it as coming rather than open. What is worth knowing now is that the plan uses an original West Plant building rather than new construction, which is why the north end of the site still reads as raw when you walk the greenway past it.
Medical, hotels, and the second wave
Retail is Phase I. What comes next is a mix.
In 2024, Covenant Health purchased roughly 12 acres within Springbrook for future development, signaling long-term demand for health services in the area. Plans also call for another Holiday Inn Express off Marconi Boulevard, and Phase two of the development is set to bring more retail and commercial spaces along with 129 to 155 new housing units proposed for Mills Street. Applegate has confirmed that a 450-unit apartment complex could begin construction as soon as current roadway work wraps up at the other end of the city, near ProNova, where officials envision an R&D-focused live-work-play development.
For a resident, the practical read is that the Marconi and Tesla corridor is the near-term construction zone, and the eastern edge of the city near the ProNova campus is the medium-term one. If your commute already crosses either, the next twenty-four months will feel it.
The greenway is what makes it work
None of the above matters as much without the trail. Nine miles of greenway connects Springbrook Park in Alcoa with the Bicentennial Greenbelt and Sandy Springs Park in Maryville, flowing along Pistol Creek and winding through downtown Maryville's Bicentennial Greenbelt Park, with access points at Pearsons Spring Park, Founders Park, Richard Williams Park, Hall Park, Sandy Springs, and Bicentennial Greenbelt. Later additions include a spur to Springbrook Corporate Center and a pedestrian bridge across Alcoa Highway.
Two loops locals are already stitching together:
The Duck Pond and dinner loop
Park at Springbrook Park on Dalton Street, walk the 1.5-mile circular trail past the Alcoa Duck Pond, then cut onto the greenway spur toward Springbrook Corporate Center. On the way back, cross to the retail block for dinner. The section between the Springbrook Corporate Center spur and the Duck Pond runs far from any road along Pistol Creek and is the best place on the greenway for spotting deer and turkeys.
The Bicentennial-to-Duck-Pond long ride
For a longer effort, start at Bicentennial Park in downtown Maryville and take the full nine miles north. The greenway is wide and well maintained, moves through woods, parks, meadows, and creek crossings, and has only a few street crossings. If you have kids on training wheels, the Sandy Springs and Springbrook Park ends are the natural bookends.
The greenway is also the reason the Springbrook build-out is not just a strip of pads. The trail system now runs to over 18 miles of paved paths winding through Alcoa and Maryville, which means a household in Springbrook, Wildwood Village, or the neighborhoods east of Hall Road can reach dinner without moving a car.
Events worth putting on the calendar
A few dates that recur:
- The Pistol Ultra and Pistol Creek Marathon uses the Alcoa-Maryville greenway. The greenway runs along Pistol Creek and the course has been modified so it is relatively flat, which is why the race draws runners from outside the region.
- Downtown Maryville hosts recurring 3rd Thursdays from April through October 2026 as art-walk style evenings with demonstrations, live music, and live painting, with seasonal events including Summer on Broadway, Hops in the Hills, Spooktacular, and Downtown Maryville Christmas. These are ten minutes from Springbrook via the greenway or Lamar Alexander Parkway.
- The Battle of Pistol Creek soccer match between Maryville High and Alcoa High. The rivalry is one of the biggest high school sports rivalries in the Maryville-Alcoa area, with the two schools located just a few miles apart.
What this changes for people who already live here
Three practical shifts:
- Dinner radius shrinks. With Chop House opening spring 2026 alongside Texas Roadhouse, Jim 'N Nick's, DosBros, and Super Chix, a weeknight-out itinerary no longer needs Turkey Creek or downtown Knoxville.
- Grocery routing changes. The 54,000-square-foot Food City at 1388 Tesla Blvd. is the current daily anchor, and Costco is next. Household errand loops built around Alcoa Highway will get shorter.
- The greenway becomes commute-adjacent. As more retail lands on the Marconi and Tesla corridor, the trail spurs make walking or biking to dinner realistic for residents in the neighborhoods that ring the site. That is the piece the master plan called "walkability" for twenty years, and it is finally load-bearing.
None of this is universal. Phase one of Springbrook Farm was reported as wrapping up soon as of mid-2025, and Phase II timelines will slip and shift the way any project of this size does. But the shape of daily life in Alcoa in July 2026 is measurably different from July 2025, and the direction is set.
If you own here and are wondering how these openings affect resale timing, or if you're relocating and trying to figure out which side of the Springbrook build-out to land on, The Fowler Group tracks the neighborhood block by block. Get a Free Home Valuation to see where your property stands as the town center comes online.
