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Business View Magazine
Gallatin, Tennessee
Investing in itself
“If a city doesn’t invest in itself, no one else is going to
invest in it,” declares James Fenton, Executive Direc-
tor of the Gallatin, Tennessee, Economic Development
Agency (EDA), whose website is appropriately named:
Gallatin Gets It. What Fenton, the EDA, and the City of
Gallatin all “get,” is that in order to attract new busi-
ness and maintain its standing as the employment
hub for Summer County and the northeast quadrant of
the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area, this city of
34,000 on the Cumberland River needs to continually
invest in itself by improving and updating its infrastruc-
ture. And that is precisely what Gallatin does.
“For the last 40 months, the city has seen about $220
million in capital investment,” says Fenton, who adds
that 2,700 new jobs have been created over that pe-
riod in the manufacturing, medical, and retail fields.
“That’s been a great boon for us and it wouldn’t have
been possible without the city investing in itself. And
we continue to do that.”
Nick Tuttle, Gallatin’s City Engineer talks about some
of the recent city projects that have helped it increase
its business activity, as well as its population: “Back
in 2009, we finished the first phase of our downtown
streetscape, right around our public square,” he be-
gins. “We went in and took up streets and sidewalks
from face-of-building to face-of-building. No work had
