Business View Civil and Municipal | March 2021

164 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL MARCH 2021 City Manager, Randall Eads. “They have been instrumental in helping economic development within the city. And they continue every single day. They work hand in hand with us for opportunities to bring businesses here to Bristol.” The Hard Rock project is a partnership between United Company and Par Ventures that will repurpose an old shopping mall. Once it’s finished in a few years, it’s expected to create somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 jobs. That has residential developers eyeing Bristol, along with people who may be looking for the benefits of rural America while still having some of the entertainment options of a big city. “There are two things that attract people here to Bristol,” says Eads. “You have the low cost of living, comparable to a lot of the metropolitan areas where we see people moving from, but yet you also have a lot of those city amenities that they may be used to. Not to the degree that you’re going to find in large metropolitan areas, but when you combine everything that we have through our entire community of southwest Virginia, and with east Tennessee, you have a variety of things that people can spend their time on and enjoy.” PREFERRED VENDOR/ PARTNER n Interstate Property Development www.ira-realty.com