Qualls will work with Loudon City Manager Ty Ross, Loudon County Mayor Rollen “Buddy” Bradshaw, City Attorney Joe Ford and County Attorney Bob Bowman to craft a purchase agreement that would give Loudon time to collect information on the buyer.
 

The buyer has been described only as an Asian company that makes memory foam-type products. The company wants to purchase of 89 acres at $2 million, with right of first refusal on an adjacent 22 acres.
 

Due diligence would include gathering information on the company’s factories in Russia and China and making sure there are “no emissions or anything like that,” Qualls said.
 

“It has been, of late, a fast-moving project,” Ross said. “There’s been a lot of requests and a big push on behalf of the buyer/developer to do this deal quickly. By all of their indications they’re ready to wire us the money, but we don’t have a terrible amount of information. There is a language barrier. We speak through translators. … The community didn’t have all the information the community needs.
 

“Rather than draft a contract where the buyer has a period of due diligence, we’re going to flip it, flips the script so that the seller has a period of due diligence during which time the buyer would report the necessary information we need to have,” he added. “What their intent on the property is with environmental, what the factory would ultimately look like, what the footprint is going to be, wages, total investment, things like that. We just really want to pin that down so we can approve that in any necessary clawback provisions.”
 

A clawback clause in the contract would require the buyer to construct an industrial facility on the property within two years of the purchase.
 

“If in the two years they don’t build there would be some percentage of that money would be captured back for us because they didn’t put the building up in that two-year timeframe,” Qualls said. “So we’re looking at 5 percent.”
 

City council was in favor of the clause, but several members of county commission expressed concern.
 

In other business, city council members:
 

• Approved donations to Court Appointed Special Advocates of the Ninth Judicial District, Loudon Quarterback Club and New Riverside Cemetery Inc.
 

• Approved on first reading an ordinance to approve amendment nine to the intergovernmental agreement continuing the Planning and Community Development Department at an annual cost of $25,000.