Tremont's new Smoky Mountains campus could be greenest construction project in Tennessee

As it celebrated 50 years in 2019, the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, a beloved educational nonprofit in the national park, purchased 194 acres for an epically ambitious second campus.

For decades, the institute, known simply as Tremont, has hosted students and educators of all ages for overnight trips at its original campus in Walker Valley, just inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park border from Townsend. Constructed in the 1960s as a Job Corps facility, the campus on park land is charming if slightly dated.

Tremont's second campus, by contrast, will sit on private land bordering the park and could provide a model of cutting-edge technology that gives more to the environment than it takes. The nonprofit hopes the campus will become Tennessee's first Living Building Challenge certified project, widely considered the world's most difficult environmental certification to achieve.

In order to earn the certification, the campus must improve the environment rather than drain it. That means it must generate more electricity than it uses, treat its own water on site and be constructed with meticulously vetted clean materials. It must also be accessible to all people.

It's not the easiest or cheapest way to build, but the institute is not interested in the easy way out.

“This is our moonshot,” said Tremont President and CEO Catey McClary. “The opportunity it creates is worth the additional challenge and, to be honest, worth the additional money to us because it really is what we believe is the right thing to do. We have to model a better way to use resources.”

McClary said the institute expects to break ground on the new campus within two years and that permitting and construction will take about 18 months after that. Its capital campaign for the project aims to raise $27 million for the first phase, which will include dorms, a dining hall and a commercial kitchen.

The campus will take up just 42 of the tract's 194 acres, and the rest will be left to nature as a recreational area. McClary said Tremont is examining the least invasive ways to construct the multiple facilities. Rather than sticking out from their surroundings, like high tech robots in a field of goldenrod, the buildings will take cues from the self-sustaining ecosystem of the Smokies.

Supported by some of the biggest names in the region, from Clayton Homes and the Haslam Family Foundation to the Tennessee Valley Authority, the project will dramatically expand Tremont's environmental education programming.

Tremont aims to change the world through the Smokies

A characteristic autumn chill welcomed a bus full of students from Missouri to the Smokies on Nov. 1 as they unloaded onto Tremont's campus. They screamed and laughed in exhilaration, surrounded by the stunning reds and yellows of the national park.

After the group settled into their barracks-style housing, one of Tremont's counselors, called "teacher naturalists," had the visiting teachers share their own experiences with the institute and say what woodland creature they would be. Some had visited Tremont many times, and some only a few. A couple teachers said they would be wolves, and others said they would be a doe.

McClary, now the leader of Tremont, was once among these children, seeing her teachers and the natural world in an entirely new way.

“I fundamentally believe that when I came to Tremont, my worldview changed,” McClary said. “When I was in sixth grade, environmental education or preservation was talking about saving the polar bears and that seemed so distant. When I came to Tremont, I started to have a more localized story. I realized the impact I could have happened in my backyard.”

The institute is one of four partners of the national park. It does not own the land of its original campus, but uses it through a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.

While partner Friends of the Smokies raises money and the Great Smoky Mountains Association handles retail sales in the park, Tremont provides residential educational experiences. Its 2024 events include an adult summer camp, a family firefly camp, naturalist and photography courses and a slate of summer camps for kids.

The bulk of its programming is for school groups, though it has begun branching out. In October, it hosted its first annual writers conference, anchored by the writer Richard Powers, whose Pulitzer Prize winning 2018 novel "The Overstory" drew inspiration from the Smokies near his Townsend home.

Tremont's second campus will support new experiences and many more people. The institute does not host day programs in the park, but will be able to on its private land, bringing the total number of participants from 6,000 a year to 25,000. Its original campus, which will remain an integral part of its mission, can host 130 people overnight, while its second campus will host up to 228.

By bringing kids and adults into contact with the natural world, Tremont helps them "imagine new possibilities for themselves and for the planet," say its capital campaign materials. Its ambitious second campus will extend that mission.

Having a campus on private land means research and educational programming won't have to go through the rigorous permitting process required for the national park.

TVA backs regenerative Tremont campus project

Only 34 buildings in the world have achieved full Living Building Challenge certification, according to the International Living Future Institute, the Portland-based organization that created the program.

These buildings, often standalone facilities dedicated to environmental work, are clustered on the West Coast and in the Northeast of the United States. The closest to Tennessee is an academic building at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

Tremont's second campus would not only be the first Living Building Challenge certified project in the state, but one of the largest in the world, comprising an entire campus. All of its energy, water and waste needs would need to be met on site in a closed-loop system.

“A lot of times when you think about the future or forecast the future, you think about what’s not being done,” said Tremont marketing director Erin Rosolina. “This gives you a chance to see a really joyous version of the future. We want to show all of this can exist and does exist, but also do it in that very authentic Tremont way where you’re enjoying your time here.”

The nonprofit decided early on to work with local partners. With Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, East Tennessee is already a world-class destination for research on clean energy and advanced materials. Tremont wants its new campus to be a world-class facility to match.

It is partnering with an out-of-state engineering firm with experience in Living Building Challenge projects as well as Knoxville-based McCarty Holsaple McCarty Architects, hoping to bring innovation closer to home.

“We’re able to bring experience to East Tennessee, and then what they learn on this project can start to diffuse out and have a ripple effect on other projects in our region,” McClary, Tremont's CEO and president, said.

The project also won the support of TVA early on. The nation's largest public utility gave Tremont $250,000 in 2022 to develop its design of the second campus, a project that reflects the company mission, said Joe Hoagland, TVA's vice president of enterprise relations and innovation.

“Tremont has always been about educating children on the environment," Hoagland told Knox News. "In addition to generating energy, we are focused on environmental stewardship and economic development, so the campus project combines the many projects we're passionate about."

Tremont is one of several projects supported through TVA's Connected Communities program, which strives to prepare communities for a clean energy system through innovation. That innovation in turn could inform the company's own efforts to decarbonize electricity generation across the Tennessee Valley.

For McClary, leading Tremont through its critical next chapter is the chance of a lifetime. It is also a chance to make the Smoky Mountains and East Tennessee a world leader in construction projects that mirror the symbiotic ecosystems around them.

“We’re not doing it because we just want to build pretty buildings on Tremont’s campus," McClary said. "We’re doing it because we want to learn from this. We want to be a place where people can continue to learn from this.”

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.

Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Smokies Tremont Institute building new campus in Townsend, Tennessee