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Dollywood officials have just announced yet another expansion to Dolly Parton’s Pigeon Forge empire: affordable housing for area employees.
The residence hall-style 136,000 square foot, four-story building will be able to accommodate more than 750 seasonal area employees.
The building will be located on Dollywood grounds.
Read the full story here: https://www.thesmokies.com/dollywood-housing/
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dollywood officials have just announced
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yet another expansion to dolly parton's
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pigeon forge empire
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as many are aware area staffing
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shortages plague seviera county and the
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problem is only worsened in recent
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months as area attractions and
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restaurants struggle to find and retain
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employees
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this is due in large part to a lack of
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affordable housing
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but dollywood's latest project in
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partnership with holtz builders aims to
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solve that problem with a 20 million
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expansion in the form of affordable
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housing
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the residence hall style 136 000 square
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foot four-story building will be able to
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accommodate more than 750 seasonal area
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employees
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the building will be located on
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dollywood grounds
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standard rooms will accommodate four
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residents with four beds
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amenities include individual lockers a
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private bathroom a large fridge and a
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desk
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additionally a common kitchen gathering
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space and laundry facilities will be
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included
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[Music]
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you're looking at a four-story building
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it's in a u-shape it's a total 140 000
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square feet under roof uh four floors
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the first floor being
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offices and for staff
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the top three floors are all residential
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housing every project is is exciting but
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when we get to come down here in pigeon
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forge and especially with dollywood
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and even over the top of that and again
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we're going to always talk about our end
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user and that's really the residence of
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these facilities that's what we always
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have to keep in mind and not let that
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get kind of in the shuffle
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and when we do that things go a lot
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better
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this is an exciting day
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you have no idea how long we've been
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waiting for this i mean truly
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more than a decade of trying to figure
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out the right solution to get housing
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for our summer college programs and and
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this uh finally cracks the key on on how
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to get it done and justify a building
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for that summer need
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guests are going to be happy because it
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gives more service to them you know one
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of the things we say is that the
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enthusiasm of our guests can only rise
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as high as the enthusiasm of our
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employees so when our employees are
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happy because they have a
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stable place to be and it's close to
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work
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they're going to be happier when they
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come to work and they're going to
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translate that into the service that
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they give our guests
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the other program we have
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is with sevier county
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southern hospitality internship program
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so if you're a college student who needs
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an internship
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find out what internships are available
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we have
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we we have opportunities in just about
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every field that we
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provide here at dollywood so it's
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accounting it's marketing it's
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operations it's culinary it's hr
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just anything you can think of that we
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do as a business there's an internship
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available for that and through the ship
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program
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those interns will stay in this housing
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as well
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so severe county has always had a
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problem with
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available housing
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especially through the cove pandemic
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even before that when you can see that
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through the fires
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so we've always had this issue this work
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force crunch where we felt that we had
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more jobs than people to work on and
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that's why you see more than 50 or about
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50 of our workforce comes from outside
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the county so to get people here and
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give them housing affordable housing to
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live and work in our community is such a
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huge thing and it's a wonderful thing to
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see that a private company like
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dollywood takes the initiative to invest
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in housing for their employees but not
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only their employees but also employees
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that can work outside into the community
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so it's a great day for pigeon forge and
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for dollywood and severe county
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businesses
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the following seasonal workers may be
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eligible to live in dollywood's new
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residence hall
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students working at dollywood through
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the u.s summer work travel program
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students working at dollywood through
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u.s college campus organizations like
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campus outreach navigators and young
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life college interns working on specific
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assignments at dollywood for educational
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credits and employees of other area
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businesses and similar programs through
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organizations like sevier county's
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southern hospitality internship the
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majority of the project is scheduled for
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completion in may of 2022
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the ground floor will be unfinished when
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residents move in but will be completed
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soon after
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what do you think about dollywood's
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latest project let us know in the
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comments below
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hey guys thanks for watching don't
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forget to like and subscribe on our
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youtube channel thesmokiescom
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[Music]