The City of Knoxville will hold a reception, Tuesday, November 13, for small businesses interested in bidding on major city projects including the new Knoxville Station Transit Center among others. The reception will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., at The Foundry on the Fair Site. The event is free and is designed to inform the local small business community about bidding opportunities, and tentative timelines on several city projects.Those range from small contracts to larger jobs like the new $27 million transit center that will be built on Church Avenue, upcoming projects for the city's Engineering Division and information about potential work on the South Knoxville Waterfront project."We think this will be a great opportunity for folks in small business to learn about potential opportunities with some of our large projects that are in the early stages," said Mayor Bill Haslam, "in addition to learning about providing the goods and services the city needs all the time."The city's purchasing department will also make a short presentation that will review Knoxville's bid proposal policy and procedures - and that will provide information aimed at helping the attendees better compete for city contracts.

The City of Knoxville encourages the participation of minority and women-owned businesses in providing goods and services to the city and is actively trying to increase the number of those companies that are involved with city contracts. The reception is part of the City of Knoxville's Small Business Workshop Series 2007, a free series of workshops over the past year designed to inform local businesses about the wealth of government contracting opportunities available to them - and how to take advantage of those opportunities. Previous events have focused on working with the federal government and the Knoxville Utilities Board, among many others organizations and agencies. For more information about the November 13th reception, or to register, please contact Joshalyn Hundley by calling, 215-3867 or 215-3966; or by fax at 215-2211 or by email at [email protected].