Byline: Andrew Eder

Oct. 2--Hundreds of skilled contract workers will move into the Tennessee Valley Authority's largely vacant East Tower this year, making the downtown building the engineering nerve center for a nuclear construction project in nearby Spring City.

TVA spokesman John Moulton said 200 to 300 contractors will move into at least one floor of the 12-story tower by the end of the year.

The work force will do engineering for Unit 2 at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, a never-finished reactor unit for which construction is expected to last five years, cost $2.49 billion and employ as many as 2,600 workers.

Moulton said the TVA, which plans to award about $1 ...