Baiting Bass Pro Shops key to luring growth again at East Ridge Exit 1

photo A new Bass Pro Shop is set for development off I-75 Exit 1 in East Ridge, Hamilton County's second most populous city. East Ridge is using border tax to aid the exit's revival.

There are more dollar stores than supermarkets in East Ridge, Hamilton County's second-most populous city.

Kinder's Furniture Mall is gone, replaced by a flea market.

Kmart is gone, replaced by a flea market.

Exit 1 along Interstate 75 at Ringgold Road - Tennessee's front door to northbound travelers on the Michigan-to-Miami freeway - is waning. A generation ago, Exit 1 boasted nearly 2,000 hotel and motel rooms. Now, a handful of motels and skinny pole signs remain.

East Ridge's entry into the Volunteer State has slipped. Everyone sees it, especially the city's residents.

"I think they recognize the changes that have taken place over time, not all of them positive," said East Ridge Mayor Brent Lambert.

The city needs, in his opinion, "a shot in the arm."

"It's hard to find a place where you can buy a new pair of pants in East Ridge," he said. "If you want to do some serious shopping for clothing, you're going to be hard-pressed."

Enter Bass Pro Shops, the Holy Grail for retail developers as one of the most visited stores.

Bass Pro Shops claims that more than 116 million people will visit their 85 stores nationwide in 2014. And that "the average customer" drives 50-plus miles to visit, then stays for two-and-a-half hours.

East Ridge wants that, and arguably needs it. Especially with the ever-growing sphere of influence of the greater-Hamilton Place area and the recent construction of Costco Wholesale and announcement of Cabela's in Fort Oglethorpe only a couple miles to the south.

"The presence of Costco and then the announcement of Cabela's going in right beside it, you look at that just an exit south of us, and then Hamilton Place Mall just four miles away from us to the north - that created development pressure on Exit 1, which probably is, certainly, a beneficial thing for us," Lambert said.

The optimism over what Bass Pro Shops could do for East Ridge has kept city leaders on the hunt for the past four years. Even though the new Bass Pro Shop still won't open until 2016 and will require the city East Ridge to put up $4 million of assistance for the project, city leaders say they are getting what they wanted.

Lambert calls the new Bass Pro Shop development "the single most significant economic development in, maybe, our city's history."

The bass crusade

Going back to 2009, there was talk of Bass Pro Shops coming to East Ridge.

City leaders and the owners of a Chattanooga developer called Wolftever Development discussed the ins-and-outs of building a large retail development called Jordan Crossing off of Exit 1.

John Healy, partner at Exit One LLC (the name Wolftever Development now goes by), says Bass Pro Shops was "number one on our list" to anchor Jordan Crossing from the beginning.

But there were immediate obstacles.

First, the land they wanted was owned by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

When Interstate 75 was built, the state bought up land in the freeway's path. In East Ridge, the state bought more land than it needed for construction.

Exit 1 wanted around 50 acres of the excess TDOT land for Jordan Crossing. The state allows interested buyers, private and public alike, to make requests to TDOT for excess land be considered for sale.

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The City of East Ridge made such a request in 2009, for the land Exit One LLC wanted.

City leaders say they pushed for the land sale from TDOT because a municipality's request was likely to get more and quicker traction from the state agency. And the city accepted the burden, and initial risk, of having surveys done and legal red tape sorted out.

In 2010, then-TDOT Commissioner Gerald Nicely approved part of East Ridge's request, and agreed to sell 37 instead of 50-plus acres of TDOT's excess land.

Lambert's first act as mayor, after being elected in November 2010, was to meet with Nicely in Nashville, he recalls.

Then, something "serendipitous" happened, Lambert said.

State Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, sponsored the Border Region Retail Tourism Development District bill to create state incentives for Tennessee municipalities along state lines that also have an interstate passing through. The intention of the bill is to keep major retail developments on the Tennessee side of the state border.

Already in talks about bringing Jordon Crossing to East Ridge, city leaders seized on the moment.

The border region retail district bill passed in May 2011.

And the Jordan Crossing/Bass Pro Shops development picked up steam.

Over the next two years, the City of East Ridge bought the 37 acres of TDOT's excess land near Camp Jordan, then turned around and sold the former TDOT land to Exit One at cost, just as planned. And the city has agreed to eat the cost of building a new fire hall to replace the one, built in 2005, that's currently in Jordan Crossing's way.

Last fall, Exit One began clearing their East Ridge property.

Then in June of this year, Bass Pro Shops formally announced an 85,000-square-foot Outpost store to be built by Exit One and anchor the Jordan Crossing development in East Ridge.

In August, East Ridge officials unanimously approved a $4 million incentive package to help Exit One with the costs of site preparation.

Under the border region retail district law, the city can collect 75 percent of the state's portion of sales tax revenue from developments inside a border region retail district and use the money to offset costs associated with border region development.

The East Ridge border region retail district in totality is 950 acres, the maximum allowed under state law.

Dirt work on the Jordan Crossing property is set to begin as soon as Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation permits come back to Exit One LLC.

The property, located along Chickamauga Creek, is largely in a FEMA-designated flood plain, which means base elevation levels must be raised and retention areas created before construction can begin.

But that's better than the original prognosis included in the 2012 appraisal East Ridge had done before they bought the land from TDOT.

Thomas Carter, a Jasper appraiser with Carter Appraisal Services, wrote that the property was unusable because of flooding issues. He stands by the assessment.

Healy, though, said only a tenth of the property lies in the Chickamauga Creek's floodway, which is unusable territory.

Healy said that despite all the obstacles for making Jordan Crossing a reality in East Ridge, "when it's here, it will be "bigger [for East Ridge] than Volkswagen for Chattanooga."

Instead of a shrivelling Exit 1, he imagines a vibrant one.

"Five years from now, it will look completely different," he said.

And he cites Bristol, Tenn., which also has a border region retail district, and which also anchored it with a new Bass Pro Shops, which just opened last month.

Joy Madison, president and CEO of the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, said 10,000 customers attended the Bass Pro Shops ribbon-cutting ceremony.

"I don't think I've ever been to an opening quite like that," she said.

She said Bristol has seen the results that East Ridge leaders keep talking about: that Bass Pro Shops is a lure all its own to other big box, big name retailers.

A Belk store has since come to Bristol. Madison said there are more on the way.

"There's dirt work and construction going on all over the place," she said.

That's what East Ridge officials want to hear. The East Ridge Bass Pro Shops is expected to be completed sometime in 2016.

When the store opens, it will mark the end of the first leg of East Ridge's journey to capture its place on the region's retail map.

And the gamble is that it will also mark the end of the old, pre-Bass Pro Shops, days - and the beginning of the East Ridge retail renaissance.

Contact staff writer Alex Green at agreen@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6480.

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