Hixson development is just beginning

There was a time when Grubb Road was the end of the earth for Chattanooga retailers, the place where Hixson's commercial node came to a final, gentle end among single-family homes and a handful of churches.

In a sense, Highway 153 from that point on to U.S. Highway 27 was a no man's land - untested and untapped, maybe a gold mine, maybe a disaster but too much of a liability to find out either way.

Two decades ago, there wasn't much after you passed Gadd Road going north on 153 toward Soddy-Daisy. The little red roof of Gadd KinderCare was an unofficial journey marker: goodbye and see you next time. Then, mostly trees until the Sequoyah Access Road exit in south Soddy.

Now, the biggest Chattanooga development since Hamilton Place Mall is on its way along north Highway 153, and other developments are gearing up for the impact. Hillocks Farm, after hitting a series of hurdles with local residents, was approved by Chattanooga planners in 2014, and the $100 million project is on pace to get started this year or early in 2016.

There's land for sale in every direction. Everything is screaming ready - for more, for the next thing, for another big news-breaking strip mall or announcement.

Developers agree: north Highway 153 is still underdeveloped; but also, there's little doubt that it won't remain this way for long.

The Oak Park pioneer, settling the wild north and Hillocks Farm

So much of what's about to happen at north Highway 153 begins with Bucky Wolford, the Chattanooga developer who either saw what others didn't, had more guts than them or some combination of both.

Wolford, who started his own development company in 1997 after nearly 19 years with CBL & Associates Properties, Inc., helped develop Hamilton Place Mall for CBL in 1987 and saw other retail opportunity in Hixson a decade later.

"My dad had vision for Highway 153," says Clint Wolford, Bucky's son who works alongside his father in the family business, Wolford Development. "That first piece of vision kind of got the ball rolling."

In one of his first projects after leaving CBL, Wolford turned a woodsy church property just south of the Grubb Road-Highway 153 intersection into a major retail hub anchored by the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, and one of the company's mammoth Supercenter stores.

Wal-Mart gave up a still-premier location at the time just a mile or so south of Wolford's proposed development to make the move. At the turn of the new century, in the midst of some economic uncertainty but a strong construction market nonetheless, Wolford did it: he built a giant strip mall in the no man's land, and it was unlike nearly anything done in Chattanooga before.

"That project had to be something different," says Clint Wolford.

Dave Crockett, the City Council member from Hixson at the time, asked the Wolfords to preserve and add as much green space as possible and not create a sea of asphalt.

The Wolfords agreed, and went a few steps further.

The company agreed to move and preserve a 100-year-old tree on the property. And instead of planting the minimally-required saplings, Wolford planted young but larger-caliper trees throughout the Oak Park Town Center (as the development was named) parking lot.

Retailers liked it enough to leave high-profile, long-established retail centers in Chattanooga for Oak Park.

The Oak Park Town Center, located in Hixson, has been sold.

Four years after opening the Oak Park Town Center anchored by Walmart, Wolford added the Northtowne Shopping Center anchored by a super Target store.

By 2009, however, the Great Recession took its toll on the Oak Park Town Center, forcing Wolford to give up the property in a foreclosure sale. But Wolford continued to manage the complex, which attracted new tenants to replace those shuttered or relocated during the recession. The development sold in November 2014 for $22.75 million, more than double what it cost three years prior.

Wolford's projects helped reshape development along Highway 153.

"I would argue that the Wolford developers were the ones who saw it first," says McCormick & Co. developer Oscar Brock, of north Highway 153's commercial potential.

Brock is one of the commercial Realtors helping facilitate things at Brenda Lawson's development, The Fountains of North Chattanooga. The Fountains retail center just north of the Oak Park Town Center came online in 2007 with anchor tenant, Academy Sports + Outdoors, and recently added a Kohl's store.

Brock credits the Wolfords with blazing the trail that others, including the Fountains, followed.

North Highway 153 is a unique area, according to Brock.

"Think of it as a crossroads, and not as a community," he says.

He says the Fountains development pulls shoppers from Signal Mountain, north Hixson, Soddy-Daisy and Red Bank.

"We always believed the need was there," Brock says. "They're very disparate communities."

Simply, Soddy-Daisy, Red Bank, Signal Mountain and others don't have the amenities offered by Oak Park, The Fountains and others in north Hixson.

And with the Hamilton Place corridor jam packed and a longer drive for residents of the farther-flung communities, logic says new retailers and expanding brands will need somewhere else to go, as will shoppers who want to avoid Gunbarrel Road.

Like many builders, the Fountains developers hit the recession wall in 2008 and 2009, and things slowed down. There is still ample room for expansion.

But for the first time in five years, "they're calling us" again, says Brock of retailers looking for space. "We're not having to call them. Four years ago, they weren't even returning our phone calls."

Brock says contrary to what many folks think, he and the other Fountains developers are rooting all the time for neighboring Highway 153 developers. Development begets development, it's said.

"We want them to be successful,"says Brock, who was particularly happy to see the Oak Park development bring a haul at its recent sale, helping cement the validity of the project.

Gary Patrick, president of Sundown Properties, agrees. His company has 18 acres of developed land - utilites ready and all - across Highway 153 from the Fountains, and he's looking to another, soon-coming major development to usher in a new wave of growth.

The monster planned residential and retail community Hillocks Farm is close to finally seeing construction begin on a $100 million project just south of Sundown Properties' land and the Fountains development.

In addition to 500,000 square feet of commercial space, Hillocks Farm is set to add 280 apartments on its 190-acre site near Boy Scout Road. There will also be 250,000 square feet of office space. Work isn't expected to start until perhaps 2016, but the very prospect of another major development - the Oak Park of its day, plus some - has Patrick geared up.

"It appears that it's going to be one of the nicest developments in Chattanooga," he says.

And he's ready to see it started, because likely, it will spark a tremendous growth spurt in the area.

"We have already talked to several prospective tenants," Patrick says.

Like Brock, Patrick said retailers have been contacting him in the last several weeks looking for potential space and land, after years of silence.

The soon-coming addition of Hillocks Farm and a brand-new, $16 million assisted living facility off Grubb Road by Regency Senior Living should help jumpstart other development and get back the trajectory set forth before the recession.

Duane Horton, developer of Hillocks Farm, says construction could soon begin on the long-discussed project.

"We anticipate being able for the apartment or multi-family phase to begin by mid-2015," he says, "as well as the improvements of widened 153 and the red lights for 153."

Jack Lonas, owner of the Hillocks Farm property, initiated the project by contacting Horton. And Horton says the main traffic thoroughfares Highway 27 and Highway 153 made the spot particularly attractive.

"[Highway] 153 and 27 is a major intersection with corridors leading to wide-service areas that I think feed very nicely to this point," says Horton.

He believes commercial development in north Chattanooga has generally lagged behind residential growth.

"That side of the river has limited commercial development but continued residential growth,"says Horton.

He also says the start of Hillocks Farm and the general growth at north 153 "goes a long way toward completing development along that perimeter area."

The other developers agree.

North Hixson "is a large population center," says Patrick. "Really, it needs a larger retail selection in that area. There are still so many retailers that are not available to that community."

Clint Wolford thinks north Hixson will keep growing.

"I believe Hixson is an underserved market right now," he says.

Hillocks Farm could develop into the biggest new commercial complex since Hamilton Place opened in 1987. But rezoning and developing the site for Hillocks Farm has been a controversial. Residents of the area hated it when it was proposed years ago as Chattanooga Village, and they initially hated it under the new name.

But city leaders, Horton and Lonas continually met with residents and tried to reach a compromise.

They did, ultimately.

"A lot of it was just establishing good communication with the community," says Horton. "Once we were able to have good dialogue, we were able to have good effective communication and solve a lot of issues."

He says the project is ultimately better for it.

Because like the Wolfords' Oak Park Town Center, Horton's Hillocks Farm follows the old builders' adage: if it was easy, it would have already been done.

This story originally appeared in Edge magazine.