Passenger Street, a city-owned road, will be expanded through the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel complex, a city board decided Wednesday.
And Passenger Street may someday stretch north all the way to M.L. King Boulevard, former Chattanooga Mayor and Choo Choo owner Jon Kinsey said.
The Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board (HEHF) unanimously approved conveying a piece of city-owned property about 12 feet wide and 120 feet long so Passenger Street can be extended through the Choo Choo complex to provide access for the new, four-story Bluebird Row apartment building that is slated to get under construction this summer on the site of the Track 29 music hall at the Choo Choo complex.
Birmingham, Ala.-based LIV Development, LLC, is building the 284-unit luxury apartment complex that will have a full-size swimming pool, pet spa and 20-seat movie theater when it opens in the summer of 2018.
"This will be the most upscale apartment complex in the whole Hamilton County area," Kinsey said after the meeting. He's one of the owners of the Choo Choo, which is selling land to LIV Development LLC, to make space for Bluebird Row.
LIV Development will pay to extend Passenger Street, he said.
"It is expanding the city's road grid at no expense to the city," Kinsey said. "Right now, there is no connectivity from Main Street north."
Someday - though it may be decades in the future - Kinsey said Passenger Street might be extended north, all the way through what's now the Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant.
"This is an important step in being able to extend the city's road grid," he said.
Hicks Armor, chairman of the HEHF, praised Kinsey, who was at the HEHF meeting, for his role in reviving Chattanooga's Southside neighborhood.
"Mr. Mayor, thank you for your vision and your development and what you've done for your community," Armor said at the meeting.
Although the the $45 million LIV apartment complex will not get any property tax breaks, the Passenger Flats apartments that were opened nearby in a former hotel building at the Choo Choo did.
Passenger Flats has provided at least 20 percent of its tenants with studio apartments at rental rates considered to be low enough for low-to-moderate income, aging or handicapped individuals to lease, according to the resolution that recommended extending Passenger Street through the Choo Choo's property.
Helen Burns Sharp, founder of the Accountability for Taxpayer Money group, opposed the tax breaks for Passenger Flats, claiming that the 350-square-foot apartments renting for more than $700 a month were not adequate for low- or moderate family income residents.
But Kinsey said that the success of the first Passenger Flats apartment building inspired the Choo Choo to create another 105 apartment units that won't have any tax breaks, and that it inspired LIV to build Bluebird Row, which also won't use any tax breaks.
"The developer said they would not have considered this except for the success of Passenger Flats proving the demand was there," Kinsey said. "None of that would have happened, had we not got our PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) for [Passenger Flats]."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or on Twitter @meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.