A developer on Thursday won city approval to move ahead on one of the biggest apartment and commercial projects ever in Chattanooga's riverfront area.
Work on the mix of new apartments, townhouses, commercial space and a parking garage on two Unum parking lots off Fourth Street is due to start in 2019, said Alan McMahon of The Beach Company of Charleston, South Carolina.
"We'll have a high-quality project - class A," he said after winning design approvals from the city's Form-Based Code Committee about the development estimated by a local source at about $48 million.
UnumGroup parking lots (Staff graphic by Matt McClane)Some 151 apartments and a dozen townhouses, along with 16,000 square feet of office and retail space, are to go up on the lots, adding to the array of new housing downtown.
Six separate buildings, the biggest at five stories at one point, are to hold the project. Also, a 300-space parking garage is slated for the center of the largest lot, according to the company.
The biggest parking lot is bounded by Cherry, Walnut, Third and Fourth streets and is used for public parking. A smaller adjacent lot across Cherry Street and behind the Hair of the Dog pub, also now is public parking.
McMahon said the entire project will be erected at one time, taking roughly 20 to 24 months to complete.
He said a name hasn't been chosen, though the company tries to pick one that "means something to the local community."
McMahon said it's too early to provide the rates for the residential units.
All the commercial space, slated to hold retail and offices, will go along Fourth Street with some of the residential units above it, he said.
"We'll try to design these spaces in way that gives us maximum flexibility," McMahon said. He said that the company and the seller of the lots, Chattanooga-based insurer Unum, have gone through "a pretty extensive design process. ... We got good feedback from them."
Richard Meadows, Unum's associate vice president of corporate real estate, has declined to reveal the sales price of the lots due to a nondisclosure agreement.
He said that real estate is another way to support Unum's insurance business operations.
Meadows said "any disposition of real estate assets needs to complement our corporate campus, create a positive return for our shareholders, and further advance the development of Chattanooga's downtown area."
Kim White, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit downtown redevelopment group River City Co., said River City has been working with The Beach Company for about three years on the proposal. She said the site is a gateway to the city.
While downtown has seen a flurry of new housing, mostly apartments, much of it isn't going up in that part of the riverfront area, White said. She said the area's employment base with Unum, Erlanger hospital and other entities is large.
"It will capture some of that market," White said.
A recently completed downtown parking study said the Unum lots weren't heavily used by the public and that's not the highest use for the property, she said.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.