Terminal Brewhouse building sale comes with Rolling Rock beer

The planned auction of a century-old, historic building in downtown Chattanooga next month will feature what the company handling the public sale calls "an unheard-of landlord benefit."

The building's buyer will secure a lease with The Terminal Brewhouse restaurant occupying the structure that includes 12 free, cold Rolling Rock beers a month for the next 12 years.

That's 1,728 cold ones over the lease term, according to John Dixon & Associates.

The late Joe Sliger, a Chattanooga contractor who owned the building, had written it in the lease provision with the restaurant, said Henry Glascock, who is running the auction.

"He was kind of a character," Glascock said about Sliger, who about a decade ago helped save the wedge-shaped building on Market Street near the Chattanooga Choo Choo from demolition.

The Terminal building is among more than two dozen properties owned by Sliger's estate slated for auction on Feb. 4.

Sliger, who ran Eastman Construction Co. when he died in 2012 at age 64, had picked up the properties over the years, Glascock said. They include single-family houses, a few multifamily units, a commercial building off Amnicola Highway along with The Terminal.

Glascock said a number of the houses are located in trendy North Chattanooga.

"He had a knack of picking locations well ahead of the curve," he said about Sliger. Glascock said the manager for Sliger's estate lives out of the city and doesn't have the time to continue to oversee the properties.

He hopes the auction will garner several million dollars, with The Terminal the most valuable of the sites. The Hamilton County Assessor of Properties appraises the building that houses The Terminal at 6 E. 14th St., to be worth $698,500.

The Terminal is located at the corner of Market and Main Streets.

The three-level Terminal building dates back to 1909, according to the restaurant's website. It was built shortly after the opening of nearby Terminal [Railroad] Station, which occupies the Choo Choo site, serving as a hotel.

Then called The Stong Building, it featured steam-heated rooms and meals were served at all hours in a cafe.

Over the years, the website said, legend holds the building was home to speakeasies during Prohibition, illegal casinos and "a house of ill repute."

In the early 1940s, Chester Davis, a porter in Terminal Station, bought the building. He became one of Chattanooga's first black business owners, the website said.

The building stayed in the family, housing different businesses, until it was purchased by Sliger in 2006.

In 2009, Chattanooga businessman Matt Lewis opened The Terminal Brewhouse. He couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday, but he told the Times Free Press in 2012 that the city needed a brewpub.

"It's kind of an old-world idea, the local brewery feeding the community," Lewis said.

While the Southside of Chattanooga is a development hot spot now, a decade ago there were few reasons to go to that part of downtown after work hours. It took $1.5 million from the building's owner, Lewis and his partners to ready the structure for opening day, news archives said.

Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.