I wish I had ten 300s around downtown. I think you could fill every one of them.
People aren't just flocking to downtown Chattanooga, they're downsizing, too, and opting for dwellings that are tiny by suburban standards.
Chattanooga's city center is having its biggest burst of residential development in decades, with some 1,740 new apartments and condos slated to open over the next few years, thanks to new construction and retrofitting and repurposing existing buildings. And many of the dwellings planned for the Scenic City's downtown - dozens of apartments and a handful of homes - are small, between 300 and 700 square feet.
Take, for example, the Ross Hotel, a long-vacant, four-story structure at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Patten Parkway that was built in 1888. It's now being gutted and remodeled into the "Tomorrow Building" that will lease 43 so-called "micro-living" apartments each about 300 square feet in size that are expected to cost $850 a month to rent.
It's meant to house creative, young professionals such as those who work nearby in the Loveman's Building, the headquarters of the Lamp Post Group, an "incubator" for entrepreneurial startup businesses. The building will have common living and "innovation spaces" where tenants can collaborate on emerging projects and ideas, according to Lamp Post, which is doing the renovation project as a joint venture with the nonprofit redevelopment group, the River City Co.
The Tomorrow Building's tiny apartments are likely to be snapped up - based on the experience developer Bob McKenzie has had several blocks away at The 300. It's a 10-story apartment building at 300 W. Sixth St. that used to be the St. Barnabas Apartments for senior citizens. McKenzie, John Clark and David Hudson bought the building for $1.4 million in 2012 and spent about $2 million renovating it into 112 "New York-style" studio and one-bedroom apartments that range in size from 375 to 750 square feet. Rent is $695 a month for studios and $920 a month for one-bedrooms, including water and electricity.
Amenities include one free spot per apartment in a parking structure across the street, proximity to the YMCA downtown and a common area with a kitchen, large-screen television and comfy chairs.
Vacancies are almost unknown at The 300, McKenzie said.
"I was I had 10 '300s' around downtown," he said. "I think you could fill every one of them."
Pint-sized apartments
Passenger Flats is another "new" complex downtown that offers apartments at the pint-sized end of the spectrum.
The 96 studio apartments are 350 square feet in size at the three-story, former hotel building on the 9-acre grounds of the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, which is currently is undergoing renovations. Monthly rent, which includes all utilities and free wifi, ranges from $700 to $800 for a studio to about $1,100 for a one-bedroom.
"I love it," said Carol Loree, who's got one of only two one-bedroom apartments at Passenger Flats. Her living space is 675 square feet.
Loree, who works from home as a freelance editing and writing project manager, has rented and owned homes in the past.
"I've moved several times, and downsized significantly every time," she said. "I'm drawn to minimalistic living."
Apartment living means no lawn to mow, leaves to rake or repairs to make. One thing Loree likes about Passenger Flats is that the price includes everything-all utilities and wifi.
"It helps makes life very simple - and I'm definitely into that," Loree said. "Plus the Southside has great restaurants and coffee shops within easy walking distance."
"I usually grab my backpack and ride my bike to Whole Foods or Publix for groceries, and I feel like such a green urban dweller," she said. "I've actually dreamed of living like this for a long time, and it's doable here."
About one-third of 98 Passenger Flats' units are rented, Apartment Manager Cat Collier Martinez says. That's a good number, or about half of the 70 people she's shown the apartments since the city granted a certificate of occupancy in late October.
"It's going well," Collier Martinez said. "The target audience is young business and professionals."
About half of the tenants are in the 25 to 35 age range, she said, and the other half are aged 40 to 65.
"The primary draw is the location, for sure," Collier Martinez said.
Tiny homes, too
In addition to the dozens of tiny apartments available in downtown Chattanooga, there's at least one new tiny home - and seven more on tap.
Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, a nonprofit organization whose goals include "housing for all," has several offers pending for a new, 532-square-foot home that it built at 810 S. Willow St.
With 10-foot-high ceilings, the one-bedroom house with a bathroom, living area and kitchen feels larger than its floorplan suggests. It's a got a small fenced yard, it's on a solid foundation and it isn't going anywhere - unlike the "tiny houses" on wheels that are featured on the A&E Network TV show "Tiny House Nation."
So CNE calls it a "cottage house," not a tiny house, said Martina Guilfoil, the organization's president and CEO.
"For a while, I was calling it a 'McTiny,'" Guilfoil said. "It's like the McMansion variation of the tiny home."
Located in Chattanooga's Highland Park neighborhood - one of the city's oldest - the cottage is close to downtown.
But its cost of ownership, not its location, may be its strongest selling point.
CNE figures the monthly payment for mortgage, taxes, insurance and the like will be about $650. With its energy-efficient construction, the electric bill will only be about $20 a month, Guilfiol said. It's a brand-new house, she said, so the maintenance costs will be zero.
"It's affordable to somebody earning about $12 an hour," Guilfoil said. "What we call it is our market-driven approach for affordable housing."
CNE expects to break even on the house. And it plans to build more on a chunk of land behind the cottage house.
"We have plans to build seven more cottage homes," Guilfoil said.
Cost - for both residents and builders - is one of the drivers behind the tiny dwelling trend, said McKenzie, a longtime developer whose past projects include the construction in 2005 of Frazier Place, a 30-unit apartment building with downstairs retail space and upstairs studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments on Chattanooga's North Shore.
"Given how much it costs to build downtown, it's really smaller units with lower rents that have the most appeal," he said.