An $8 million makeover to the Chattanooga Choo Choo is expected to accompany the city's Southside renaissance and transform a street used to store dumpsters into a concentrated area of live entertainment.
Investors say the Choo Choo's renovations -- which include a sports bar, seafood restaurant and a new 500-person music venue -- will be located along Market and 14th streets near popular music venue Track 29, creating a more centralized hub for multiple entertainment venues downtown.
Jon Kinsey, left, and his son, Adam, talk about plans beneath the grand dome in the Chattanooga Choo Choo."We want 14th Street to be the entertainment street of the city," said Jon Kinsey, part owner of the Choo Choo and former Chattanooga mayor. "We expect over 300,000 people a year coming to those entertainment venues."
When the plans were announced last year, officials said sprucing up the city's iconic symbol is what Chattanooga needs to grow night life. The City Council soon approved a plan to create a music district that allows venues to play music at louder decibel levels in a two-mile radius with the Choo Choo at its center.
The Comedy Catch will also move from Brainerd to the complex by this summer. The renovations are projected to be complete by August 2015.
The opening date was set back several months earlier this year, Kinsey said. It will take longer than initially expected to upgrade the more-than-a-century old building .
But once the complex is complete, the as-yet unnamed, music venue, to be operated by AC Entertainment, which also runs Track 29, will hold 500 people. It will attract local bands or up-and-coming artists with a similar vibe to Nashville's Mercy Lounge or the Terminal West in Atlanta, said Kinsey's son, Adam, co-owner of Track 29.
"Chattanooga doesn't really have a 500-person venue. That's the void we're looking to fill," he said.
Both the music venue and the Comedy Catch also plan to have separate bars that will be open even if an act isn't playing, which allows both places to be operational daily.
Along with the new venues, the Choo Choo's owners announced this year that they would turn 97 hotel rooms into apartments. Most will be 350 square foot and will rent for $740 a month.
The residential development is expected to cost $4.1 million.