The extension of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway from Hawthorne Street to Bonny Oaks Drive which was hoped to be completed in time for summer fun has been pushed back.
"[The contractors] are saying in July or August sometime it will be finished," said Chattanooga Parks and Recreation Administrator Larry Zehnder. "I'm really looking forward to it. We've done inspections for the part of the South Chickamauga Greenway from Hawthorne to Waterhaven. We'll probably be announcing that for public usage in the not too far future."
The rest of the overall approximately 4-mile extension is being held up by previous issues with flooding and continuing problems with the amount of rock in the area. A bridge which is currently being designed and fabricated had to be moved as a result.
"When we're able to go out and look at that it's really going to open some eyes to the environmental greatness in Chattanooga," Zehnder said. "It's everywhere, in every neighborhood. We just can't get there because we have no access points."
Once the whole section is complete, only about two gaps will remain in connecting the overall area, according to local Trust for Private Land Director Rick Wood: an approximately 3-mile section between Shallowford Road and the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, and a roughly 1-mile section from Hawthorne to the Riverwalk.
"We can't do much without land," Zehnder said. "We've got to have land and we've got to have money. There's nothing [else] coming up."
He said the Greenway will move forward as these things become available, with the next section being wherever land is donated for the cause.
"Connecting Enterprise South to the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway, really that is down the road, after we finish North Chick and South Chick and the Riverwalk," Zehnder said.
Plans call for the Riverwalk to be extended to the base of Lookout Mountain. A grant recently received is helping with the overall $4.9 million project.
"That is taking a lot of emphasis right now," said Zehnder. "Sometimes other Greenways have to wait. If you only have $10 where are you going to spend it? We've got to strike where the iron is hot."