The good news is the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District will go forward - even with an adjacent law enforcement firing range. But it shouldn't have to.
Within two years, according to Brad Bennett, superintendent of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the first phase of work at the 10-acre gateway to the archeological district should be underway.
But the firing range needs to go.
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"Having a firing range is incompatible with the desired visitor experience," he said. "It is not a good fit."
It's time for the city and county to get serious about relocating the facility, which sits on 33 acres that are critical for the proper development of the park and its use by history buffs, hikers, bikers and kayakers.
Unfortunately, it appears the two governments have dug in their heels. Just last week, reports surfaced that the city and county together were ready to spend $300,000 - including the installation of a portable building - to upgrade the firing range.
Both city and county officials have said they want to give the firing range property to the National Park Service (NPS). Indeed, park officials have a letter of intent in effect for another year from the two governments to do just that. But one would think the city or county isn't going to spend more than a quarter of a million dollars on something they're about to abandon.
Bennett hopes through the public process of the park's new 20-year plan, which will begin in October, "the right answer will emerge."
"I think the people will speak," he said.
Park planning is going forward, including the possibility of a trail along the NPS-owned easement on the firing range property beside the river. However, moving the range would offer much greater access to a location that a 1998 local, state and federal assessment said "cannot be matched in any other American metropolitan area."
Leaving the range in place would mar the visitor experience with the sounds of gunfire, could force visitors to get in their cars to enjoy another part of the park (rather than walking or biking), could prevent the ease in locating a boat launch along the river, might keep people from learning first-hand about the new district and almost assuredly would negatively affect overall tourism in Chattanooga, Bennett maintains.
It ruins "the natural quiet one expects in national park settings," he said.
And that says nothing about the windows that rattle in the BlueCross BlueShield headquarters atop Cameron Hill when law enforcement explodes things at the range or the gunfire that can be heard at the new Cameron Harbor homes going up across the river on the south shore.
Just two years ago, it appeared a deal had been struck that would move the firing range. A $4 million indoor shooting facility behind the police substation on 12th Street was approved by the county and the city. Had ground been broken in March 2013, as was at one point anticipated, the facility would be in use today.
The city and county would have paid $1.5 million each for construction of the building, and federal grants would have covered $1.05 million.
However, by October 2013, architectural fees and soil remediation costs at the 12th Street site had pushed up the cost of the facility. In August 2014, the two governments learned environmental cleanup of the Moccasin Bend site, for which they would be responsible, would cost $1.2 million.
The potential combined $5 million to $6 million hit to city and county coffers for the new building and the ground cleanup were too much to bear, and discussion halted.
Since then, any talk of relocation of the firing range (and bomb detonation field) seemed to be steered by city and county officials to its vital importance in the public safety and proper training of law enforcement officials.
The potential upgrade of the firing range, which has not been approved by either the city or county, came to light the same week the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency revealed its North Shore Public Spaces Design Project. Part of that project was an illustration depicting how the Tennessee Riverwalk will connect Coolidge Park to the future site of the archaeological district visitors center.
Bennett anticipates that construction of the Riverwalk and of the archaeological district gateway could coincide in just a few years, giving the area its own "golden spike moment."
Area law enforcement personnel deserve a proper place where they can train, but the current one - surrounded on three sides by National Park Service land - is no longer the place for such activity.
It's time for city and county leaders, and whatever other stakeholders are necessary, to fund and build a new firing range complex. It's difficult to believe a suitable place somewhere in the county couldn't be found that fits the bill.
It's time for our elected leaders to lead and to give precedence to a national park with 12,000 years of history.