Developers plan to lure an environmentally-friendly equipment supplier from Boston to Chattanooga with a $2 million Shallowford Road project.
But nearby residents worry the project will bring nothing but noise and traffic to an already busy area.
Mark Settles, vice president of Yerbey Concrete Construction, wouldn’t identify the business, but called the company “the Home Depot of environmental stuff,” such as energy-efficient lighting, needed for green projects. The company’s offices are already located in Chattanooga, but its distribution center is in Boston.
“They want to close Boston and solidify here,” Settles said. “They’re expanding and bringing their out-of-town business to Chattanooga.”
But Shelly Stevens, whose house sits on Agawela Drive just behind the proposed construction site, worries the traffic that comes along with a distribution center could hurt area wildlife, endanger neighborhood children and pollute the neighborhood. She already is regularly awakened at 6 a.m. by garbage trucks on the site, she told city planners Monday, a problem she expects will only worsen.