It appears a potential $60,000 loss by the city of Chattanooga on a parking lot in the burgeoning Southside won’t be the last word on the property.
The Chattanooga Downtown Redevelopment Corp. (CDRC) agreed Monday to accept a proposal by developer Hiren Desai for slightly more than a half-acre parking lot at 1200 King St., which the city bought a decade ago for $195,000, but the board agreed to negotiate a contract with the developer based on the property’s fair-market value and not on its assessed value – and what Desai had bid – of $134,700.
“We don’t even know what the final price and the lease agreement would be,” said Stacy Richardson, a CDRC board member and chief of staff for Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke. “Just because we approve this today doesn’t mean the property is sold.”
Desai and co-developer Jimmy White want to turn their adjacent six-story storage building into a commercial development that could include upper-floor apartments, a microbrewery and other first-floor commercial lease space. The parking lot also would be adjacent, on the other side, to a four-story, 108-room hotel that Desai and White plan to build on property they already own at the corner of King and Market streets.
In January, Desai told the Times Free Press, he hoped the city would lease him the parking lot for a nominal feel. At the time, he said he had told city officials, “If you don’t give it to us, we’ll just keep it as a storage building.”