The McNabb Center has purchased the former Greyhound bus terminal near Chattanooga’s airport to help expand the center’s mental health services, including its peer support program.
The former bus station at 960 Airport Road will be renovated over the next year to help provide better, more accessible space for many of those already served by the McNabb Center’s eight other facilities in Chattanooga, according to Gayle Lodato, senior director of Greater Chattanooga Area services for the McNabb Center.
“We are excited to have the opportunity to be able to move and expand some of our services into a new, more suitable location,” Lodato said in an announcement of the new plans on Wednesday. “This change will allow us to continue to grow our services and find new ways to best meet the needs of the community.”
The 4,210-square-foot bus terminal was built in 1997 on nearly 1.5 acres and was used by Greyhound for nearly 25 years before the bus company relocated its local terminal to its current drop-off and loading site at 740 E. 12th Street downtown. The Helen Ross McNabb Center Inc. bought the site for $650,000 last October, according to Hamilton County property records.
The center’s peer support programming, which will relocate into the Airport Road facility, is now provided at another McNabb Center location with an aging building that is not sufficient to serve the growing clientele.