The planned One Westside project in downtown Chattanooga, aimed at building out an array of new commercial space and housing, cleared its first public hurdle Monday.
A city panel accepted a developer’s application to create a special tax district to support an estimated $800 million or more of new development on 300 acres straddling Riverfront Parkway on the Westside.
Chattanooga developer Jimmy White of Urban Story Ventures said in an interview after a meeting of the city’s Industrial Development Board that he’d like to break ground in November to start providing the roads, power, water and sewer needed on the 120-acre former Alstom manufacturing site renamed as The Bend.
He said phase one calls for readying the tract for new development along the Main Street corridor that would cut through the south end of the property and eventually connect with the Tennessee River.
“We’ve got the Main Street corridor, which we call phase one,” White said. “Phase two is closer to M.L. King Boulevard.”
He said the infrastructure will equip the parcel to hold building-ready pads for corporate headquarters-type construction, multi-family housing and an urban grocery store.
“Those are in the early, early phases,” White said.
Chattanooga Housing Authority Executive Director Betsy McCright told the panel that it’s a longtime dream to fulfill a plan called Westside Evolves to redo a large site now holding public housing across Riverfront Parkway from The Bend.
She said, for example, that College Hill Courts is the city’s oldest public housing development, having been built in 1940.
“To be quite honest, it has gotten tired,” McCright said.
Plans are to ultimately take down all of College Hill Courts, but do it in phases so residents will see new units coming out of the ground, she said.
“It will be a mixed-income community on the Westside,” McCright said.
She said each new development piece will have at least 40% market-rate renters.
Helen Burns Sharp, founder of the group Accountability for Taxpayer Money, raised more than a half dozen questions about the proposed special tax district during the meeting of the panel. And she expressed frustration in an interview after the meeting that officials failed to address them.
“I was disappointed that no one answered my questions,” Sharp said. “They just ignored those. I know we’re at the beginning, and I know there’s still work to be done, and I know there will be better answers, and maybe that could have been a response.”
White told Sharp after the meeting that he and others will get the questions answered in a formal response.
Late last month, Chattanooga and Hamilton County leaders unveiled the One Westside plan that includes thousands of new homes, more than 1 million square feet in commercial space and future downtown educational opportunities on the 300-acre parcel located between the Tennessee River and U.S. 27.
Creation of the special tax district proposal calls for more than $198 million in public improvements on The Bend alone, documents show.
Jermaine Freeman, interim chief of staff for Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly, said the estimated value of the tax district — potentially the biggest-ever in the city — is upwards of $115 million.
That includes “a substantial contribution” from the district that would go to advancing the Housing Authority’s Westside Evolves redevelopment plan, Freeman said.
Proposed development would be aided by designating the 120 acres at The Bend as a tax increment financing district, setting aside a portion of the new tax revenue generated over 20 years to help pay for the planned infrastructure, educational opportunities and housing, officials said.
In such special tax districts, property taxes normally paid to the city and county on the enhanced value of the property are diverted to instead pay for infrastructure to support development, though all the revenue normally set aside for public school funding will be protected, officials said. Tax increment financing districts are designed as an incentive for new development, especially in blighted areas.
The City Council and County Commission will be expected to review the developer’s application later this month, Freeman said.
An application review committee also will look at the potential tax district, and a public hearing will be set up later, he said. Freeman said approval of the district would be expected to occur well before the end of this year.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.