Though no developments around the new Chattanooga Lookouts stadium are rising yet, the site’s master developer visited the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Sports Authority Board to express confidence in future investment.
“Even though we haven’t talked in a minute, I’m here, and we’re working hard and incredibly excited about the progress we’re making,” Jim Irwin, president of Atlanta-based New City Properties, told the board Thursday. “Everything’s right on track.”
Erlanger Park, the $115 million stadium under construction at the former U.S. Pipe/Wheland Foundry site in the South Broad district, is on schedule for completion by the Lookouts’ 2026 season.
Chattanooga-based EMJ Construction, the general contractor for the stadium, has spent around $33 million on the project as of June, according to data the city presented at the meeting.
Lookouts stadium developer says surrounding investment will come
Irwin and officials from the team and city estimate the stadium will be a catalyst for $1 billion or more of private development in the area.
New City Properties is designing the first phase of private development, a 290-unit residential building on land it purchased from Perimeter Properties, which owns the post-industrial site around the stadium.
(READ MORE: $22M condo building to open near Lookouts stadium in summer 2026)
Irwin estimated last year that construction would begin on the building by the end of 2024, but said the timeline changed because of the time it took to finalize the public-private financing deal.
His company is working with local and national architects on an expensive process to design the building, which relies on a finalized stadium design.
The design faces the stadium and includes tempered glass windows to withstand home run balls.
“If something had changed about the stadium, we literally would have had to crumple up months of work and throw it away,” Irwin said in an interview after the meeting. “We’ve compressed the design schedule as much as we can to get it ready, so our goal would be very early next year.”
Irwin did not share a particular budget or timeline for the first private development overlooking the stadium.
“Prudent developers will wait as long as they can to give facts, because when I look at you in the eye and tell you something, I want it to be true,” Irwin said.
‘HOME RUN’
The Sports Authority Board issued $80 million in bonds last year to finance the stadium, which will be paid back largely with additional tax revenue generated by developments in a 470-acre special tax district.
Some developments across South Broad Street are trickling in, like a $22 million condo building called Broadview that’s set to open next summer.
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp, who opposed the stadium project for years, has said development on the Perimeter Properties site directly around the stadium was falling behind schedule.
Wamp told county commissioners at a May budget hearing that the city and county should expect a gap between tax revenue in the district and annual debt payments. The tax district will generate $623,700 of revenue in 2025, according to data he presented.
The first full stadium debt service bill of $5.5 million will hit the city and county in fiscal year 2028, and the city and county should each prepare for a $1.5 million annual shortfall, Wamp said. He recommended the county pull that money from its hotel/motel tax revenues.
“I don’t think the city will deny that we are now confronting a reality where there will be a shortfall,” Wamp told commissioners May 19. “You can drive by and see that the stadium is well under way, but the other developments have not taken place.”
Multiple private developers are being courted to build around the stadium, Irwin said.
He has been responsible for nearly $2 billion of investment around the U.S., according to his online bio, and led development of the 2.1 million-square-foot Ponce City Market in Atlanta.
“The interest is extraordinarily high,” Irwin said of the Perimeter Properties tract. “I have absolutely no reason to believe it will be anything other than a home run.”
Jason Freier, CEO of Atlanta-based Hardball Capital and the managing owner of the Lookouts, said his two other minor league baseball teams spurred development around their new stadiums.
There has been more than $1.2 billion of investment around Parkview Field in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the Fort Wayne TinCaps have played since 2009, Freier said. There has been more than $750 million of investment immediately around Segra Park in Columbia, South Carolina, where the Columbia Fireflies have played since 2016.
Private developers were not going to invest in design or site work before the stadium was a sure thing, he said.
“We are extremely confident that this is going to have the desired impact, and that it’s going to happen relatively quickly,” Freier said in an interview at the naming rights ceremony for Erlanger Park in May. “To look at what’s going on now and expect something to be coming out of the ground just makes no sense.”
Contact Daniel Dassow at ddassow@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.