VW building 60,000-square-foot ‘tent’ for event

Construction begins on a temporary building to house a worldwide conference of VW’s top leaders on the site of the company’s Chattanooga manufacturing plant at the Enterprise South industrial park in this file photo.

Volkswagen is rolling out the red carpet for a meeting in Chattanooga of its top managers worldwide in September and putting up a temporary 60,000-square-foot structure just for the event.

VW is raising the pavilion next to its Chattanooga assembly plant where it will host the 225 top global VW officials, managers and their wives.

“For a temporary structure, I was impressed,” Dallas Rucker, building official for the city, said Friday as he looked at blueprints of the structure going up off Volkswagen Drive.

Rucker estimated the pavilion at about 60,000-square-feet in size, and plans indicate it will hold a stage, kitchen, toilets and a bar. Rucker said smaller tented units are to be put up outside the main pavilion.