This month downtown will get some poppin’ fresh businesses thanks to Project Popup, a River City innovation. Located on Chestnut Street in the long abandoned strip known as CitiPark, the project gives new shops and restaurants rent-free space for six months, with hopes they’ll stay much longer. The idea is to bring some much needed foot traffic to the City Center district, an area most known for office space. Here’s a toast to downtown’s hottest new retail corridor.
IRON LABS
Owners: Darwyn Siplin and Aaron Welch
Why you must go: If you’ve ever rocked a living room with an Xbox or pulled an all-nighter after one of Halo’s new releases, then Iron Labs is your new gaming headquarters – stacked wall-to-wall with gaming consoles, projectors, a professional-grade Rock Band stage, Wii bowling alley, 3-D Halo 3 arena and more.
The concept: The idea is to turn gaming into a social experience, much like a modern-day arcade. Instead of playing at home alone or with a few friends, Iron Labs allows face-to-face interaction with regular gaming events and tournaments held in its state-of-the-art facility. Casual gamers are also welcome for birthday parties, corporate events or even to pop by for a digital lunch break thanks to a Tron-inspired café.
Why Popup? Graduates of the GigTank, Siplin and Welch decided in order to get their idea of hosting computer game tournaments off the ground, they first had to launch Chattanooga’s only LAN gaming center. Popup allowed them to focus start-up funds on what matters most – hardware.