For Chattanoogans who have wondered how the city’s downtown revitalization could continue in the coming years, the six Urban Design Challenge events sponsored over the past year by the River City Co. have provided an inspiring answer. Indeed, the visionary results of this friendly ad hoc competition among local architects, planners and urban design thinkers are simply too comprehensive and too stunning to put away on a shelf.
The Design Challenge worked like this: River City leaders and two local consultants picked out six downtown sites that are either under-utilized, barren or outright eyesores. Six volunteer redesign teams were assembled from the architectural and planning community, and each was assigned to create a redevelopment plan for one of the selected sites. Every two months, one of the teams rolled out its plan in a public presentation.
Raising the bar
No one expects future development to implement all the concepts created by the design teams to foster rejuvenation of the sites. But their work has clearly elevated the conversation about the city’s unmined potential, and raised the bar for what the community can expect in urban redevelopment. In fact, some of their ideas are already being reviewed in light of Design Challenge recommendations. The Tennessee Department of Transportation, for example, is now reviewing its Highway 27 remodeling proposals for the Fourth Street ramps and a roundabout at M.L. King Boulevard.
Sites for the Design Challenge included: The barren eyesore of vacant land in the 700 block of Market Street; the old Civic Forum site, now just a parking lot, at Market and 11th Streets; the under-utilized Patten Parkway loop off Georgia Avenue; the uninviting Fourth Street corridor that juts from the Highway 27 ramps into the riverfront district, harshly dividing it from the middle section of downtown; the Vine Street corridor bound by parking lots on the north side from Georgia Avenue to the UTC campus; and the desolate Main and Broad intersection that, together with the odorous nearby chicken plant, inhibits redevelopment of what could be an appealing Southside gateway neighborhood into downtown from Interstate 24.