Chattanooga’s famous Warehouse Row is roaring back.
After slumping from bustling regional attraction to a mostly vacant complex, a new push to sign up tenants appears to be working. The early 20th-century complex of eight warehouses again echoes with voices after a decade of fits and starts that caused some to question the property’s future.
The former outlet mall hit its peak under then-owner Prime Outlets in the 1990s, when the complex housed about 30 outlet stores for name-brand manufacturers. By 2006, fewer than half of its 23 tenants were retail establishments.
The north building’s 175,000 square feet of office space lay completely empty, and most of the retail tenants had fled by the time that Atlanta-based Jamestown bought the building later the same year.
Though local favorite Blue Coast Burrito sold salads like gangbusters to TVA employees during the lunch hour, a few hours later the complex was empty.