Many people on the North Shore think they want a new supermarket in the neighborhood so much that they aren’t watching what Publix has in mind for the heart of their neighborhood. They had best open their eyes before it’s too late.
Chattanooga’s North Shore has led downtown’s revival by preserving and restoring the character, architecture and zoning standards that protect and enhance the ambiance of an appealing, pedestrian-oriented, old-fashioned neighborhood.
Developers have embraced that vision. Working within the North Shore’s unique C-7 zoning laws, they have propelled North Chattanooga’s renaissance by building an appealing mix of sidewalk-oriented retail stores and restaurants with plenty of inviting street-level windows, and apartments above. The surrounding neighborhood rounds out the mix with restored Craftsman bungalows and new homes that largely blend in with them.
What Publix demands and would impose — if Mayor Littlefield continues to allow it to run over sensible C-7 zoning laws — is mind-boggling: A 40,000 square-foot, inward-looking, suburban-style big-box supermarket that opens onto an asphalt parking plain for 260 cars. It’s all squeezed into an inappropriately sized section of the North Chattanooga neighborhood under the brow of Stringer’s Ridge on one side, and the green, densely built, hilly neighborhood on the other.
The entire project over two urban blocks will set a bad precedent of allowing a rich national grocery chain to trample the C-7 zoning laws that far smaller developers have respected — the sort of laws that, ironically, Publix has respected in a few other cities. Yet here, its new store will be totally out of character for the North Shore, and as well, out of compliance with the zoning standards that homeowners across the North Shore rely on to secure their quality of life and property values.