Hoping to capture students from both the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga State Community College, a Virginia-based developer plans to build a 600-bed apartment complex on vacant property at 1428 Riverside Drive, near the future extension of Central Avenue.
The site is immediately across from the Riverside Business Center, where CSL Plasma is located.
Wes Bradley, president of University Housing Group, said the company has eyed Chattanooga for some time and at one point even explored rehabilitating the old Chattanooga Bank building downtown for student housing.
A group of high school seniors and their parents get a tour of UTC student housing facilities in this 2013 file photo. The money didn’t work out in that case, he said, but Tennessee has “good economics” and kept the company’s attention. Bradley said he simply reached out to someone about purchasing the 13.5-acre lot off Riverside, and was able to strike a deal.
Other private developers are also moving on the Chattanooga market recently, with Riverside Development building a 275,000-square-foot, 690-bed student housing complex — dubbed Douglas Heights — off M.L. King Boulevard downtown.