North Shore residents peppered a Chattanooga developer tonight with worries about parking and traffic worsened by planned new apartments, but company officials indicated the project’s on go.
“There’s going to be somebody killed if the traffic isn’t slowed,” said Brooke Bradley-King, who lives near the planned site of the 84-unit apartment building at Cherokee Boulevard and Manufacturers Road.
She and others at a community meeting raised questions about whether there’s enough parking around the five-story apartment building adjacent to Renaissance Park to handle more cars.
“When there are events, that parking lot is full,” said Marty Littauer, who also lives in the area. She added that it’s already hard to exit the Renaissance Park lot onto Cherokee Boulevard, and the apartments and planned commercial space in the building will add more vehicles.
But Andrew Hibbard, Vision Hospitality Group’s director of investments, told the nearly 40 people at the meeting that plans are to start work on the building in late summer to early fall, with the apartments opening in about a year.
“We’ve been taking in the feedback,” he said, noting the company is trying to ease concerns. But, he said, Vision still needs a financially viable project.
Hibbard has said the project, dubbed The Lofts at Renaissance Park, will cost more than $10 million to build. Rents could range from $900 to $1,600 a month, and the site could have about 14,000-square-feet of ground floor commercial, including a restaurant or two.
North Shore residents said there needs to be solutions to traffic and parking now and not later.
Bradley-King said traffic is already “abominable,” while parking will be “ridiculous.”
“There’s always something going on at Coolidge Park or at Renaissance,” she said.
One critic questioned taking away parking spaces from people who want to visit the park. Others wondered why the developer doesn’t add underground parking. Company officials cited the expense of such parking.
Project architect Craig Peavy said the company is going above and beyond existing zoning requirements. The company plans to provide an additional 26 spaces of surface parking and lease another 75 spaces from CARTA, which manages the lots for the city in the area.
Also, Peavy said, the apartment complex will promote multi-model transportation solutions in the area, even the possibility of offering financial incentives to tenants who use bicycles.
In addition, a city transportation official said it’s looking at new roads between Manufacturers Road and Cherokee Boulevard to aid access in the area.
And, there was talk about CARTA renewing bus service to that part of the North Shore.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.