Look what’s coming to the North Shore

We've got plenty of developers still curious and trying to make their numbers work."

In the second multimillion-dollar project unveiled in a week on Chattanooga’s trendy North Shore, a local developer is planning to raise a three-story, mixed-use building.

The office and retail structure at Cherokee Boulevard and Manning Street would sit a block or so from a five-story, 85-unit apartment building proposed last week and continues to push the area’s redevelopment.

George Bright, president of the Fletcher Bright Co., said plans are to break ground this fall at 325 Cherokee, which will hold a restaurant or retail space on the first floor with offices above it.

“With the Publix located at [the other end of] Manning,that made that a different kind of intersection than it was a few years ago,” he said about the site.

Cardon Smith, the company’s vice president, put the 18,000-square-foot project at more than $3.5 million.

“North Shore area growth is expanding out that way,” he said, adding the intersection is the next main one on Cherokee Boulevard after North Market Street.

Jim Williamson, vice president of planning and development for the nonprofit downtown group River City Co., said the North Shore has the essentials such as eateries, stores and night life to woo interest from developers and residents.

“We’ve got plenty of developers still curious and trying to make their numbers work,” he said.

Smith said the planned brick structure at 325 Cherokee will take the place of a one-story commercial building, going up next door to Dojo Chattanooga and Suck Creek Cycle. No city incentives are being sought, he said.

With the building slated to open early next summer, the site also would hold 48 parking spaces in the rear, officials said.

Bright said developers considered putting apartments at the location but the lot lays out better for office space. Neither office users or a restaurant for the site have been signed up yet, he said.

Just last week, Vision Hospitality Group, Chattanooga’s largest hotel developer, revealed plans for the nearby apartment building on a vacant lot at Cherokee and Manufacturers Road. That project, which officials estimated at costing “north of $10 million,” would hold apartments with rents potentially ranging from $900 to $1,600 a month, officials said.

Fletcher Bright Co. built the 203-unit One North Shore condominium project off Manufacturers Road in 2007. The largest residential project in North Chattanooga, sales struggled during the recession but it now has only one condominium left, according to its website.

Williamson said the city is in the early stages of looking at traffic flow on the North Shore as development is ongoing.

“They’re looking at that as a multi-model philosophy,” he said, noting planners are wanting to promote a mixutre of walking, biking and car driving.

Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.