Chattanooga developers Hiren Desai and Jimmy White want to repurpose a multi-story storage building at 1208 King St. and let new businesses, including a new microbrewery, lease space on the first floor. The upper floors of the building, which is six stories near King Street and four stories in back, may be redeveloped into apartments.
The 105-year-old, brick storage building is right next to another property Desai owns at the corner of King and Market streets, where he plans to build the Moxy Hotel, a four-story, 102-room hotel that’s a hip, new brand of Mariott International that caters to youthful travelers.
But the developers will only repurpose the storage building, Desai said, if the city agrees to let him use a roughly half-acre, city-owned parking lot at 1200 King St. just north of the storage building property – basically free of charge.
“For us to make it work, it’d have to be a lease for a nominal fee,” Desai said Friday by phone from Atlanta. He said he told city officials, “If you don’t give it to us, we’ll just keep it as a storage building.”
The parking lot is owned by the Chattanooga Downtown Redevelopment Corp. (CDRC). City Council voted in April to hand the parking lot over to the CDRC as surplus property that had the potential for higher and better use.