When David Paschall and partners joined to form the Transparency Health investment fund in Chattanooga that focuses on health care technology companies, they knew they were doing something “unique in the space.”
But the physical space where they’ve located their offices is in the Fleetwood Building, a 100-year-old renovated structure where coffee was roasted for decades that hearkens back to Chattanooga’s rich manufacturing past.
Just outside one of the entrances to the former Alstom plant, Jimmy White, president of West End Property LLC, talks about the possibilities for usage of the massive Alstom property.“To be a part of this building is a blessing,” says Paschall about the red-brick bastion at East 11th and King streets that was repurposed in a more than $10 million project by Noon Development.
As downtown and its neighboring areas continue to be redeveloped, more and more former manufacturing buildings are finding new uses, not only as job sites but as housing and retail locations.
The leasing agent for the Fleetwood and a variety of other Chattanooga buildings undergoing repurposing for new tenants is Second Story Real Estate Management. It takes its name from the idea that the uses and stories of buildings change and often take on second and third lives with new tenants and owners.