What’s next?
The Chattanooga Design Studio will present and discuss the South Broad Street District Plan from 5 to 6:30 p.m, Monday night in meeting room 1A at the Development Resource Center, 1250 Market St. The plan will go to the planning commission in March and be presented again to the Chattanooga City Council for approval in April.
Not too many years ago, Chattanooga’s South Broad area teemed with workers wearing hardhats and carrying lunchboxes into the Wheland, Combustion, U.S. Pipe and Eureka foundries.
The streets were dirty, and the air carried the scent of sweat, metal and good wages.
For better and worse, those days are gone, and we’re left with the ghostly rusting ruins of yesteryear’s industry. Scores of surrounding acres – about 400 – are now largely fallow, dotted with empty, crumbling parking lots and rundown homes.
We’ve been here before.