Chattanoogan Claudia Pullen says she recently visited her native Italy, took her children to shops where she had gone while growing up and people still knew her.
"It was a safe, comfortable and familiar environment. That's what I want," she said about a $21 million mixed-used development she and her husband have planned for St. Elmo.
Pullen and husband Billy, a St. Elmo veterinarian, are designing what has been termed a transformative project for the Chattanooga neighborhood. Having received to date all the city approvals needed to move ahead, she said the work is under design with groundbreaking potentially next spring.
The first part of the multi-phase project is to go up on the former SunTrust Bank block on Tennessee Avenue and West 38th Street, Pullen said. The old bank branch will be razed and plans call for a multi-level, 240-space parking garage. Retail or office space would go on the bottom level facing West 38th.
Also on that tract, a possible boutique hotel and added shop space is anticipated.
Pullen said she and her husband have put on continuing education conferences in the past and drawn lots of attendees, including other veterinarians, and that sparked the idea that St. Elmo needs a hotel.
"Nothing big, but a boutique hotel," she said. "We've talked to multiple people. We'll partner up with the hotel."
At the same time, her husband's animal hospital, Veterinary Care and Specialty Group, plans to relocate to a new 15,000-square-foot facility they're building not far away on Broad Street.
The 45-year-old veterinarian, a Baylor School and University of Georgia graduate, said the new space will be almost four times the existing office, which sits on Tennessee Avenue in front of the Food City where he has practiced for three years.
"We thought there would be a need for a bigger place," said Pullen, who grew up in Trenton, Georgia. "We didn't think it would be this soon. We're ahead of schedule."
The Pullens said the new 24-hour, 365-day animal hospital, which specializes in dogs and cats, is slated to open in mid-2020 will provide space for added services. In addition, while the animal hospital will face Broad Street, up to 11 townhomes are to be raised in the rear of the tract toward St. Elmo Avenue.
Claudia Pullen said the Broad Street site is "100 percent better logistically. It freed us up to do a different kind of development."
The Pullens, who met in Philadelphia where they had both traveled for schooling, said they own the existing building housing the animal hospital and are not sure what they plan to do with that structure when the facility moves.
"This will be incorporated into something," she said. "That's the last piece of the puzzle."
According to the St. Elmo plan, both the Tap Room Building and 1885 restaurant on Tennessee Avenue will stay, but three- or four-story buildings would be constructed to hold shop space and potential residences.
In the restored Tap Room Building, the couple have their offices. Also, Claudia Pullen said, her father operates a longtime business.
The eldest daughter of three, she said the family has reinvested in development. Pullen said the St. Elmo project is "very personal."
"We don't flip things," she said. "This is my home, too."
Over the course of the years in which they assembled their property, Pullen said there was a time when financiers had a hard time believing in the redevelopment of St. Elmo. But, she said, that idea has changed.
"This is going to be an awesome place to be," Pullen said, noting the entire development could be done over two to three years.
Meanwhile, the adjacent South Broad District is undergoing an array of new and planned development.
This spring, a developer of a new Publix supermarket nearby off Broad Street on a site that held the Mt. Vernon Restaurant for decades won a bruising zoning battle.
Also off Broad Street, new housing and commercial space is planned for a tract at West 33rd Street.
Hundreds of townhouses, apartments or condos are slated for that 15.6-acre parcel across from Chattanooga Christian School. Up to 450 housing units could go on the site, according to planning documents submitted to the city.
In addition, the owners of the Wheland and U.S. Pipe properties within the South Broad District are looking at redeveloping that property, with a potential new Chattanooga Lookouts multi-use entertainment venue serving at the centerpiece.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.