A planned affordable housing complex on East Main Street got a green light from a Chattanooga planning panel Monday as the corridor remains one of the city's hottest for new residential units.
Vecino Group of Kansas City is proposing a three-story project that will offer 60 apartments at East Main and South Hawthorne Street on a site that long held fragrance scratch-and-sniff label manufacturer Arcade Beauty.
The company, which traces its roots to 1902 in Chattanooga, shifted operations to Amnicola Highway about 10 years ago and the city obtained the East Main site and has used it for warehousing and other purposes.
Tyler Yount, director of special projects in Mayor Andy Berke's office, told the Chattanooga- Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission that 15 units will be set aside for people with mental illness. The AIM Center, which helps adults living with mental illness, will provide support services at the site, he said.
The city would donate the property that takes up the block for people with up to 60% of area medium income, he said.
Yount told the panel that Vecino sought but was denied tax credits for the project because of a zoning issue at the site. To put the company in a position to obtain financing, the city sought rezoning from M-2 Manufacturing to UGC Urban General Commercial, which the panel approved.
He said if Vecino can't proceed, the property will have zoning for a future project.
Planning Commission Chairman Ethan Collier asked if the square feet of the proposed apartment complex would exceed the size for the UGC zone.
Bryan Shults of the panel's staff said the complex would be 54,000 square feet, while the UGC code calls for no more than 12,000 square feet.
Staff File Photo / At the former Arcade Beauty plant on East Main Street, Cliff Hookey, left, and Davis Scott, check the color and register of advertisements being printed in this file photo.He said plans are to seek a variance from another city panel.
Yount said the project aligns with the urban East Main corridor. Also, plans are to put new green space on the site, he said.
Yount said that while neighborhood meetings yielded no opposition to the project, there were concerns brought up when redevelopment was raised before the City Council early this year.
East Main is undergoing an extensive makeover by developers putting in new housing and commercial space from Central Avenue to Missionary Ridge.
The biggest is a planned $120 million housing and commercial project called Mill Town aimed at vastly remaking a 30-acre tract off East Main that formerly held the Standard-Coosa-Thatcher textile plant.
Collier, whose company is developing Mill Town, has said the project would hold about 330 residential units along with apartments and commercial space.
Also, prep work has started on a proposed $30 million retail and housing development near Montague Park at 1040 E. Main St. It would hold from 50 to 60 townhomes or condominiums as well as 20,000-square-feet of retail space, said Chattanooga developer Kevin Boehm.
"That whole district is changing," Boehm said. "It feels like that's the next area Chattanooga will see a lot of growth in."
In addition, a Nashville developer has begun work on $40 million in new residential and retail space at 1601 Holtzclaw Ave. that formerly held a Rock-Tenn facility.
Additionally, Chattanooga businessman Sean Compton has proposed a new mixed-use project off of South Holtzclaw Avenue in a potential $20 million development.
Compton wants to reuse the longtime Lucey Boiler industrial site and turn it into a location for new townhomes, retail-and-event space and possibly a boutique hotel.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.