Tremont Street project receives panel’s OK
An effort by Chattanooga developer John Wise to redevelop a parcel on the North Shore into apartments won approval Monday from the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission.
Plans are to put about 20 apartments on a vacant tract which sits around the 200 and 300 blocks of Tremont Street off Frazier Avenue, said Dave Fidati, project manager for Wise Construction.
Fidati said the proposal is to build the one-bedroom, one-bathroom units on three levels in a $2.5 million project. He said work calls for putting parking in the rear.
Three retaining walls will need to be built, Fidati said, noting the tract backs up to a hill.
No one showed up at the meeting opposing the project, though some emails were received. An email by a neighbor supported the project, officials said.
CBL gets $13.75 million in closed asset sales
Chattanooga-based shopping center developer CBL Properties on Monday announced that it closed on two strategic asset sales generating gross proceeds of about $13.75 million.
The company sold a former Sears building at Harford Mall in Bel Air, Maryland, to SJC Ventures for $5 million. The new owners plan to utilize the land for a future grocery-anchored redevelopment.
CBL also closed on the sale of its 64 residential units at Pearland Town Center in Pearland, Texas, generating gross proceeds of $8.75 million from an institutional buyer, the company said. The units were developed as part of the original mixed-use project, which opened in 2008. The transaction takes advantage of the favorable demand for multi-family assets, according to CBL.
Year-to-date, CBL has completed over $35 million in asset sales, the company said.
Amazon to allow workers to stay remote indefinitely
Amazon will allow many tech and corporate workers to continue working remotely indefinitely, as long as they are able to commute to the office when necessary, according to a blog posted Monday.
The new policy is a change from Amazon’s previous expectation that most employees would need to be in the office at least three days a week once offices reopen in January.
Monday’s message, signed by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, explains that Amazon directors – at Amazon, a title signifying an executive who oversees a handful of teams – will have the discretion to allow teams under their purview to stay remote.
“We expect that there will be teams that continue working mostly remotely, others that will work some combination of remotely and in the office, and still others that will decide customers are best served having the team work mostly in the office,” Jassy wrote. “We’re intentionally not prescribing how many days or which days – this is for directors to determine with their senior leaders and teams.”
Utility executive headed to prison
A former utility executive who lied to ratepayers and regulators costing billions of dollars after he found out a pair of nuclear reactors being built in South Carolina were hopelessly behind schedule will soon be heading to prison for two years.
A state judge Monday accepted the negotiated sentence of former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh. He is the first executive to go to prison over the project, which lasted nine years and never generated a watt of power.
Marsh has cooperated with investigators, spending at least seven days talking to the FBI, prosecutors said.
South Carolina Circuit Judge Mark Hayes suspended a 10-year state sentence, but told Marsh he will have to serve it if he does not keep cooperating or fails to successfully serve three years of probation.
– Compiled by Dave Flessner