A developer is planning a new apartment complex on Chattanooga's Southside and proposing to reuse nearby shotgun houses dating to the city's foundry era for added retail space, offices or rental dwellings.
The $12.5 million project at 420 E. 16th St. would hold a four-story, 38-unit apartment building, Chattanooga developer Kevin Boehm said.
Some of the shotgun houses on the street will come down to make way for the apartment building, he said. But opposite the proposed apartment complex and just a block from East Main Street, seven of the houses are to remain, Boehm said in a telephone interview.
The houses, each about 700 square feet in size, could hold retail space, Boehm said. He said that side of East 16th Street would have visibility from Main Street.
"That's important if you do retail," the developer said.
Or, he said, the houses could be renovated into offices or rental residential space.
Boehm is seeking a rezoning of more than an acre at the site from the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission next month for the mixed-use project.
Kevin Thedford, whose father owns the land on the street, said the site has 13 shotgun houses.
"They were built when there was a foundry around there," he said by phone. "They had those for the workers to live in."
South Chattanooga had a number of operating foundries, though nearly all have closed over the past several decades, including Wheland Foundry and U.S. Pipe. However, Eureka Foundry still operates on Carter Street near Finley Stadium.
Boehm said he hopes to start construction of the mixed-use project next year. Work likely will be finished in 2024, he said.
"There's a real need and there is a lot of demand for living on the Southside," he said.
Plans are for the apartment building to have a pool and green space, Boehm said.
"It will have state-of-the-art amenities," he said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is involved in costly efforts to clean up lead-contaminated soil in some of Chattanooga's oldest neighborhoods, including downtown's Southside.
The soil in the neighborhoods was contaminated during the past century from residue generated at more than 60 iron, brass and bronze foundries that operated in Chattanooga for nearly a century until the 1980s, EPA officials have said.
Foundry sand from those factories was used as fill dirt and spread as topsoil on the properties before lead was discovered and later regulated by EPA.
This summer, EPA officials said they're stepping up cleanup efforts after the pandemic caused a slowdown. EPA officials toured a handful of sites to see progress in the initiative to sample more than 5,400 yards in eight neighborhoods ranging from Alton Park to the Southside to Highland Park.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.