A tract that has long served as Girls Preparatory School athletics fields on Hixson Pike has been sold, with Chattanooga developers planning to build 350 new apartments, officials said Friday.
Benjamin Pitts, a broker for Herman Walldorf Commercial Real Estate, said GPS sold the 18-acre parcel at Hixson Pike and Lupton Drive for $6.5 million to Chattanooga developers Lyons Capital Group and Pratt.
He said about 15 acres of the land, which GPS has held for about 20 years, is developable and some of it is "site ready."
"It makes sense for multi-family," Pitts said in a telephone interview. "There's strong demand. I don't think it will let up for a while."
Marcus D. Lyons of Lyons Capital said by phone that the property already is zoned to hold apartments. He said plans are to build multiple four-story structures for the one-, two- and three-bedroom units.
"The location and continued consumer demand for rental housing were the main deciding factors for this particular site acquisition and development," Lyons said.
Work on the project is expected to start in the third quarter of 2023, he said. The first apartments will come online in 2024, Lyons said.
He said that while it's too early to provide what rents may be or the development's total price tag, the site's proximity to downtown and North Chattanooga are pluses.
Also, the apartment complex will fit with the nearby planned 210-acre Riverton riverfront residential development, Lyons said.
Riverton, acquired by Chattanooga developer John Thornton's Thunder Enterprises in 2019, is one of the biggest master-planned communities in Chattanooga. The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission has approved a plan to develop over 400 home sites.
Thunder Enterprises acquired the property three years ago from Riverton LLC, which had bought the land for $8.1 million from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee in 2018.
GPS did not return phone calls Friday seeking comment on the deal for its site, which is a few miles away from its campus.
Pitts said that before GPS occupied the tract at the high-profile Hixson Pike corner, a Bruno's Supermarket was proposed, but it was never built. Dixie Yarns, which for many years operated a textile plant in the area, also owned the parcel, he said.
Pitts said the tract is close to the Rivermont recreation area with tennis courts, baseball fields and a boat ramp to the Tennessee River.
He said the additional residences slated to go up in the area will lead to more commercial development.
"It will bring different kinds of businesses in," Pitts said.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter at @MikePareTFP.