The historic Chattanooga Choo Choo's hotel and gardens will undergo a more than $10 million restoration, with the effort to include the iconic Pullman train cars, officials said Monday.
Trestle Studio, a Chicago-based developer with a track record of transforming vintage properties in the United States and Europe, is overseeing the renovation at the attraction on downtown's Southside.
"Trestle has an extensive record of restoring historic buildings into leading lifestyle hotels and destinations," said company founder Jake Lamstein in an email.
The renovated hotel will hold 102 rooms in the original building along with 25 Pullman train car rooms, he said. The current building now operates just 75 rooms.
"Currently there are zero train car rooms in utilization," Lamstein said. "All are dilapidated and have been out of service for years."
When finished in mid-2023, he said the hotel will be positioned in the market as "upscale lifestyle."
Trestle is partnering with locally based Choo Choo Partners, which has overseen the Market Street complex for many years, and the Northpond Partners investment firm to restore the hotel and gardens.
Adam Kinsey, Choo Choo Partners' president, said his group was looking at the best way to reconfigure the hotel piece.
"The quality of the hotel probably will be the highest it has ever been," he said. "We have great confidence in Jake and Trestle."
Kinsey said the hotel originally opened in 1972.
"Things change. What people want out of a hotel has changed since the '70s," he said. "Trestle's plan is updating the hotel piece to what people are looking for."
Kinsey said that in 2015, the hotel had almost 400 hotel rooms.
"We've right-sized the property," he said. Kinsey added that other rooms at the site were converted to apartments, and there has been the addition of retail and restaurant space.
Also, the rear of the property was sold and converted into new apartments.
At the start of the restoration, eight historic train cars will be relocated adjacent to the hotel in an effort supervised by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, according to Trestle. Nine other cars will be relocated among the gardens.
Six cars will be donated to the railroad museum and affiliates while one rail car will be demolished due to its condition, officials said.
After the train cars are relocated, a comprehensive renovation of the hotel will start and include "an elevated food and beverage program" with local restaurants, according to Trestle.
In addition, the site will hold a lobby cafe, a 150-person ballroom with courtyard, a new outdoor pool with open-air lounge and fire pits, officials said.
Lamstein said the gardens at the Choo Choo will offer ongoing programming along with new gathering spaces, landscaping and lighting.
"The team is actively working to lease the remaining spaces to strategic retail partners to help restore the safety and character that once defined the Choo Choo," he said.
Lamstein said the company was "drawn to the history of the Choo Choo and are humbled to have the opportunity to bring our heritage-sensitive approach to adaptive reuse to the gardens and hotel."
He said that given Trestle's record of working with landmarked and nationally listed historic properties, "we're poised to create an environment that adds to the character of downtown Chattanooga."
In February, the Passenger Flats apartment complex adjacent to the Choo Choo sold for $17.2 million. The 208-unit apartment complex, which was developed in two phases over the past seven years from some of the former hotel rooms added to the Choo Choo in 1982, was acquired by Passenger Partners LLC, a real estate partnership formed last month in Knoxville.
The apartments are next to the 283-unit Bluebird Apartments, which sold in 2020 for $63.15 million.
The sales were part of the ongoing redevelopment of the 25-acre Choo Choo, a former Southern Railway passenger station that was converted to a hotel complex in 1972 and later acquired by Kinsey's group, including former Mayor Jon Kinsey, and other investors in 1989.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter at @MikePareTFP.