Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Commissioner Warren Mackey speaks at the Jan. 18 Hamilton County Commission meeting.Arguing it could boost the financial security of the county, Hamilton County Commissioner Warren Mackey, D-Lake Vista, urged his colleagues Wednesday to embrace a plan in his district to revitalize approximately 300 acres of riverfront property on Chattanooga’s Westside
“When you come in from Nashville, as you round the bend, what you first encounter in Chattanooga is a dilapidated, old, abandoned industrial site,” Mackey said during the panel’s regular weekly meeting. “It gives a bad feeling, a bad taste in your mouth in terms of what you’re about to encounter.”
Urban Story Ventures, the owners of the 120-acre former Combustion Engineering and Alstom site on the Tennessee River, hopes to use newly generated city and county tax revenue to cover approximately half the cost of about $198 million worth of public infrastructure needed for the project, including roads, sidewalks, parking and green space.
Developers expect the project, dubbed The Bend, could result in between $800 million and $2.3 billion worth of new development, creating at least 2,000 new jobs and encompassing about 500,000 square feet of retail, an entertainment venue, about 1,500 new residential units and 14 acres of public parks and green space. Additionally, 10% of the housing would be reserved for people making at or below 80% of area median income.
“This is a development for Chattanooga designed by Chattanoogans,” Jimmy White, the president of Urban Story Ventures, told the board. “This is not a developer coming in to impose their will. This riverfront is too special, too important for our community.”
The commission will vote on an economic impact plan next Wednesday that would move the project forward. The board and the Chattanooga City Council will decide whether to approve a special tax district for the site in the coming months. The developer is asking for a 20-year tax increment financing deal for the site, so named because it’s designed to use incremental increases in government tax revenue generated by a given development to pay for infrastructure to support the project.
The Chattanooga Housing Authority also hopes to use a portion of the new tax revenue to apply for a $50 million federal grant, assisting with the construction of 1,783 new housing units in the Westside neighborhood. That would include replacements of 629 units of public housing at Gateway Tower and College Hill Courts, both of which would be demolished. The grant could in turn provide access to more than $100 million worth of low-income housing tax credits to support construction.
Mackey said Volkswagen generated a similar degree of financial security for the county when the company built its first U.S. assembly plant in Chattanooga more than 10 years ago. The project at The Bend has the potential to be transformative, he said.
However, Mackey acknowledged there have been concerns about low-income residents in the Westside being displaced from their homes.
“You don’t want to have a concentration of impoverished people in one spot anyway,” Mackey said Wednesday, noting seven women were shot and two killed during a community block party in the Westside in 2021.
The City Council is also set to vote on an economic impact plan next week. Council members heard a presentation from developers Tuesday and generally had more questions and reservations about the proposal, noting they want to be sure existing residents can return to the Westside as construction commences and that the area remains affordable for lower-income Chattanoogans. The Westside community is predominantly Black and has a rate of poverty higher than the rest of the city.
Betsy McCright, the housing authority’s executive director, said in an interview that all public housing residents who have to move off site will have the right to return as new units are completed. The authority would be able to offer vouchers to temporarily house them elsewhere as development proceeds. Every phase of construction will consist of a mixture of housing reserved for different income levels, McCright said. She expects the authority won’t open its first unit until early 2027.
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp was also complimentary of the plan, contrasting it with a 540-acre tax increment financing district drawn in the South Broad area that will support construction of a new multiuse stadium for the Chattanooga Lookouts. A new sports authority created by the city and county is borrowing money to pay for the project, which officials last year estimated would cost almost $80 million.
(READ MORE: Inflation raises questions about Chattanooga’s Lookouts stadium project)
“It’s not a deal — much like the South Broad deal — where it had better be successful in order to meet the debt service requirements of building a new stadium,” Wamp said. “It’s different in that sense, and I would say much lower stress for that reason.”
Providing it spurs $2.3 billion worth of new investment, city and county leaders expect The Bend could produce $345 million for education over the 20-year term of the deal. That includes $195 million preserved for Hamilton County Schools and a total of $150 million from the city and county that would fund downtown education efforts, which could include a new career and technical school at the Golden Gateway site.
Commissioners will decide next Wednesday whether to purchase the 11-acre property at 401 W. M.L. King Blvd. for $10 million, funding that would come out of the county’s approximately $150 million rainy day fund.
Superintendent Justin Robertson told commissioners that school officials want the career and technical opportunities at the Gateway site to tie in with new businesses moving to The Bend. Transportation is currently a barrier for children who don’t live near existing vocational training at Harrison Bay Future Ready Center and Sequoyah High School. The new school would open up opportunities for students in Lookout Valley, East Ridge and Red Bank, he said.
Commissioner Jeff Eversole, R-Ooltewah, said he supports career and technical training, but he would like to also see the county use part of the 11-acre property to generate revenue.
“We’re not making any more land in downtown Chattanooga,” he said during the meeting, “and that’s prime, prime, prime, prime real estate.”
Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.