Making the Riverwalk the front door to the new Chattanooga Lookouts stadium would be a testament to one of the city’s greatest assets, but we hope there’s no subterfuge involved.
A city zoning panel was to weigh a request by designers Thursday for a variance to bring visitors in from the Riverwalk near what is to be the park’s center and right field areas.
It would be a delightful thought — and a paean to the importance of fresh air and exercise — that the majority of fans who attend a game would access the park only through the Riverwalk, which, through various paths, can be entered from as far afield as Camp Jordan, Chickamauga Dam, Coolidge Park and many other places.
But we hope stadium designers aren’t counting on that.
The truth is the majority of the people who will attend games at the former foundry site will be coming from the suburbs — from Signal Mountain, Soddy-Daisy, East Brainerd or North Georgia, for example. They’ll be bringing families or sports teams or church groups. And, like it or not, those fans will require parking.