Across the street from the CommonSpirit Memorial Hospital Chattanooga campus, a handful of new houses stand out on Chamberlain Avenue. They’re Thedric Lester’s billboard promising change in the area.
“I pay more, but I think the vision and the impact are way more significant,” he said.
Lester, who moved to the area in 2005 to play football for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, is somewhat of a rookie developer. What started out as cleaning homes became painting for renovations, which turned into flipping properties before finally graduating into wholesale residential construction in the past three years.
He set a personal goal for Lester Group, his development company, to complete 10 projects annually.
This year, Lester and his team will hit nine.