Less than a week before Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January 2025, officials from the outgoing Biden General Services Administration said a Vine Street location would be the most advantageous for a new Chattanooga federal courthouse that had been promised for nearly 30 years.
Well, that will change, local officials declared.
(IN THE NEWS: Feds take ownership of new courthouse site on Vine Street in Chattanooga)
The city and county mayor, a former United States senator and Chattanooga mayor, the River City Co., the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Foundation, and, among others, the Vine Street property owner, believed the incoming Trump administration, with the influence of supportive U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, would reverse course and support the courthouse being built at the largely vacant TVA complex in downtown Chattanooga.
Just over a year later, not only was the mind of the General Services Administration (GSA) not changed, but the federal agency now has taken over much of the property bounded by Vine and Georgia avenues and East Fifth and Lindsay streets.