In May 2024, a development group proposed what would have been one of downtown Chattanooga’s largest apartment buildings at 900 Riverfront Parkway, a site that for many years held Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly’s auto dealership.
Sports Car Garage Group, managed by developers Barry Payne and Byron DeFoor, proposed a 10-story building with 621 apartments, ground-floor commercial space, a rooftop restaurant and a parking garage, but those plans never materialized, and the property is now back on the market.
“We’re just reevaluating, figuring out what we want to do with it,” Payne said by phone. “That’s just kind of sitting on hold.”
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission and staff recommended approval of the group’s request to rezone the property from an industrial district to a mixed-use commercial district in The Bend context area, which was established in 2019.