Two downtown Chattanooga parking lots, slated to hold one of the biggest-ever apartment and commercial projects near the riverfront, are going into the state's brownfield program.
An attorney for Beach Equity Investments LLC of South Carolina said the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is accepting the lots into the brownfield program.
Attorney Wayne Cropp said in a letter to the city's Industrial Development Board that the surface parking lots, which have been used by Unum Group, were slightly impacted by past industrial and commercial activities.
The activities included a medicine company, a maker of acetylene gas generators, a printing and engraving company and automotive repair facilities, he said.
The board was notified because it owns nearby property, said City Attorney Phil Noblett.
Some 151 apartments and a dozen townhouses, along with 16,000 square feet of office and retail space, are to go up on the lots, said Alan McMahon, development manager of The Beach Company of Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this year.
The biggest parking lot is bounded by Cherry, Walnut, Third and Fourth streets and is currently used for public parking. A smaller adjacent lot across Cherry Street and behind the Hair of the Dog pub, also is public parking, McMahon said.