The city of Chattanooga is selling one of its parking lots to help make way for another major commercial development on the city's Southside.
The Chattanooga City Council last week declared the lot at King and Market streets as surplus property to facilitate the sale or transfer of the site for a private development. Chattanooga developer Hiran Desai is leading an investment group known as Rivermont King Street LLC, which acquired two nearby warehouse and storage buildings on King Street two years ago and is developing plans to buy the city parking lot for possible redevelopment as offices, residential condominiums, restaurants or even a hotel.
"We're still looking at possible mixed-used development of this site, but we don't have any specific plans ready at this point," Desai said last Wednesday.
The developers are looking to lease back 75 parking spaces for city employees on the property, perhaps with a parking garage, to ensure city workers who work in the Design Resource Center still have parking available even with new development on the site.
Desai, who started 3H Group Hotels in 2000, has developed other commercial and residential properties and has already had interest from prospective office and restaurant operators in locating on the King Street property.
"I think this fits in well with all of the revitalization we're seeing at the Choo Choo and Main Street [just to the south of the site] and the Innovation District and Warehouse Row [north of the site]," Desai said.
Nick Wilkinson, city deputy director for economic development, said city officials have been in talks with the developers about use of the city parking lot, which he said "is obviously no longer the highest and best use of that property."
"We're hoping we can find a way to maintain city employee parking and to encourage a major new development for the city on this site," he said.
Some preliminary proposals indicate the new development could add 50 or more jobs and include $30 million or more of new investment, Wilkinson told the Chattanooga City Council.
"We're always eager to get property back on the tax rolls and to encourage economic growth for the city," he said.
According to the Hamilton County Assessor's Office, the property owned by Rivermont King Street LLC includes a 47,200-square-foot structure built in 1912 and other warehouses that total another 38,231 square feet.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 757-6340.