Chattanooga-based trucking company Covenant plans multimillion-dollar driver training complex in Lookout Valley

Trucks are seen at Covenant Transport's headquarters in Lookout Valley. A new driver training and dormitory complex is planned by Covenant. / Staff file photo by C.B. Schmelter
Trucks are seen at Covenant Transport's headquarters in Lookout Valley. A new driver training and dormitory complex is planned by Covenant. / Staff file photo by C.B. Schmelter

Covenant Transport plans to spend from $12 million to $15 million to build and equip a driver training and dormitory complex on its Lookout Valley campus to replace a nearby aging facility.

The Chattanooga-based trucking company is seeking to rezone 5.5 acres next to its Birmingham Highway headquarters for the new center that would hold a 185-bed dorm, according to filings with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency.

What's next

On Monday, the company will ask the Planning Commission to rezone a 5.5-acre tract at 400 Birmingham Highway from M-1 Manufacturing to M-2 Light Industrial Zone.

The site would include three new buildings with about 32,240 square feet of space, the filings showed.

David Parker, co-founder and chief executive of Covenant Transport who relocated the company to its current headquarters in 1997, said the company has been considering a new training complex.

He said that with the future investments needed to maintain Covenant's lodging facility across Interstate-24 at 3800 Cummings Highway, the company decided to move ahead.

"We had to decide whether we invest in our current location that needed a major renovation in the future or build a new training center," Parker said.

Covenant President Joey Hogan said a new complex will be safer and more efficient and attractive than the company's existing training site and lodging located in a former Holiday Inn hotel the company bought two decades ago.

The new facility will help orient or conduct retraining for about 2,200 of the company's nearly 4,000 drivers, Hogan said.

"This will bring all of our facilities on our corporate campus and minimize the travel back and forth to our lodging facility," Hogan said. "It will make it easier for all of our employees and trainers and in thinking about the future, it just makes sense to bring this together on one site."

Russell Moorehead of Croy Engineering said work is slated to start this summer on the new complex if the trucking company receives city approvals.

On Monday, the company will ask the Planning Commission to rezone the site at 400 Birmingham Highway from M-1 Manufacturing to M-2 Light Industrial Zone.

The building parcel takes up a parking lot, Moorehead said, but Covenant has plenty of other spaces on its 180-acre campus along Interstate 24 in Lookout Valley.

The planning agency's staff has recommended approving the company's request.

"The request is compatible with the adopted area plan, adjacent land uses and surrounding development," the staff said.

The agency staff report said the 2003 Lookout Valley Area Plan recommends manufacturing and industrial uses for the property. Constructing a training facility and worker dorm for the existing trucking company's operations is "considered accessory to the existing industrial uses," staff said.

Last year, Covenant reported that it earned $42.5 million, or $2.30 a share, on revenue of $779.7 million. That compared with net income of $55.4 million, or $3.02 a share, on revenue of $705 million in 2017. Results in 2017 include a one-time benefit of $40.1 million, or $2.18 a share, from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340.

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