As it prepares to open the Chattanooga Construction Career Center in East Chattanooga by this fall, the trade association for local contractors has moved out of its home for the past 40 years on Chattanooga's Southside.
The Associated General Contractors of East Tennessee, which represents more than 230 building contractors in a 22-county area, is selling its West 21st Street office near Interstate 24 and moving into smaller leased offices at The Mill off of Main Street.
For meetings and training, the group plans to also use some of the meeting space being prepared in the new construction training facility at the former Mary Ann Garber elementary school.
"We had an attractive offer for our building, and we've come up with a different model moving forward," said Leslie Gower, executive director for the local contractors association.
In a telephone interview Friday, Gower said the group will have meeting and classroom space in the Construction Career Center scheduled to open for high school and adult learners in August.
Photo by Dave Flessner / The 5,520-square-foot headquarters of the AGC of East Tennessee on 21st Street in Çhattanooga is being sold to Scenic City Accounting which will use the office for the accounting firm, Integra Wealth and another office tenant. AGC, which has moved its map room facilities online with its digital services, is moving its headquarters into a smaller office at The Mill off of Main Street and will use the former Mary Ann Garber school for meetings and classroom facilities.The contractors are working with Hamilton County schools and Chattanooga State to open the construction trades training facility in the shuttered Mary Ann Garber school on Roanoke Avenue. Gower said the group will have an office in the renovated school and will be able to use classroom facilities for meetings and training.
Since the contractors have moved bidding information and listings of plan specifications listings online, the association also no longer needs to maintain a map room.
With less need for space, the group moved this week into The Mill off of Main Street in an office formerly used by Text Request, a growing tech startup that moved to larger facilities in downtown Chattanooga.
The association's 5,520-square-foot office on West 21st Street, which was originally constructed in 1966, has been owned and operated by the contractors since 1981. Next Tuesday, the group plans to sell the property to an investment partnership headed by Amy Gouger, a CPA who started Scenic City Accounting Group last July.
The office will also be home to the Integra Wealth financial advising firm as well as another office tenant, Gouger said in a phone interview Friday.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.