Chattanooga developer Chris Curtis called it "a big day."
The president of Riverside Development officially cut the ribbon in August to open a $41 million, 691-bed apartment complex that officials believe will help remake Chattanooga's M.L. King district.
"We're going to bring downtown into this district," says Curtis.
The Baylor School graduate studied finance at the University of Alabama before deciding to enter the construction and development business about 16 years ago.
Curtis, 45, has built or developed mostly storage units, truck stops and other projects, predominately in Texas.
But one of the company's employees who oversees real estate introduced him to the M.L. King Boulevard and Douglas Street site which now holds the Douglas Heights apartment complex near the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
"We studied it about a year," he says. "We decided to pull the trigger."
Construction of the huge 354,000-square-foot complex took about two years, he says.
"It's been a long time coming," Curtis says.
Since the two-year construction period started, he has seen the M.L. King area change for the good, though he adds that more work is needed. "It's not an overnight transformation."
While Douglas Heights was raised without any public financial incentives, he expects the district will need "community assistance" to continue to grow.
"We want to see this entire district be successful," he says.
Though Douglas Heights caters to college students, Curtis says he expects to also see a contingent of young professionals living in the new housing as well.
He's looking at potentially building two other phases of similar housing nearby, he says. But first, he plans to develop nearby buildings on M.L. King. One project on the UTC side of M.L. King would house mixed-use space, including 28 apartments, Curtis says.