East Chattanooga neighborhood leaders spent Wednesday miffed and confused after hearing at a meeting this week that the city of Chattanooga might be planning to sell the Glenwood Recreation Center on 3rd Street to Notre Dame High School.
George Valadie, president of Notre Dame High, said city staff approached school staff "about the fact that it might become something the city wanted to do."
"We were given a heads-up, and since then we have heard nothing. We were told that it is being kicked around at the city level," Valadie said.
Notre Dame, which is relatively close to the recreation center, bought properties adjacent to its campus in the past, but Valadie said no decision has been made.
"There are a lot of layers here. We are a part of a greater diocese. Our bishop would be involved. Nobody knows dollars and cents. We would want to put planning into whether we would use the facility," he said.
After hearing the news at an East Chattanooga Improvement Inc. president's meeting, Glenwood resident Everlena Holmes, who coordinates East Chattanooga block leaders, immediately called a center staff member who said employees had been told the center was moving to Orange Grove and that the move had to be complete by Aug. 2.
"Who knew?" Holmes asked in an email blast Tuesday afternoon that copied dozens of politicians, neighborhood leaders, business leaders and community activists. "Certainly not the residents of Glenwood."
"Please say this is not true!!!!" she wrote. "The city for over 20 years has been trying to close the Glenwood Center. So on the quiet it finally happened!! Say it isn't true!!!!"
Later that day, Holmes said she got a phone call from Lurone "Coach" Jennings, the administrator of youth and family development for the city of Chattanooga. There had been talk, she said he told her. But nothing was set in stone, and the community would have time to comment.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, she said.
Holmes has been intimately involved in organizing and training East Chattanooga neighborhood leaders for many years. When the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency announced a planning process for East Chattanooga, she worked hard to engage as many neighborhood leaders as possible.
Holmes was frustrated when the planning process stalled not long after it began, losing momentum and engagement that could have ensured that the final plans reflect community needs in addition to developers' visions.
She also was frustrated when she and others found out that city staff were pushing to rezone the city-owned former Harriet Tubman public housing site from residential to manufacturing before the planning process was complete. The zoning change was approved by the planning commission and the city council despite the protest of several community groups and neighborhood leaders.
A statement emailed Wednesday afternoon from one of Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke's administrators confirmed that "the City of Chattanooga has started to explore the possibility of moving some [Youth and Family Development] operations to the Orange Grove Center, in order to provide kids and families in this community with a swimming pool and some other great amenities."
"At this point, no sale has taken place and of course no decisions will be made until we have had a chance to speak with people about what they would like to have. A neighborhood meeting has been scheduled and we look forward to speaking with members of the Glenwood community about this," reads a quote in the statement attributed to Maura Sullivan, the city's chief operating officer.
That meeting, according to the email, has been set for May 11 at noon at the Glenwood YFD Center.
Contact Joan McClane at jmcclane@timesfreepress.com.