The reputation of Chattanooga (Knoxville, Johnson City: sales, apartments, rental)

[Creekcat]

Is it thought of so badly, that there haven't been any new posts in two months?

[Chas863]

Originally Posted by Creekcat

Is it thought of so badly, that there haven't been any new posts in two months?

Or maybe it's so good that no one has anything to complain about.

[jjbradleynyc]

I just don't think folks are active on this board for Chattanooga. A lot of cities on this board do not see a ton of posts or activity.

Not that it reflects "little interest in these cities," I think it just reflects that some cities have more city data forum posters than others, and some cities are a lot more popular and have a few outspoken advocates touting them on here.

Chattanooga is a lovely city with a lot of great developments/redevelopments happening. A really good city for easy outdoor attraction access and nice geography.

[PHofKS]

Chattanooga wants to relocate its AA Minor League ballpark to a new location to the south of I-24 on a new development area on South Broad Street (Chattanooga's SoBro District?? - just saying) which will entice new residential, office, hospitality and mixed-use into a very run-down industrial area.


The early proposals suggest the area would develop around a new South Broad Boulevard and new ballpark.



The district is highlighted by the Whelan Foundry Building which is a decaying relic of an old steel and iron foundry but will find a new purpose as a component of the proposed new ballpark.


The proposal here and how it ties in to the old building with the right field bleachers being located under the roof of the Whelan Building.


A chart giving proposed sources of funding...


And a report from The Chattanoogan.com....

More than 100 acres of the long-neglected U.S. Pipe and Wheland Foundry sites "will begin transforming into a world-class live-work-play district that will generate more than $40 million for schools," Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger and Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly announced at a press conference at the site on Thursday.

Flanked by nationally renowned master developer Jim Irwin of New City Properties, the mayors detailed a public-private partnership that they said "will allow a long-planned revitalization of the blighted site - which is expected to generate more than $1 billion in private investment - to begin in earnest."

They said an initial $350 million phase, which will include multi-family residential buildings, class-A office space, and public recreation areas, will be anchored and catalyzed by a $79.5 million multi-use stadium.

Major League Baseball has recently contracted (cut) many Minor league baseball teams from their association with the major leagues and Chattanooga was threatened with contraction unless they built a better stadium, so this is the city's proposal. It's awesome.

On this site the Combustion Engineering plant used to sit.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/189995678002138292/

They made reactor vessels for nuclear power plants and had to be large, thick (iron) and very heavy (up to 460 tons).
https://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochba...n-chattanooga/

They were put on barges and shipped to various locations around the country. One, in which I was remotely involved in the landside shipping planning process, required a flat-bed truck with (as I recall) 16+ axles and 8 tires per axle (128 tires) to ship from Knoxville to a nuclear plant just to the north.

[Almasy]

I'm not happy about taxpayer money paying for this.
Your article mentions ”Incremental Property Taxes” amounting to almost $50M.
Does that mean they are raising property tax rates by some tiny amount to come up with the $50M?

[PHofKS]

It sounds like additional tax revenue will come from the new development around the park and in the district. From the above linked article in the Chattanoogan.

The mayors said, "Using conservative projections, the surrounding new development will generate more than $40 million in new funding for education, of more than $90 million will be generated in total new tax revenue for the city and county.
...
The remainder of the funding for the stadium - 96 percent - will come from the project itself, including tax payments from private property owners and developers, and via payments generated by the new multi-use stadium.

...and...
Multi-use stadium funding:

Property tax generated from private development on the site — 63%
Lease payments for the multi-use stadium — 22%
State sales tax generated inside the multi-use stadium — 6%
Parking revenue from the multi-use stadium — 4%
City/County funding for debt service — 4%

Local sales tax generated inside the multi-use stadium — 1%

[AnthonyJ34]

Originally Posted by jjbradleynyc

I just don't think folks are active on this board for Chattanooga. A lot of cities on this board do not see a ton of posts or activity.

Not that it reflects "little interest in these cities," I think it just reflects that some cities have more city data forum posters than others, and some cities are a lot more popular and have a few outspoken advocates touting them on here.

Chattanooga is a lovely city with a lot of great developments/redevelopments happening. A really good city for easy outdoor attraction access and nice geography.

Chattanooga is located in a pretty area. I’m living here temporarily. I’ve been bouncing around over the past year looking for potential relocation spots, and Tennessee is one of those potential areas. I actually planned on scouting the Johnson City area, but I found a very reasonable two-month Airbnb rental here in Chattanooga, so I’m here. But I will likely venture north into Knoxville and the Tri-Cities area soon in order to better familiarize myself with those locations.

I lived in Southern Washington state last year for six months (about 50 miles north of Portland, Oregon), and I really liked it up there. Chattanooga is sort of similar to that area in terms of greenery and forests — both places are very scenic and have endless amounts of forests and wilderness areas, although Chattanooga (and Tennessee) do not have the big, picturesque mountains that does Washington or Oregon. The mountains here in Tennessee are basically glorified hills —but they are pretty nonetheless.

One thing that I definitely dislike about this area is the unbelievable traffic: Chattanooga has some pretty bad traffic issues, especially the eastern portions of the city, the areas along Gunbarrel Road and east Brainerd Road up to Bonny Oaks Drive — that entire area is a mess! I wasn’t expecting that level of traffic from such a modestly sized metro area.

Oh, and the drivers: many of the drivers here are aggressive and rude, even the one’s out on the backroads and in the rural areas. It seems as if many of them are always in a hurry and expect everyone else to be as well.

[hindsight2020]

That was what tempered our thoughts of the CHA metro as a semi-retirement location (wife and i are 8yr apart): the congestion. The covid wfh national shuffle i think exacerbated the congestion problem in smaller metros. East TN got discovered, and the WFHers dispatched with it in short order. We had some hope for a place like JC, but it looks like thats going the same direction here in a decades time, unless the wfh thing tempers long term.

[AnthonyJ34]

Originally Posted by hindsight2020

That was what tempered our thoughts of the CHA metro as a semi-retirement location (wife and i are 8yr apart): the congestion. The covid wfh national shuffle i think exacerbated the congestion problem in smaller metros. East TN got discovered, and the WFHers dispatched with it in short order. We had some hope for a place like JC, but it looks like thats going the same direction here in a decades time, unless the wfh thing tempers long term.

Yeah, the traffic here is a major turnoff, and I say this as someone who grew up in the traffic capital of the US: the Los Angeles metro area, about 20 miles southeast of downtown. The traffic is bad in So. Cal, of course, but that’s to be expected from such a monumentally large metropolitan area.

The overall traffic in Chattanooga by comparison is much less, of course, but it can be just as bad in smaller pockets of the city, especially where the stop lights aren’t synchronized well or in places that have four-way stop signs in higher traffic areas: the trouble spots here can really get backed up and gridlocked when intersections aren’t controlled by well-timed stop lights.

[shinestx]

I've lived in the eastern end of the county for over ten years and have seen the traffic situation get worse by the week/month, especially in the past two years. Obviously the area is growing super fast now but another reason is that the county and city have serpentine boundaries. When it comes to planning infrastructure, they both are behind the curve. The county is stretched so far here as houses pop up all the way from the state line to Ooltewah and westward to Harrison, the lake. There's also too little cooperation between city/county. For example, East Brainerd Rd. needs connectors to other arteries, but it's not a priority for the city. The city limits run along East Brainerd Rd, but only the commercial fronting property for about 5 miles east from I 75. The county jurisdiction is a few hundred feet from the road once you go past about 3 miles. And that's where the fastest growth is hitting. Similar issues are happening in Hixson and Mountain Creek. IDK about Soddy, Middle Valley and points farther out.

TDOT is finally addressing the sheer volume of traffic at the I 75/I 24 junction as a result of two major Interstates converging just north of the state line. TDOT just works so slowly. However, I 24 will continue to be a major problem from Lookout Valley to the Ridgecut. The highway built in 1962 is old, outdated, too small, and always bottlenecks beside the river. The mountains surrounding the city make a by pass unfeasible. But TDOT hasn't addressed any of the growth issues. Chattanooga is a trucking hub too!!! Totally neglected, and that's why our traffic is so bad.

The UP side to this whole situation is that downtown is thriving with thousands of new residential apartments and retail establishments. I credit the traffic mess on the highways with making the core so much stronger. Also, when I go downtown I usually take 153 to Amnicola/Riverside to avoid the worst traffic bottlenecks.