Downtown Dynamics
Focus on: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Retail Entertainment Master Plan Created
After several months of intensive study and analysis, consultants from Ernst & Young Kenneth Leventhal’s real estate advisory group have created a retail and entertainment master plan for downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. The plan is a first, according to Michael Buckley, the lead planner and consultant. “No city in the U.S. has ever commissioned a strategic retail study,” he says.
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The goal of the plan is to further
activate and energize Chattanooga’s downtown with additional retail,
restaurant and entertainment alternatives to attract and service downtown
workers, residents and visitors. The assignment was to assess the market
for new development and provide guidance on the types of projects that
would be most feasible and that would have the greatest impact on the
city’s prosperity. Input was also requested on the optimal sites for new
development and the types of assistance that could be required for them to
be successful. |
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“This plan is a vital part of the larger economic development picture for the area. Downtown is the very heartbeat of the city, where potential investors and residents take our pulse to determine the economic health and livability of the entire region,” says Pem Guerry, president of downtown development agency RiverValley Partners. The study was commissioned several months ago by RiverValley Partners, with funding also provided by the city, local private developers and local property owners.
RiverValley Partners is a public/private agency formed in 1986 in response to a community desire for an entity to act as a catalyst for riverfront and downtown development. RiverValley spearheaded the development of the Tennessee Aquarium, which opened on the Chattanooga waterfront in 1992 and is the largest freshwater aquarium in the world. The project, which was privately funded, led to the designation of the area as a public park.
Buckley focused his study on downtown Chattanooga’s ability to obtain a greater market capture of close-in residential and regional spending, visitor spending, and workforce spending. This additional capture of spending could support nearly 700,000 sq.ft. of proposed new retail, restaurant and entertainment developments in the downtown area. The E&Y Kenneth Leventhal strategic plan suggests more than 500,000 sq.ft. of retail, to be absorbed over five to eight years.
In addition to a variety of mixed-use residential, retail and office projects dispersed throughout the downtown area, Buckley strongly recommends maximizing the development effort by capitalizing on current activity with several key projects. In the Ross’s Landing “cultural-entertainment district” on the north end of Chattanooga’s downtown (site of the Tennessee Aquarium), the plan envisions a public market, juried crafts exhibition, an urban retail and entertainment center, and a Southern heritage museum that would attract a large share of the one million visitors to Chickamauga Battlefield south of the city. In the central part of the downtown, the plan calls for infill specialty retail. In the Southside district in the downtown’s southern end, the plan recommends an auction house for antiques and collectibles.
The E&Y plan will not be finalized until a complementary parking study is also completed and additional input is received from real estate and retail professionals, both local and national, and other local business and political leaders. In late September, however, Buckley presented preliminary conclusions to the board of RiverValley Partners, the city council and the other funding partners. Guerry says, “We see this as a work in progress that will take shape and become Chattanooga’s plan once we have received the necessary input that we will be seeking over the next two months.”
Although some revisions are inevitable, the plan is expected to be the centerpiece for RiverValley’s downtown marketing and development activities over the next several years. The plan is being shared locally with leading real estate developers and brokers in a series of meetings that began in October. It was also presented to retail developers at the International Council of Shopping Centers Southeastern States Dealmaking in Atlanta and the Urban Land Institute’s national conference in Washington D.C.
According to Guerry, the plan has “provided a detailed analysis of this market that helps us target our efforts for bringing new developments to downtown Chattanooga and also better prepares us to convince developers and their retail tenants and lenders that the projects can and will be successful.” He says he is interested in receiving ideas and information from interested parties so that the plan can be refined for action.
For more information, contact Pem Guerry, president, RiverValley Partners, 835 Georgia Avenue, Suite 800, Chattanooga, TN 37402, 423-265-3700, Fax 423-265-7924; Michael Buckley, Ernst & Young Kenneth Levanthal, 212-773-3740 or 773-4900.