The Chattanooga Outdoor Initiative includes creation of a stand-alone entity to coordinate the activities of Outdoor Chattanooga, Mayor Bob Corker said Thursday night.
Mayor Corker unveiled the final plan to make Chattanooga an outdoor mecca before over 600 people at the Chattanoogan.
He said a second finding was that the initiative should have a highly visible physical presence.
He said Hargreaves and Associates, the
architectural team working with the community on the 21st Century Waterfront Plan, have been asked to develop a plan that creates the physical presence for Outdoor Chattanooga on the Roper property on the north side of the river.
His office said, "As the 21st Century Waterfront Plan comes on line, the physical location for this initiative will be in the center of our transformed waterfront."
The plan also calls for partnership and community building, a clearing house of information, a need for marketing, promotion and media relations, a public sector liaison and programming (which includes education, community based activities, economic and business
development and activities events and competitions).
The plan has been developed over the past two months through significant public input, it was stated.
Todd Womack of the mayor's office said, "Individuals from across the region, representatives from diverse civic organizations, and people with various levels of outdoors skills
participated and provided great ideas for helping create a blueprint that
will make the outdoors a signature lifestyle for our community. Since that meeting hundreds of other citizens have been involved in multiple focus group meetings to further refine the plan, which will be incredibly important in helping shape our region."
Mayor Corker said implementation of the Outdoor Chattanooga initiative will begin immediately. He said over the next 90 days,Parks and Recreation Administrator Jerry Mitchell, the plan's facilitator Burt Woolf, and others involved in the process, will put in place the central mechanism described in the Outdoor Chattanooga plan.
Specifically, the mayor asked this group to establish a transition committee that will quickly create the structure to make this central mechanism a reality, it was stated.
He said, "With everything that occurs in our community, this initiative will require a shared vision. With that shared vision, many other citizens, entities and governments can come together to play their own role in making this outdoor initiative successful for our region."
The mayor also noted that soon, 2,800 acres of parkland adjacent to Enterprise South Industrial Park will come into the ownership of the city and Hamilton County. Working closely with the county, the mayor committed to "developing this asset in a way that makes it a world-class passive outdoor site."
(for more coverage of the Outdoor Initiative, see the article by Richard Simms in our Outdoors section)