Longtime site of St. Elmo Body Shop
A new development is expected at St. Elmo just across from the start of the Ochs Highway up Lookout Mountain.
But the project means that two long-time St. Elmo businesses had to move.
Bill Chapin of Rock City Gardens said, "See Rock City, Inc. has great plans for the properties we have owned in St. Elmo for more than 30 years. When the time is right the plans will be shared with the community."
Donnie Covey, who was far from happy about losing the longtime site of the St. Elmo Body Shop, said he was advised that apartments, a restaurant and retail are planned at the site.
Mr. Covey, just before he moved four and a half miles down the road to Flintstone, Ga., put up a sign that said, "70 Years In Business. Forced to Move."
Certified letters went out last year to the body shop and the adjacent Rico Monuments. Former City Councilman Manny Rico went ahead and moved out last December, but Mr. Covey stayed on until the last day of the lease.
He said, "After all this time, you would have thought the owner would have stopped by, sat down, and told us he had plans for the property. But, no, it was a certified letter telling us we had to get out. The whole thing just stinks."
Mr. Covey said his grandfather, Ken Covey, started the body shop in the 1940s in a one-stall former blacksmith shop. He said, "He just kept adding more stalls."
Donnie Covey said the property was sold by his grandmother to Rock City after Ken Covey became sick with cancer and died. Donnie Covey, who was 23 at the time, acquired the business.
The lease to operate the body shop had been in effect over the years. Donnie Covey said at first it was just a verbal agreement.
He said he will keep the name St. Elmo Body Shop despite the move to Georgia. He settled in a cluster of businesses by several lakes just south of Highway 2A.
Site of planned development at foot of Lookout Mountain