Mayor Andy Berke, Chattanooga City Councilman Jerry Mitchell, and residents of District 2 stood on the former Dixie Yarns factory site on Friday to announce that the City of Chattanooga would clean up the blighted and dangerous property. Clean up work is slated to begin in late summer of 2017.
“This is a 12-acre property in the middle of a neighborhood,” said Mayor Berke on Friday morning, motioning behind him to the mounds of rubble and debris on the property.
“By working together with the neighborhood association and City Councilman Mitchell, we developed a strategy to fully clean up this important property so that it can return to being a centerpiece of the neighborhood instead of a dangerous eyesore.”
In the 1920s Lupton City was built around the former Dixie Yarns factory, in the middle of the neighborhood. The 12 acres that made up the Dixie Yarns site, which would later become R.L. Stowe Mills, was once the crown jewel of the Lupton City neighborhood, providing jobs and a place for the community to gather. The property was sold to an out of town LLC in 2012 which began demolition but then abruptly stopped, leaving behind potentially dangerous rubble and debris.
In 2015, Councilman Mitchell and the Berke administration began to work towards a solution to clear the land and improve the quality of life for Lupton City residents. The property defaulted and became a back tax property in 2016, allowing the City of Chattanooga to move forward and execute a complete clean up of the site.
“It was a lengthy process but the result will be worth it,” said Chattanooga City Councilman Mitchell, who represents District 2. “We cut through red tape and more red tape. But the neighborhood leaders have been there every step of the way -- advocating for their community -- and Mayor Berke and his team worked hard to find a solution.”
“The clean up process will take some time, but we are committed, as a City and as a community, to solve this problem and create a safer, stronger Lupton City,” said Mr. Mitchell.
Mayor Berke also used this announcement as an opportunity to highlight the importance of rehabilitating Chattanooga’s brownfield sites.
“As this property will demonstrate, brownfields can be an important source of economic and community benefit when they are remediated and added back to the tax rolls. Chattanooga is growing. It will be critical that we reuse sites like this, making more land available to market to potential employers, if we are going to move Chattanooga forward,” said Mayor Berke.
“So not only will it improve the safety and wellbeing of a neighborhood, it just makes good fiscal sense for the City to make an initial investment and put brownfield properties back on the tax rolls,” said Mayor Berke.
Over the next few months, and in conjunction with the budgeting process, the City will develop a plan to prioritize and remediate brownfields by working with partners like Brightbridge. The plan is expected to include details regarding the prioritization process as well as recommendations for funding sources both public and private.
Funds for this project will be allocated in the city of Chattanooga fiscal year 2017 - 2018 capital budget. The city expects to have Public Works crews beginning cleanup of the site in late summer of 2017.