Jerry Summers
The progressive thinkers in the city of Chattanooga who frequently have come up with the solution of how to handle the ever-growing homeless population in the Gig City may have inadvertently overlooked another opportunity to help the local taxpayers support another venue and palatial palace to assist public charities and organizations in being good neighbors to the old and new immigrants from other cities and countries.
There also exists another physical facility between Broad and Market Streets on 8th Street that has been long vacant that may solve the problems of the homeless, the financial strain on the property owners and the taxpaying citizens.
The Chattanooga Bank Building opened in 1927 and has had several prospective developers as a hotel, apartments and even condos.
In 2012 a development group purchased the property and was looking to refurbish the 11-story structure as a hotel or apartment complex.
That plan was not completed but in January 2022 a local television station and a veteran and experienced newsman for Gig City’s surviving major newspaper reported that it had been announced that Chattanooga’s 95-year-old surviving monument of the past might once again be in line to become a boutique hotel by a national hotel chain in conjunction with the present owners from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
So far, the renovation has not started but it is still a potential opportunity.
The present successor to the new Vice President for Development at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) of the downtown non-profit development group, River City Company, has been quoted as saying that “the former bank building is one of the most architecturally significant structures in the city center and all of downtown.” (So was the Patten Hotel)
That is correct but the skilled financial advisors in Chattanooga with all of their talent may have overlooked the obvious golden opportunity to provide housing for the next 1,500 (3,000 total?) proud travelers to the Scenic City in a more luxurious setting than sleeping on the sidewalk of East 10th Street.
The successful purchase of the Airport Inn on Lee Highway as a haven for the homeless could be a beacon for Airport Inn No. 2 with certain advantages not present at No. 1:
1. There will be no need for parking (the main drawback to the existing property) because most of the prospective tenants do not have a vehicle and arrive in town by a variety of alternative modes of transportation.
2. A CARTA electric vehicle could stop on either Market or Broad Street and transport the tenants to the charitable facility on East 11th Street now identified as Chatt Foundation (Community Kitchen) for their “three hots” (no need for “cots”); and
3. Another bond issue like the city’s announced share of the 2012 Consent Decree for the sewage repair bill (plus interest and undisclosed fees) could be added with the usual unanimous “community support!”
The unfortunate minor dispute between the good Baptists at Silverdale Baptist Church and Silverdale Baptist Academy and the charitable progressives of the leadership of the “Dynamo of Dixie” office holders will hopefully resolve the minor conflict amicably in the spirit of Christian and governmental fellowship.
The close proximity of Airport Inn No.1 to their school, church, and their children’s safety and health appears to have already led to lively discussions between the parties.
(The fact that this idea may not have previously been fully discussed is in no way intended to be a criticism of any individual, entity, or government. We also are not involved in the disagreement between parents of students at said educational facility nearby Airport Inn No. 1 and the compassionate local municipality on behalf of the homeless population. Airport Inn No.2 is just a friendly alternative suggestion to assist the additional incoming taxpayers in the next step in the Scenic City plan to outgrow Atlanta and to retake its lead in the population statistics that existed prior to the “War to Suppress the Rebellion.”)