photo by Mayor Tim Kelly at Kiwanis
Mayor Tim Kelly told the Kiwanis Club on Tuesday that in the coming months he will work to knit Chattanooga together and to further unite it to the region.
Mayor Kelly said he plans to use the C.B. Robinson Bridge on Dupont Parkway to connect the Tennessee Riverwalk to the Cumberland Trail on Waldens Ridge, and to use existing freight rail lines for new Amtrak passenger service through Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta.
The Amtrak railroad station will be at a secondary entrance to the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport, he said.
“We’ve already got the spot,” he said.
“(The passenger rail service) has a very, very good chance of actually happening,” he said.
Mayor Kelly told the group that a National Park at Moccasin Bend would attract travelers en route to the Smokies and act as a driver for local culture and economy.
The state has said it will not rebuild the mental health institute on the current 85-acre parcel, a win for National Park Partners and other local parks and greenspaces forces, but it favors a 15-acre spot still on the Bend, northwest of its current site.
“We all want to see it move off the Bend,” Mayor Kelly said. The 85-acre site and a police shooting range site will revert to the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District, formed in 2003 as part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
Mayor Kelly and National Park Partners want Moccasin Bend cleared of all “non-conforming uses” and given National Park status.
An EPB study found that 10,000 people have moved to Chattanooga since 2020. Of those, 350 were surveyed to find that local outdoors and green spaces were among the top three reasons they chose Chattanooga.
The city is beginning a parks and outdoors plan, the first in 25 years. Besides the Riverwalk-Cumberland Trail connector, the plan will include trees and shade along the riverfront, sports fields and the Montague Park plan unveiled this fall.
“It’s a fantastic plan but it won’t be cheap to do,” Mayor Kelly said. In January he’ll ask the governor for money to execute it.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
“Childcare is now part of workforce development,” said Mayor Kelly.
Though unemployment is at a low 3.5 percent, he said only 60 percent of local prime-age workers have jobs. Many of the non-working 40 percent are mothers whose jobs would not pay for childcare, he said.
He said he and County Mayor Weston Wamp will make dramatic structural changes to turn workforce development programs from reactive to proactive, such as with affordable childcare and high school career training.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Mayor Kelly added that airport development is economic development.
The city was awarded a $750,000 Small Community Air Service Development Program grant in October to pursue nonstop service to Denver.
“I think we’re going to have some big announcements in the spring,” Mayor Kelly said. If favorite United Airlines passes, Frontier Airlines may bite, he said, and the airport is also in talks with Breeze Airways.
After talks with Delta Air Lines earlier this month, he said service to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport will probably be restored mid-2025. Delta service to Atlanta and Detroit will come first, he said.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Mayor Kelly said he’s found a partner in State Senator Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) in his efforts to roll back state preemption laws that forbid affordable housing incentives for developers. For example, he said, a developer of a four-story apartment building could add a fifth story made up of affordable housing.
“It’s a problem,” Mayor Kelly said, that teachers and firefighters can’t afford to live within city limits.
Mayor Kelly said he will also work to create and support a black middle class, “which might as well not exist here,” he said.