I was driving through the Northgate Mall parking lot Thursday a week ago after eating lunch at Panera when suddenly a scene caught my eye – the old Sears was being torn down.
Stories had been in the media that BJ’s Wholesale Club was going to relocate to the site in a new building. So, it was not surprising, but the beginning of razing work did more tangibly signify the end of an era. The surrounding fence that had been put up there had also earlier let one know that the Sears building’s days were numbered.
Sears had closed that store in 2019, and talk had even surfaced a year or so later that the site was briefly being considered for a new location for the Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts.
I know both Hamilton Place and West Town Mall in Knoxville have added new buildings to ends of malls where other buildings were, so that is a trend. Many also hope BJ’s is as successful as the similar Costco and Sam’s Club, without of course added parking and traffic issues for those who like the mostly quieter Northgate traffic flow of recent years.
But seeing such a massive and solidly built buiding in a torn down state can be unsettling to some. It also perhaps brings up some questions. For example, are the demolished materials being recycled or just taken to the dump? Could that building have been repurposed into a new business, including BJ’s? What would have been some creative and profitable reuses for the structure?
To me, the Sears building never seemed an eye-pleasing structure but was just plain and functional. I always thought the also-closed J.C. Penney building at Northgate was more attractive, if big department stores are normally considered handsome architecturally. It at least has a seemingly brutalist style of architecture reminiscent of the early 1970s with grooved concrete walls.
What the Sears building lacked in architectural charm, it did almost surprisingly make up for in terms of contributing positively to Chattanooga retail history. While the J.C. Penney building and Northgate Mall opened in March 1972, the Sears building did not open until Feb. 27, 1974, as what was the first suburban Sears in Chattanooga.
When it opened, it was the largest retail store at Northgate and one of the three largest Sears stores in the South. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held for both it and the 20-bay Sears auto center by Highway 153 on Jan. 17, 1973.
The department store was designed by the architectural firm of Cooper, Cary and Associates of Atlanta, and constructed by Independent Construction Co. of Chattanooga under general superintendent George Higgenbotham. A sign announcing that a Sears was coming stood in front of the building during construction.
Seeing the empty building today, people might forget that it had quite a few talked-about features, including several ones innovative at the time. It was to have a 140-seat, full-service cafeteria boldly a few feet from the Piccadilly Cafeteria, a catalog-order package pickup area with a drive-through under a canopy, a key shop, and an indoor/outdoor garden center.
It was also said to be innovative in that time frame by being fully accessible to handicapped shoppers with a reserved parking area, a curb ramp, wide doors, an elevator, and special restroom equipment.
The store was also cutting age in that its cash registers were actually data terminals connected to a computer that could provide the shopper and the store with instantly processed information. The machines had already been put in use in the downtown Sears store, one article said.
The auto center opened on Feb. 4, 1974, and when the department store opened 23 days later, quite a few dignitaries attended. Besides Sears officials, also on hand were U.S. Congressman LaMar Baker, who presented a flag flown over the U.S. capitol; Jan Cochrane, Miss Chattanooga; County Judge Chester Frost; and Joy Walker, the wife of Chattanooga Mayor Robert Kirk Walker.
The manager of the Northgate Sears was to be Gene Doll.
Sears, including with the help of two corporate designers highlighted in the paper, had put the finishing touches getting the building ready to be open after the contractors had completed their work.
The store had a good run of 45 years, and I know I bought a lawn mower or two there over the years.
As of November, reportedly only about eight Sears stores remained in the United States. Who would have thought that when the Sears catalogs were once so popular to look through?
Another older building and campus that caught my eye recently was the old Hillcrest Elementary that is apparently now the Hillcrest alternative school. I had actually examined the building a few years ago while writing on the history of some elementary school buildings in Chattanooga, but I happened to stop there last Saturday while looking for a quick place to run in between errands in that area.
It is located on a hill near the southeastern corner of the intersection of Highways 153 and 58, and when I examined it in 2019, it still had some rusty window frames but an interesting window or two that went around a corner. It now has newer windows and has been spruced up some, but what caught my eye was the giant field and walking track I had not noticed before.
The original part of the school had opened in 1948 as Jersey-Kings Point Elementary before the name was changed to Hillcrest in the early 1960s. It had been built to replace a closed and abandoned Jersey School on Bonny Oaks Drive and the old Kings Point school near Chickamauga Dam that had been destroyed by a fire on a school-day afternoon in February 1945. Among the students quoted in the newspaper after the fire was 11-year-old sixth grader Dalton Roberts, who, of course, went on to become Hamilton County executive.
Next to the Hillcrest field on the east side today are some overgrown woods. My imagination started wandering, and I wondered if that wooded land is part of the school property. If so, maybe they can enhance it as a park area for use during non-school hours and work in school learning activities there during the week.
Creative ideas were what Scott Martin had when he came to Chattanooga in 2022 as the administrator of the revamped city Parks and Outdoors department under Mayor Tim Kelly. In what was a surprise to me, he has left after just a little over two years to head the Fort Monroe Authority in Virginia where he has also spent time. It is a partnership between the National Park Service and the city of Hampton, Va.
I did not hear exactly why he has left and if that job is considered a step up in the parks administration and planning world, or if there were family decisions involved in his relocating. But I know he did a lot of good for Chattanooga in the parks community with ideas for expanding park space, developing a parks plan, and helping Chattanooga try and develop into the first American National Park City.
Don’t ask me exactly what the latter means, as I went to one or two meetings but am still not completely sure if I could tell you. But I know it does mean enough of us care about park space and natural amenities and offerings and don’t want everything to become a parking lot or subdivision!
I enjoyed interviewing Mr. Martin upon his arrival in Chattanooga and seeing him at various parks-related events over the last two years and know he will be missed. While some people in that position are almost articulate in a robotic way, he had good gifts for expressing himself and for offering ideas, but he seemed to give them in his own somewhat unique personality.
He was also kind to email me once or twice regarding stories I wrote that did not deal directly with parks.
Another articulate Chattanoogan to whom we had to say goodbye – and unfortunately permanently – was City Councilwoman Carol Berz, who died unexpectedly Dec. 11 at the age of 85.
While I had not paid deep attention to her work on the City Council in recent years, I first met or observed her way back about 1987, when she was involved with the Chattanooga Human Rights and Human Relations Commission.
I somehow was assigned to cover that group, perhaps because I was briefly the police reporter while working for the Chattanooga News-Free Press. The first chairman was Dr. David Beebe, the pastor of Pilgrim Congregational Church, and then Rabbi Ken Kanter of Mizpah Congregation followed him after a few months or even weeks.
But I quickly noticed how Ms. Berz also stood out with how she articulated her viewpoints in a wise and appealing way that showed innate leadership skills. I also remember seeing her cutting up at some half- or all-day retreat with former Mayor and then-Commissioner Pat Rose during a break. She saw me and laughed and said their banter and actions were going to be written up in the media.
She might have later become involved as the chairman as maybe some obituary information suggests, but I kind of quit following the group and their non-binding decisions after a year or two.
While living in Knoxville but still contributing to Chattanoogan.com, I saw in 2008 that she was the new person elected in a special election to succeed Marti Rutherford from District 6 on the City Council. Remembering all her skills she possessed and thinking she would be a great person to profile, I was able to get a phone interview with her and reintroduced myself and enjoyed talking with her.
After I wrote my story, I remember emailing her a link, and she thanked me and said that she would check it out.
About the only other times I saw her in recent years were when I would run in the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot race through Brainerd Hills and see the longtime resident handing out water. I did not get a chance to reintroduce myself, but I would thank her. I saw her this Thanksgiving and briefly spoke to her while trying to save my breath. I wish I had spoken longer now, because I had no idea she would have less than 2 weeks of breaths left on this Earth.
The fact that she was 85 and wanting to run for re-election and was still seemingly sharp was impressive. Of course, in politics particularly, it is always a tough decision figuring out if you still have a lot to offer or if it is time to give younger people an opportunity.
Regardless, Ms. Berz’ life and efforts to help the diverse and complex Brainerd area of town are to be commended.
Out of interest, I found a story I had written from 1987 about the beginning of the Chattanooga Human Rights and Human Relations Commission, and believe it or not, it had started as a suggestion by Chattanooga Venture. Venture, of course, was the prime mover in helping initiate ideas that resulted in the Tennessee Aquarium and the riverfront redevelopment.
A Venture committee concluded that a thriving city had good human relations, and the commission was formed under Mayor Gene Roberts. I had written down all the names of the first commission, and it is obvious they were selected as people who cared about all of Chattanooga. I wrote from information given me that Ms. Berz, who later became known for her mediation work as a lawyer, was a social worker.
Other committee members were Addie Dozier, Charles Fields, Virgil Caldwell, Joyce Noble, Grady Grant, Mary K. Radpour, J.K. Brown, Thomas Brooks, Earl Brown, Leroy Lawson Jr., Ken Kanter, Carl White, Fred Houser, Bud Schaerer, Betty Mac Thomas and Dr. Beebe.
And there was one more – Gene Doll, who was still the manager of the Northgate Sears 14 years after it opened.
* * *
Jcshearer2@comcast.net