Southeast real estate development group Urban Story Ventures has broken ground on the North Phase of The Bend, a 120-acre mixed-use redevelopment along the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga.
Community stakeholders, business leaders and neighboring businesses on the Westside gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony, where Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly, Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp and Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Charles Wood shared their support of the downtown riverfront project.
“For nearly a year, we’ve worked alongside Mayor Wamp and Urban Story Ventures to get the best possible deal for the residents of Chattanooga and Hamilton County,” Kelly shared. “This project adds a whole new neighborhood to Chattanooga and transforms another, so calling it a generational opportunity isn’t a stretch.”
“The Bend represents an unprecedented partnership between developers and a future for public education in which students will have opportunities to engage in work-based learning with companies just down the road from the new Gateway site,” noted Wamp.
“Urban Story Ventures is combining a level of creativity and scale to the Bend development that Chattanooga hasn’t seen in a long time,” said Wood. “Fifty years from now, people will think of the Bend as a natural part of downtown Chattanooga in the same way we think of the Northshore, Ft. Wood and Southside neighborhoods today.”
This past month, Urban Story Ventures received unanimous approval for the One Westside Plan, a public-private partnership that utilizes a tax increment financing agreement to develop public infrastructure at the Bend and revitalize the Westside community by funding affordable housing, public education and a new downtown school.
An independent analysis completed by Younger & Associates showed that the Bend is expected to generate nearly $1 billion in new investment over the next 30 years.
The groundbreaking ceremony was the kickoff to the North Phase of infrastructure, previously referred to as Phase 2 on the Martin Luther King Boulevard side of the site. This spring and summer, the development team will move forward with infrastructure projects that are critical for preparing pad-ready blocks for mixed-use, including intended use for an urban grocery store, new office and retail space, multi-family apartments and parking.
Urban Story Ventures is already pre-leasing commercial space at the Bend. Lead partners include master town planner and urban design firm Dover, Kohl and Partners, general contractor Grace Construction, engineer and landscape architect RaganSmith, architect Tinker Ma and environmental consulting firm Terracon.
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