Low-ball offer to buy King St. parking lot just a starting point, city officials say

Chattanooga hotel developer Hiren Desai offered the city $134,700 to buy a roughly half-acre parking lot at 1200 King St. on the booming Southside — that the city bought a decade ago for $195,000.

And Desai wanted the city to pay $140,000 over three years to lease parking spaces back from him, so city vehicles could park there.

That didn’t fly with longtime Chattanooga resident Pat Wilcox, a retired editorial page editor for the Chattanooga Times.

“This looks to me like a complete giveaway,” Wilcox said at Monday afternoon’s meeting of the Chattanooga Downtown Redevelopment Corp. (CDRC). “We would sell it for less than we bought it for? That’s crazy. I mean, it’s insane.”

Desai’s offer is just a starting point, city officials told a crowd of about 20 people who packed into a meeting room near city council chambers. Many were from the group Accountability for Taxpayer Money (ATM), including Frank McCallie, one of ATM’s leaders, who told the CDRC board he was frustrated and “I don’t feel like anybody listens very much.”

While the CDRC board voted to accept Desai’s proposal, the CDRC voted to negotiate a contract with Desai based on the property’s fair market value — not

its assessed value of $134,700. Then, the proposed contract will go back before the CDRC board for final approval.

“We don’t even know what the final price and the lease agreement would be,” said CDRC board member Stacy Richardson, who’s Mayor Andy Berke’s chief of staff. “Just because we approve this today doesn’t mean the property is sold.”

Developing the 0.66acre parcel would allow Desai and business partner Jimmy White to repurpose their King Storage building, a six-story, historic brick building at 1208 King St. into a commercial development with new businesses, including a new microbrewery.

That, plus the 108-room Moxie Hotel that Desai plans to build at Market and King streets, would mean the parking lot’s sale would activate $35 million in new Southside development that would create 150 long-term jobs, $780,000 in hotel and sales tax and 88,000 square feet of office space, Desai said in his proposal.

“We don’t even know what the final price and the lease agreement would be. Just because we approve this today doesn’t mean the property is sold.” – STACY RICHARDSON, MAYOR ANDY BERKE’S CHIEF OF STAFF