Westside may get substation for police
For the first time in years, a police substation could be coming to Chattanooga’s Westside in the same strip mall where a local convenience store recently was shut down as a nuisance.
Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston met Friday with the owners of the Grove Street Center, which houses the Westside Shop that prosecutors shut down last month because of alleged criminal activity.
“As a result of today’s meeting, the property owners are offering to house a police substation rent free,” Pinkston’s spokeswoman, Melydia Clewell, wrote in an email. “They have volunteered to provide police with surveillance cameras and monitors and will even throw in a coffee pot.”
Grove Street Center, which has several empty buildings, has long needed a grocery store, residents and activists say. The Westside Shop served as a convenience store with some groceries, but attracted attention because of at least 200 police calls between January 2014 and April 2016 for disorders, burglaries or other problems. It will remain shut down, and the owner has a court date Wednesday in Hamilton County Criminal Court.
Clewell said the building owners are offering unused space in the center to the Chattanooga Police Department. A police news release said the department is open to the offer and will begin discussions next week with Pinkston, the shop owners and community members.
“There was a substation out there,” police spokesman Rob Simmons said. “But as far as I know it has not been used from 2003 on.”
The Chattanooga Housing Authority, a nonprofit organization that oversees the city’s public housing, has its own police force but has never had a substation on the Westside. Full-time and part-time officers from the Chattanooga Police Department also patrol the area.
Douglas Cox, attorney for the Grove Street Center owners, could not be reached for comment Friday.