Business park expands with office and retail space

An Ooltewah business park is expanding with plans to offer more medical, wellness, office and retail space in the rapidly growing area.

White Oak Crossing, which already holds an Aldi grocery store on Lee Highway and other businesses, is adding another phase in an $9 million expansion, said Jeff Londis, who heads developer White Oak Enterprises.

Londis said that one new building already is under construction as part of the next phase. That structure is fully leased with medical office tenants and developed by Noon Development, which bought about an acre in White Oak Crossing, Londis said.

Another planned building is partially leased with medical tenants and under development by White Oak Enterprises, Londis said.

Also, the site has space for two or three more buildings, he said.

In all, the newest phase could hold about 56,000 square feet, Londis said. That would double the size of phase one, he said.

“Ooltewah-Collegedale is one of the fastest-growing areas in the region,” he said. But, the developer said, there’s not a lot of medical office space based there.

The Noon Development project includes an Erlanger Express Care walk-in medical facility, Erlanger Physical Therapy and Southeastern Spine and Neurosurgery.

Londis said that the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t affected interest from the medical sector in terms of leasing space.

Although the concentration of new tenants in the business center are likely to be medical and wellness related, the development group is “certainly open to other types of office and retail uses,” he said.

Boston Londis, a partner in White Oak Crossing and Jeff Londis’ son, said the business park when fully built out would be close to a $17 million project.

He cited the commercial center’s proximity to the Volkswagen assembly plant, other businesses at Enterprise South industrial park and McKee Foods Corp. in Collegedale as reasons for the interest in the site.

Also, Londis said, the location is about midway between Chattanooga and Cleveland, Tennessee.

In addition, Cambridge Square, a large, mixed-use development, is nearby on Lee Highway.

“There’s a lot around us that serves as a draw,” he said.

Aldi opened its Ooltewah store in 2016 at White Oak Crossing, which is about a half mile from Interstate 75.