Parking lots fetch $4.55M, new use possible
A company linked to a Chattanooga businessman has paid $4.55 million for downtown parking lots that take up about a half block in the city center.
Roshan Amin, with a background in hotels, printing and manufacturing, said he’s putting together plans during the next two to three months for what could be next for the property at Broad and Sixth streets.
While Amin is chief executive at Chattanooga-based hotel developer Dynamic Group, he said by phone he purchased the site personally though the entity Sixth & Broad LLC.
“Not sure it will be a hotel,” he said.
While keeping the parcel as parking for now, he expects to put together possible plans for the property later this year.
Steve Hunt, who brokered the sale as owner of Hunt Commercial Real Estate in Chattanooga, said by phone the site has close proximity to the offices of playground equipment maker Playcore as well as high-rises Liberty Tower and Republic Centre.
“It’s so well situated,” said Hunt, who had declined to identify the principal behind the entity that bought the site.
A filing with the Tennessee secretary of state showed Sixth & Broad’s office as the downtown headquarters of Dynamic Group.
The parking lots are about halfway between the downtown riverfront and the TVA Chattanooga Office Complex.
About a year ago, downtown nonprofit redevelopment group River City Co. unveiled potential new visions for remaking Broad Street. The ideas emerged from months of study and public feedback around making the major artery safer, greener and livelier.
Wider sidewalks and more outdoor dining along with better bike lanes were common threads through the three draft versions in the effort to reimagine the Broad Street area from the Tennessee Aquarium to M.L. King Boulevard.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee Valley Authority has said it no longer needs as much downtown office space just a couple of blocks south of Broad and M.L. King. TVA is studying whether it should demolish, sell or revamp at least part of its 1.4 million-square-foot
complex that spreads across more than 8 acres of downtown.
TVA officials said the utility has received offers from several developers to build or lease a smaller office complex in and around downtown, and the federal utility has offered its property as a site for a new federal courthouse planned for the city. TVA also is soliciting public comments for the next two weeks about what it should do with its office complex.