Just beyond where West M.L. King Boulevard terminates at Riverfront Parkway, five blocks of historically industrial land are ready to be transformed in the initial phase of a 28-block project.
The blocks are bordered by new streets built by the developers of The Bend, a 120-acre planned riverfront retail and tourism district at the former site of Combustion Engineering and, later, Alstom.
Developers are interested in each of the blocks and could bring between $400 million and $500 million of potential development to the north phase of The Bend, where Chattanooga-based Urban Story Ventures has led a $15 million infrastructure investment.
“When I say infrastructure, you’re talking about the biggest, baddest infrastructure that you would see,” Jimmy White, president of Urban Story Ventures and managing partner of The Bend, said on a tour of the site. “These pipes are big enough to drive a Volvo through. This is downtown infrastructure. This is not infrastructure for a subdivision.”
Canal, 10th and 11th streets will be home to mixed-use developments clustered in dense formations similar to what a visitor to a Florida beach town may see, White said. Urban Story Ventures and a related entity working on infrastructure are planning a marina, an amphitheater, affordable housing, office towers and park space.
The developers had to dig down as deep as 20 feet to remove and replace industrial pipes and wiring. The infrastructure work included roads, sidewalks, water lines, sewer lines and burying power lines.
“You can’t sell beautiful boat slips and amphitheater tickets and all these other things with power lines over your head,” White said.
The site had been home to heavy industry from at least 1888 until GE Power packed up operations at the Alstom turbine plant in 2016, one year after it purchased the property.
White and his partners purchased the GE Power site in 2018 for $30 million. Since then, they have invested $72 million in the site and attracted 1,200 jobs, White said. The partners had to purchase some of the riverfront in separate later transactions.
After a partner buyout in January, White owns 91% of the site. Much of the remaining ownership is held by a family office that has chosen to go unnamed. The project has moved faster since the simplified ownership structure was finalized, White said.
“We have a dozen contracts that are in various stages of negotiations now, on all of these projects,” White said. “We are moving quickly again.”
Despite taking on more stake in the project and financing the infrastructure, White said residents are driving the design after providing feedback over the years.
“This is not a developer coming in to impose his will,” White said. “We’re trying to execute a vision that is best for the city and the county.”
