Downtown Chattanooga needs housing options

center to which residents could walk.

Kim White, who heads River City, said downtown can use a lot more housing in a variety of prices, ranges and styles.

“There’s an opportunity for underutilized office buildings downtown and to turn those into cool apartments and condos,” she said as an example. “That would help with so much office inventory.”

The study, crafted by real estate adviser Robert Charles Lesser & Co., said the downtown area could support up to 900 new housing units a year over the next decade or so.

One-third of those units were identified as student housing to support the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the report said.