New apartments on the North Shore will be situated near Renaissance Park and the Tennessee River, in walking distance from countless restaurants and shops, and close to Publix.
“[We’re going to have] great amenities all over the place,” Andrew Hibbard with hotel management and development company Vision Hospitality Group said. “Renaissance Park is in your backyard. [There will be] killer views. There’s an opportunity we are really going to take advantage of—delivering the nicest apartment product in town.”
The five-story complex will have multifamily residential units. There will be 40 studios, 40 one-bedroom apartments and four two-bedroom apartments.
The first floor is going to be a lobby and retail space, which will ideally house two restaurants. There’s already interest from two restaurant groups, Hibbard said.
The plans are to have a pet washing station for tenants, and possibly paddleboard and bike storage.
Tenants will get the option to use the storage areas first, but if they don’t use it all, it could be opened to the public.
The prices will be market-driven, and some of the cost will be dictated by where the apartment is in the building, Hibbard said. Studios may average $950 a month, a one-bedroom could be $1,300 a month and two bedrooms will likely cost about $1,600 a month, he also said.
Parking has been a major question for some people, but the group has access to 106 spaces for about 88 beds that will be in the complex.
The area, as well as other nearby locations, such as One North Shore, used to be manufacturing sites, and Vision Hospitality is going to great lengths to clean that up, Hibbard said.
Developers have been adhering to the Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation’s soil management plan and had their plans approved, but then decided to go beyond what is required and remove all contaminated soils from the site., Hibbard said.
“We were going to sort of mitigate it … now, we’ve gotten to the point of just taking everything out—all the contaminated soil—at an additional expensive,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do and it’s easier for us down the road.”
The goal is to have the apartments complete by late winter or early spring of next year, although the timeline was initially sooner. The crews ran into multiple undocumented utilities, so that added more time to the project.
Hibbard said he hopes businesses such as Big Chill and Revelator Coffee benefit from having more people living nearby. And he and other members of his team are eager to create a complex that fits well into Chattanooga’s growth.
“Beyond just the dollars, we have much more incentive to do a great job because we live here,” he said “This is home. It’s a double-edged sword because there’s pressure to get it right, but on the flip side, how cool [is it to contribute to Chattanooga]?”