Public-private project adds access point to Chattanooga Choo Choo complex
For more than four decades since trains stopped running to the historic Terminal Station, the public has had only one way in and out of the site–now the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel.
But a partnership between the city of Chattanooga, Greenspaces, and the Lyndhurst Foundation is creating a second public access that stakeholders say will improve a long-neglected public road and set the scene for an environmental pilot project to capture rainwater runoff.
A confluence of circumstances led to a situation that is beneficial for everyone involved, Jeff Cannon, director of Greenspaces and a consultant for the River City Company, said.
"With the opening of the Crash Pad on Johnson Street came more cars (so) the city needed to resurface an existing road," Cannon said. "Greenspaces got involved and said if the road is going to be redone, let's make it sustainable, so the city is putting in a bioswale. Then the Choo Choo saw it as a perfect opportunity to open up (their complex). Everybody is doing their part and nobody is doing more than their part."
Baldwin Street, which intersects East Main Street in the 300 block, crosses Johnson Road and dead ends into the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel's property near Track 29, the city's newest live music venue.
Baldwin Street needed repairs and Lyndhurst agreed to pay the estimated $13,000 to $15,000 for the materials to build the road's approximately 30-foot extension to link with the Choo Choo's parking lot, Dennis Malone, assistant city engineer, said in an email.
"Since we were already rebuilding a portion of Baldwin, Lyndhurst asked if we could make the tie-in up to the property line," Malone said. "It made sense for the city to build the portion of the roadway to the same standard as the other portion."
Cannon said the Choo Choo has tried for years to encourage some of its 750,000 annual visitors to turn left when leaving the complex, instead of turning right.
"We just couldn't over come that mentality of turning right," Cannon said. "There are so many good places on Main Street now but for years there wasn't so people turned right out of the parking lot."
The addition of Track 29, which holds up to 2,000 people, added pressure for another exit, he said. When the road is complete, people can walk to East Main Street quickly.
"We can walk from building 3 (on Choo Choo) property to Neidlov's Bread Co. in four minutes through Baldwin Street," he said. "Before it was 18 minutes because we had to walk out onto Market Street and walk down to East Main and turn left."
The bioswale will be a pilot project for the city's water quality program, Heinzer said. It will be the first one of its kind in a downtown setting, he said.
"A bioswale is a mix of plants selected to thrive in environments where they are inundated with water and then they can survive dry periods," Heinzer said.
A bioswale is supposed to absorb storm water, keeping it from entering the city's sewer system.
Baldwin Street's infrastructure is part of the city's combined sewer and storm water system, which has been a serious problem for the city, driving up water treatment costs and causing raw sewage to run into the Tennessee River during rainy seasons, Heinzer said.
Reducing the amount of storm water that runs into the underground sewers benefits the city on many levels, he said.
"Some of (water) will still get into (the sewer)," Heinzer said. "But it will stop some of it. Whenever a gallon of water gets in that system it has to go to Moccasin Bend (Sewage Treatment Plant) to get treated.
"Treatment costs money. Intense rain causes overflow and it goes directly into the river, untreated. When we have an overflow of combined sewer and storm water, it's bad on the river, it's bad on us."
The federal Clean Water Act is the mandate that caused city leaders to approve a storm water fee. The combined sewer system is why the city sometimes smells bad in the summer, city officials have said. When it's dry, there is not enough water to flush the underground lines.
City administrators have used large cakes of deodorant to combat the odor. City engineers have said it would costs millions of dollars to separate the systems and would tie up downtown city streets for months.
