CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- A proposed hotel in downtown Chattanooga has preservationists up in arms.
They say a building, the Chattanooga Car Barn building, that dates back to the 1880s, is in danger of being completely demolished.
It is on the National Register of Historic Places.
They were built here in 1886 as storage for horse drawn street cars.
The Car Barns served as an essential piece of Chattanooga’s infrastructure for nearly a century.
According to an application for the U.S. Register of Historic Places, this building was constructed by the Chattanooga Street Railway Company.
It eventually was used for electric street trolleys until 1947, and transitioned into housing buses for CARTA.
CARTA sold the property in 1978 when they moved their bus garage to Wilcox Boulevard, as the building became the Sportsbarn gym.
However, that gym no longer is open here, and now Drury Developers want to build a 200 room hotel on this site.
Preserve Chattanooga Director Todd Morgan says that losing this building is losing a part of Chattanooga’s history.
Morgan said, “Two years ago, Preserve Chattanooga contacted Drury Development requesting that they use the facades, be preserved and incorporated and used into the broader design for the project. The Missouri based company has stayed silent. They’ve been unwilling to communicate with us, nor have they been unwilling to consider alternatives.”
A part of the building is already being torn down.
Drury in their statement in News 12 says they’re excited to be a part of downtown Chattanooga, but did directly avoided comment on the preservationist’s concerns.
They gave an updated design, which shows no trace of the Car Barns being implemented.
According to National Park Service regulations, Drury is not legally required to preserve the building as the property owner.
Morgan says that Chattanooga should look to regional cities such as Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina for how preserving historic buildings is bigger than the economic picture.
He said, “We hope communities like ours understand that sharing the past, can help us forge an identity, for what it means to be Chattanoogan… When these pieces are lost, there’s no turning back.”
Morgan would like to have some more local ordinances put into place since all the hotel had to do was get zoning approval from the city’s Form Based Code committee.
If it were on the local historical registry in addition to its status on the national registry, it would have to be subjected to a review of the Chattanooga Historical Commission.
