By the time Todd Morgan stood before cameras Thursday morning to plead for better preservation of historic Chattanooga buildings, a facade of one of downtown’s oldest structures was already gone.
Drury Hotels began demolishing the Car Barn, a brick building on the corner of Market and East Third streets dating back to 1886, as it announced Wednesday it had begun construction of an eight-story, 200-room hotel.
“We just saw the demolition starting,” Morgan, executive director of Preserve Chattanooga, said at a press conference in front of the building. “It happened very quickly.”
Drury bought the former home of the Sportsbarn athletic club and the parking structure across Market Street in 2023.
The Car Barn was used as a storage and repair facility for the city’s public transportation system until the early 1980s, when it was renovated for the Sportsbarn. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, according to Preserve Chattanooga.
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Getting the designation is a complex process involving research, vetting and approval from the Tennessee Historical Commission and the National Park Service, Morgan said. Still, it does not protect a building from demolition.
“An owner can still do whatever they want to do,” Morgan said. “That doesn’t make it right. You know, they have an obligation to the community to seek every possible way to save that building and keep it as part of the community’s fabric.”
Preserve Chattanooga, the city’s historic preservation group celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, contacted Drury Development in 2023 to request that at least the facades of the historic building be saved. The group did not oppose the hotel itself.
“The Missouri-based company, though, has stayed silent,” Morgan said. “They’ve never been willing to communicate with us, nor have they been willing to consider alternatives for the design.”
The facade on Broad Street could still be saved if Drury Development acted soon, Morgan said.
Drury has not announced a completion date for the hotel, which it said would include amenities like a pool, a lobby restaurant and event and conferences spaces.
PROTECTING HISTORY
Drury entered the Chattanooga market last year when it opened at 210-room hotel on Shallowford Road near Hamilton Place. It touted its new hotel’s location just blocks from the riverfront and Tennessee Aquarium.
“We are looking forward to contributing to the growth and thriving atmosphere of downtown as permanent community members,” Charles Drury III, a director of development at Drury Development, said in a press release.
A design for the hotel does not include keeping the Car Barn’s facades, though Drury Development said in an email the company was “working to use some of the building material where possible.”
Private owners are generally permitted to demolish their property as long as they adhere to local zoning laws, according to the city’s Land Development Office, unless the building is a locally designated historic landmark.
Chattanooga’s only building with that designation is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home on Missionary Ridge. The demolition permit for a building with a local landmark designation must be reviewed by the Chattanooga Historical Commission.
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The city should put more funding toward historic preservation and grant the landmark designation to protect more buildings, Morgan said. He cited First Presbyterian Church’s plan to demolish the Medical Arts Building, an art deco and Gothic tower from 1928.
“When these places are lost, there’s no turning back,” Morgan said. “For every building that we lose in Chattanooga, we’ve lost part of our past. We’ve lost our ability to connect to the past and tell those stories. We also lose exceptional architecture and materials.”
Preserve Chattanooga wanted the Car Barn’s previous owner to donate a facade easement to the group, which could have preserved its outer walls even as the property transferred to new owners, Morgan said. The group has several facade easements for historic buildings downtown.
Morgan also called for Chattanooga to adopt a so-called “demolition by neglect” ordinance that prevents property owners from allowing historic buildings to fall into disrepair.
DRURY’S REDESIGN
Drury came before the downtown zoning panel in January to ask for an exception to downtown building code. The company asked to reduce the minimum percentage of ground floor covered by windows from 70% to 55% and on upper floors from 20% to 4%.
The company also asked to increase the amount of blank wall it could include in the design and for a larger projecting sign. Members of the panel said the project should be deferred for a month to allow Drury to ask more for modifications and possibly rethink its design.
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Drury requested and was granted a deferral, but the company did not have to appear before the panel again after changing its design to conform to code.
The company has used refitted historic buildings for hotels in the past, Morgan said, and could have incorporated the Car Barn into its design.
“What they’ve done instead is pretty much bring in a typical chain prototype for our downtown,” Morgan said. “They could have had a much more amazing project. It could have been architecturally beautiful and very different, and it could have told some of the history of Chattanooga.”
Contact business reporter Daniel Dassow at ddassow@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.
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