The push to revitalize an East Chattanooga community gets a boost.
Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise joined volunteers and a local non-profit group on Glass Street this morning to spruce things up a bit.
It's all part of a plan to bring the area back to its heyday.
Two ice cream cones now decorate the window of a vacant storefront on Glass Street...to show that Kay's Ice Cream once flourished here.
Teal Thibaud, Glass House Collective, "It used to be a place where everyone gathered back in the day when Glass Street was alive and thriving."
A collective community effort is underway to bring back those heydays...and fill these boarded up, padlocked, buildings with vibrant businesses once again.
Thibaud, "The commercial base is here. It's an awesome commercial corridor and thousands of cars pass here daily and there's an awesome residential base here."
A non-profit organization called Glass House Collective heads up the revitalization project.
The group teamed up with Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise for a makeover Tuesday.
David Johnson, President and CEO Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, "We believe that healthy commercial corridors such as Glass Street are a key ingredient to creating healthy neighborhoods."
Healthy neighborhood success stories in Chattanooga provide some inspiration here.
Johnson, "We hope that this commercial corridor can be revived just like MLK and Main Street were."
An army of volunteers came out...armed with gloves and garbage bags to clean up the neighborhood.
It's just the first step.
Organizers have big dreams for a whole new Glass Street.
Thibaud, "It's really about the community that's here and getting them involved in this project, so it's not our project. That's why it's Glass House Collective. It's a true collective effort for all of us to make to bring the street back to life."
Local artists and student volunteers have teamed for projects to put a new face on glass street.
They plan to decorate more of the empty storefronts.
