South Broad Stadium May Require Specialized Zoning
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- Details are still being ironed out on the future of the South Broad Stadium and District.
Announced last year, many are wondering when we will visually see progress.
The Lookouts are supposed to be throwing their first pitch at the South Broad Stadium in April 2025.
However as of early November 2023, groundbreaking has not yet commenced 17 months away from Opening Day.
Multiple details surrounding the park are being hashed out by the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency and the Chattanooga City Council.
An update was provided to the Council Tuesday on the current state of the zoning proposal of the South Broad District.
Developers and the RPA proposed to the Council that the South Broad District will become its own context area.
A context area defined by Chattanooga city code is where all future approved projects in an area would be subjected to certain guidelines outlined in the context area.
The South Broad Context Area would be the 7th context area in the central portion of Chattanooga.
For example, the riverfront is its own context area that is comprised of tourist and residential development required to be oriented towards the Tennessee River.
RPA’s Deputy Director Karen Rennich told the council, “So part of the idea is that you build off of the existing form based code and don’t just try to create something completely new”
The context area would comprise four different zoning codes.
These would be commercial mixed use, residential, civic for the stadium, and park space.
To achieve this several new streets will have to be built on the site, which has not yet begun.
Rennich said, “I think I had two takeaways from Planning Commission. One is there’s been a lot of engineering work done on the site already. They have a really good feeling about the amount of right-a-way available and how building placement would occur. “
News 12 asked how this would affect groundbreaking.
A city official told us that while this zoning process does not have a large impact on the stadium itself, that groundbreaking is still being planned and a date has not yet been set.
