Urban Story Ventures and West End Property have selected Dover, Kohl & Partners as the master planner given the task to revive 112 acres of riverfront property newly named the West End.
The firm’s award-winning projects include revitalizing South Miami, creating downtown plans for Richmond, Virginia, and Montgomery, Alabama, and crafting visions for new neighborhoods like Glenwood Park in Atlanta.
“Our primary goal is to return this riverfront property to productive use, and Dover, Kohl & Partners’ range of expertise will help us accomplish our vision for West End,” says Jimmy White, principal in West End Property and co-owner of Urban Story Ventures. “Dover, Kohl & Partners had a hand in launching the revitalization of Chattanooga’s Southside years ago, and their focus on designing livable communities is what we want for Chattanooga’s West End.”
Dover, Kohl & Partners led the Southside Neighborhoods Plan for Rustville, Fort Negley and Jefferson Heights.
“What happens on this site will affect the future of the city in many ways,” says Meredith Bergstrom, project director and revitalization specialist with Dover, Kohl & Partners. “Our work has always been about creating places where people want to be, and we’re determined to devise a plan worthy of the site’s great potential.”
The firm will create a final design for the entire site that includes connections to the Tennessee River and downtown Chattanooga as well as to the site’s past and present importance as an industrial employment center.
“Working with Dover, Kohl & Partners, we are designing a true multi-use area, where manufacturing jobs will return to the state-of-the-art Alstom facility and where families will spend afternoons and evenings enjoying this re-imagined section of Chattanooga riverfront,” White says. “Revitalizing the West End will create hundreds of employment opportunities for people in our community and revive the entire area.”
Known for their collaborative design processes, Dover, Kohl & Partners will listen, draw, research and write through a continual feedback loop as they work toward a final design. The final plan will incorporate the manufacturing facility, river access, gathering spaces, retail, restaurants, office space and residential buildings.
“Our process is highly iterative. We’ll get closer and closer to the vision for West End as we work,” Bergstrom says. “We’re committed, with our client, to designing a place people love. The unique aspects of this site – like its waterfront, location and history – will be important elements of the final design.”
The firm’s multi-disciplinary planning team includes Hall Planning and Engineering and VHB, both well-known multimodal transportation planners and engineers; Partners for Economic Solutions, an urban economics consulting firm; and Horsley Witten Group, a green infrastructure and sustainable engineering studio.
Dover, Kohl & Partners expects to have a final plan complete in the second quarter of 2019.
Source: Urban Story Ventures and West End Property