March 2004 South Rising By Mary Fortune
Dr. Jayesh Doshi maneuvers around boxes and piles of paperwork scattered throughout the Chattanooga offices of his company, eSpin. He apologizes for the mess.
“We’re moving this weekend,” he says.
The ink is barely dry on a deal that will make eSpin the first tenant in the long-touted but, until now, empty Enterprise South industrial park.
Doshi’s small but growing nanotechnology firm will occupy a 41,000-square-foot building that once housed a government contractor on the
former TNT manufacturing site. Chattanooga and Hamilton County will charge eSpin $1 a year to lease the building, and the company will invest millions in its refurbishment.
Getting the space wasn’t difficult, Doshi says. Negotiations with local
leaders were short and pleasant.
“It took less than a month. They were hungry for us, and we like that
support,” he says. “Three states were bidding to get eSpin. But we thought,why not be the first at Enterprise South?”
After years of lobbying for access to the former military site, city and county leaders have spent about $20 million buying land and building infrastructure to support business at Enterprise South. The 1,200-acre industrial park officially opened Dec. 15 in a ceremony attended by, among others, Gov. Phil Bredesen and State Economic and Community Development Commissioner Matt Kisber.
“The park is a reality now,” says Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker. “We have the infrastructure in place. This is really the first time in the last couple months that a company could actually be on the site.”
Local and state officials have long hailed Enterprise South as a site with the potential to generate thousands of jobs for the Chattanooga area. But getting the land and opening the park proved a lengthy process.
Enterprise South was part of the 6,800-acre Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant, which manufactured TNT during World War II and the Vietnam and Korean wars. The munitions plant shut down in 1977, and in 1994 the Army offered some tracts for lease. In 1997, the entire site was declared surplus property, opening the way for land purchases long sought by local leaders.
Three years later, in October 2000, Chattanooga and Hamilton County bought 940 acres from the Army for $7.5 million. In April 2003, the local governments paid $3.2 million for 262 more acres to complete the site. In November, leaders voted to buy the site¹s 21-mile railroad system and eight additional acres from the Army for $1.1 million.
The 1,200-acre industrial park is flat, almost completely undeveloped and bounded by Interstate 75 and state Highway 58. This spring, the state will build an exit to the park from I-75—a project for which the
federal government has pledged $1 million—and local governments will take ownership of a 2,800-acre wooded “buffer zone” around the park.
The massive tract of empty, flat land in an urban area close to cities like Atlanta and Nashville is a real find, says Amy Walker Cherry, who
is directing sales and development at the site.
“There is plenty of flat land in rural counties, but they don’t have the access to major infrastructure,” she says. “We’ve got an impressive mass of acreage in a logistically attractive area. Not only do we have dual rail capability and direct exit off Interstate 75, but we have 24,000 trucks per day passing by on I-75. It’s a phenomenal growth corridor.”
In 2001, before local governments had finished acquiring land for Enterprise South, Toyota expressed interest in building a plant there to produce 150,000 Tundras a year, beginning in 2006. Details of the local talks were hushed, and the company ultimately located in San Antonio.
“It was a little early for us to really be in the game,” Walker Cherry says.
“We did not have the needed available acreage. But it got us on their radar
screen.”
The park’s first tenant, eSpin, has 15 employees and will expand to about 50 in the next few years, Doshi says. Enterprise South developers are working with the state and TVA, promoting the site and angling for a major tenant with the potential to generate the maximum number of jobs per acre, Walker Cherry says.
“We would love to see a major automotive tenant,” she says. “But
we would be just as happy with a medical device manufacturer or an aerospace concern or appliance concern with a long-term commitment to the community.”
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