On a warm evening in Chattanooga, a concert, festival or fireworks display can still draw thousands of people to the Tennessee River. Yet for all the success of the city’s celebrated waterfront, River City Company president and CEO Emily Mack says one of Chattanooga’s greatest civic assets has reached an important crossroads.
“Our riverfront parks work for major events, but those are few and far between,” Mack told attendees at River City Company’s 40th anniversary celebration at The Westin Chattanooga on June 9. “The reality is that our riverfront parks are receiving very little daily and local use and they are not living up to their highest potential.”
That observation became the launching point for Riverfront Parks NEXT, an ambitious plan to transform Chattanooga’s signature waterfront into a more active, welcoming and heavily used public space.
The proposal calls for expanded recreation areas, new gathering spaces, improved access to the river, public art, programming and carefully integrated commercial activity designed to bring people to the waterfront not just during special events but throughout the year.
Throughout the celebration, Mack, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp described the project as an investment intended to serve future generations of Chattanoogans while building on decades of riverfront revitalization.
That focus on the future echoed the circumstances surrounding River City Company’s founding four decades ago, when civic leaders created the organization to help carry out an ambitious vision for downtown Chattanooga.
History 101
Speakers in the anniversary retrospective described a downtown Chattanooga that was still searching for its next chapter when River City Company was founded in 1986. Major retailers had relocated to suburban malls, restaurants were limited and residential life had largely disappeared from the urban core.
Vacant buildings and underused property reflected the city’s industrial decline, while uncertainty about downtown’s future lingered despite a growing consensus that bold action was needed.
Participants in the retrospective say civic leaders had already developed ambitious plans for revitalization, but local governments lacked the resources and organizational structure needed to implement them.
The solution was the creation of River City Company, an organization designed to operate between government, philanthropy and private enterprise by assembling land, coordinating partners and pursuing long-range projects.
As speakers throughout the celebration noted, River City Company’s value has often been its ability to tackle projects that no single organization could accomplish on its own. By bringing together government agencies, private investors, philanthropic organizations and community stakeholders, the nonprofit has frequently served as the connective tissue between ambitious civic ideas and their eventual implementation.
Kim White, former president and CEO, suggested River City Company’s ability to think beyond election cycles has been one of its defining strengths.
“We’re not bound by four-year terms. We’re a nonpolitical organization that can take a long view and know that we’re doing it for the future,” she said.
Building a city around the river
The story of modern Chattanooga is often told through its landmark projects: the Riverwalk, the Tennessee Aquarium, Coolidge Park, the 21st Century Waterfront and the Southside renaissance.
White argued that River City Company’s most important work often happened before construction began. Rather than serving as a traditional developer, the organization focused on creating plans, building consensus and assembling the partnerships needed to bring complex projects to life.
That role frequently involved assembling property, coordinating public and private investment and helping move ambitious ideas from vision to reality.
Many of River City Company’s earliest efforts focused on reconnecting Chattanooga to the Tennessee River.
Speakers in the anniversary retrospective described the opening of the first three miles of the Riverwalk in 1989 as one of the earliest signs that Chattanooga’s riverfront revival could succeed. Within months, they recalled, the trail was crowded with residents from across the community, turning what had once been neglected industrial land into a popular public gathering place.
Participants in the anniversary program pointed to the Riverwalk as an early success that helped build support for later waterfront investments. The Tennessee Aquarium attracted visitors from around the country and established downtown as a destination, setting off a wave of investment that brought new businesses and renewed interest in the urban core.
From destination to neighborhood
As downtown’s revival gained momentum, River City Company and its partners eventually concluded that a thriving downtown needed residents as well as attractions, prompting a greater focus on housing development.
As one participant in the retrospective observed, downtown’s long-term success depended on becoming more than a place people visited: “You need to have a base of people who make this their neighborhood.”
Projects like Riverside Apartments helped reintroduce residential development to downtown after decades of decline. Later initiatives expanded those efforts, gradually transforming the urban core into a place where people could build lives rather than simply attend events.
Southside redevelopment became one of the most visible examples of that approach. Speakers in the retrospective pointed to investments in the convention center district, 17th Street and surrounding infrastructure as catalysts for the neighborhood’s transformation.
Public improvements helped unlock private development, turning former industrial properties into homes, restaurants, offices and gathering places. What began as a long-range planning effort eventually evolved into one of Chattanooga’s most successful urban neighborhoods.
For White, who led River City Company from 2009 to 2019, the work was often about identifying opportunities long before market conditions made them obvious.
Back then, White said, downtown Chattanooga’s vacant warehouses represented an untapped opportunity. The challenge was finding the right development partners and building support for a vision that many people had yet to see.
“We had empty warehouses and people who wanted to live downtown,” she said.
White repeatedly returned to the importance of planning and partnership, arguing that River City Company’s role has often been to develop a vision, build support around it and remain committed long enough to see it implemented.
Momentum and responsibility
Today’s downtown Chattanooga bears little resemblance to the one River City Company inherited four decades ago, a reality that is visible on nearly every block and reinforced by the numbers behind its growth.
Downtown occupies just 4% of Chattanooga’s land area, yet generates roughly 21% of the city’s general fund tax revenue. Nearly a quarter of Chattanooga’s jobs are located downtown, and approximately 5,000 net new jobs have been added in the urban core over the last decade.
Recent investment has been equally significant. More than $584 million in projects have been completed downtown during the past five years, while another $611 million worth of projects are currently under construction. More than 1,200 housing units have been added during that same period.
Mack cited those figures as evidence of downtown’s importance to Chattanooga’s broader economy. Downtown, she noted, generates an outsize share of local tax revenue and serves as a major employment center for both the city and county.
The anniversary celebration also made clear that River City Company’s leaders are focused on future projects as much as past accomplishments.
Alongside Riverfront Parks NEXT, the organization is planning the future of the Hawk Hill site after the Chattanooga Lookouts relocate to their new stadium. The framework plan envisions housing, hospitality, public green space and neighborhood-serving businesses woven together into a mixed-use district overlooking the river.
The proposal reflects the long-term planning approach that White and other speakers described as central to River City Company’s work.
The idea of a shared place
Near the conclusion of the anniversary event, Mack reflected on the recent loss of Stroud Watson, one of Chattanooga’s most influential civic visionaries and a figure whose fingerprints can still be found across the city’s riverfront.
Rather than summarize his legacy, she chose to read from a document Watson wrote in December 1988 while helping shape plans for Ross’s Landing.
Mack said Watson’s words captured a vision for public spaces that extended beyond physical development and focused on creating places that people would value and care for.
“For our city,” Watson wrote, “making a place for all to be comfortable collectively and individually, old, young, rich, poor, Black, white, visitor, resident. To have fun, be serious, celebrate, learn, question.”
Watson’s words touched on many of the same themes discussed throughout the evening, including public space, civic partnership and long-term stewardship.
Watson continued:
“Most of all, this is our place – Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our scale, our history, our forms, our idea, our river and mountains, our festival, our ideals, our energy. ‘Our’ is what will make a genuine place, belonging to, loved by, and cared for by the citizens of Chattanooga.”
Watson’s words also echoed comments made earlier by White, Mack and other speakers, who emphasized River City Company’s role in bringing together public, private and philanthropic partners around long-term goals.
Together, their remarks suggested that the organization’s influence extends beyond any single project to the broader culture of civic ambition that has shaped modern Chattanooga.
As Riverfront Parks NEXT moves from vision to reality, River City Company is once again asking residents to imagine what comes next. Forty years after its founding, that continuity remains central to the organization’s mission.