Mortgage Bankers Association
11/17/05

I have been involved in Chattanooga not just in politics but in development for a long time. I hope you all being in the mortgage banking business will appreciate the fact that you can live in Chattanooga or near Chattanooga and do business here. I did grow up near Chattanooga across the line in Georgia. Chattanooga was where we went-- went to town then drove down to Lafayette. I moved here after I graduated from Auburn in 1968. Chattanooga is a Cinderella City, not just in the United States but worldwide. It’s interesting that we’re considered a Cinderella City because I can remember many years ago talking about where we were then and where we wanted Chattanooga to be.   It has been a long ride to get from where we were back in 1968 and 69 to where we are now.  So being a Cinderella City took a quarter of a century to get from the most polluted city in America; a city most noted for its manufacturing base and at one time we were considered to be the ninth most industrialized city in America to where we are today. It all started when we began to look for industrial land to get back to the idea of development, mortgage banking and how you make a city grow.  We knew it even 25-30 years ago that we were running out of useful land register, so we began to look at Moccasin Bend.  Moccasin Bend was sitting there with all that unused land. Which lead to the Moccasin Bend Task Force, to viewing the uses of Moccasin Bend, the history of Moccasin Bend and to how to use it as an industrial park.  If you talk about that today, people would say, “I can’t believe that you ever considered using Moccasin Bend as an industrial park because it is a very historic site.”  We moved from there to looking at the soon closed Volunteer Army Ammunitions Plant.  I can remember the Volunteer Army Ammunitions Plant out there pumping nitrogen oxide helping make the red water in Chickamauga Creek and Chickamauga Lake then turning out TNT before the Vietnam War was over. We all knew that it was on the down hill slide and it was going to become moth balls by the Federal Government.

I have a couple of pictures of Chattanooga hanging on my wall in the old water company building right across from City Hall which is under renovation. City Hall was built in 1908. I have a panoramic picture of Chattanooga taken from Cameron Hill in 1906. City Hall is not there, and the Market Street Bridge is not there; only the Walnut Street Bridge is in the picture. The only building that you can recognize is the back of the James Building and you can see a number of buildings and stuff that is no longer present. Then there is another picture hanging underneath that one taken 99 years later in 2005 and it shows a very different downtown Chattanooga with its lovely waterfront, thriving downtown, four bridges, and beautiful mountains.  So you can decide how long it takes to be a Cinderella City --99 years, 30 years or whatever.

We come from a city that has gone from smoke stacks being a prominent feature in 1906 to a city where our riverfront development is a prominent feature. In the mid 1970’s, Walter Cronkite, on his national news show, announced that Chattanooga was the “dirtiest city in America.” Now Chattanooga is a city that has been invited to a number of international events. Now our biggest problem is deciding who goes to pick up the next award.  Chattanooga’s renaissance is a wonderful, wonderful problem to have and it’s something that we need to take advantage of while it lasts. It’s like anything else that’s new and different, there is a shell fight, there is a product cycle and while we are high on the agenda right now we will have to work hard to stay there. Those of you who are in the mortgage banking business and real estate business and developing business are going to have to help us stay there.

Enterprise South is in my opinion, the finest industrial park in the Southeastern United States. It is recognized as one of the five mega sites in the Tennessee Valley Region not just in the state of Tennessee but in the entire Tennessee Valley Region. If something prominent like an auto plant is looking for a place to be in the Southeastern United States; a short list will include Enterprise South. No I’m not here to announce success yet today. I will tell you absolutely that we have a constant stream of people coming thru Chattanooga under code names --that is always very interesting. When they come in under code names we have to try to figure out who they are by the accent they have or the areas they talk about where they have been, but it is again an usual kind of situation for Chattanooga to be on the short list and have so many people representing so many potential prospects coming thru our community. There was a story a few days ago in the Tennessean about Nissan moving its offices to Nashville and the incentives that were used to get them to relocate there.  I had people say to me after the story came out, why didn’t they come to Enterprise South? Well, there are reasons for that.  You’re talking about offices, class office space. The article mentioned that the State was now offering such delicious incentives like $155,000 per job, to bring those offices from California to the Nashville area.

Enterprise South on the other hand is designed for manufacturing space. Incidentally, Enterprise South has and interchange under construction. The State is going to spend $35 million to give direct access from Interstate 75.  And it will have two competing railroad services once it is up and running. My reaction to that article and to the great expense our state is forking out to attract business is, that is the way the world is working today in the world of economic development.

During the time my boys were studying in Alabama south of Birmingham, I was driving down to visit one of them or both of them one weekend when the Mercedes Plant was announced to be located in Vance, Alabama. Well we had always fritted and rung our hands in Chattanooga about the fact that we had really developed a desirable industrial land.  I was literally in the area when the announcement came on the radio and I pulled off the interstate at the nearest interchange. There was no access to Vance, Al. from the interstate.  I wanted to see what kind of great industrial park that Vance had built. There was nothing there but a goat run.  It was that kind of land -- rough, scrubby and poor but Alabama had pulled out all the stops to get Mercedes there. People said Alabama had given away too much in the process and they would never recover but they were investing incentives in areas lacking until the plant doubled in size, then attached all these ancillary private businesses and now it’s thriving. Vance beat the competition.

 Now we have some problems and some hurdles that we have to get over in order to beat the competition. Alabama is still out there competing; the Carolinas and Georgia compete whenever something like an auto plant or major manufacturer is in play.  It comes down to creating financing. I am encouraged by the source coming out of Nashville and what the State is willing to do because the State has been working very closely with us here in Chattanooga as well. I believe that in Chattanooga, perhaps more than any other city in the South right now, our prospects are good. I believe that our growth is just beginning.  I’m not afraid of our growth outstripping our resources. I am confident that our growth rate will expand through industry.  The best is yet to come, our best days are ahead. You have a lot to look forward to.  I appreciate you having me here today.