City Grants Developers Access to Additional Parking at Chick-fil-A

On Thursday night during its regular monthly meeting, the East Ridge City Council gave its blessing for developers of the Chick-fil-A to have access to city right-of-way on Camp Jordan Parkway to provide additional parking spaces for the business under construction inside the nascent Jordan Crossing.

Councilman Jacky Cagle was the only dissenting vote in the measure. Cagle thought the property could be better used as the site of the Camp Jordan Park sign that will require to be moved as the roadway into the park has been reconfigured.

The property in question is not at the entrance to the park and is between the property where Hampton Inn is being built and the new Chick-fil-A. Mayor Brent Lambert opposed the relocation of the Camp Jordan sign to that area.

Chick-fil-A had been granted a variance by the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals to build a 30-foot tall sign advertising the business. The sign would be required to comply with the provision that it match the exterior of the building.

The council extended a contract with the consulting firm Retail Strategies for an additional two years. The Birmingham-based firm will be paid $26,000 over the course of the contract to help recruit new businesses to East Ridge. The original three-year contract with the firm was for $100,000.

Cagle told the council that he wanted periodic updates on businesses that Retail Strategies bring to the city. Mayor Lambert voiced confidence in the ability of the firm to gain quick access to businesses considering relocating into the area that city staff would have limited access to. Mayor Lambert noted that Retail Strategies was responsible for five businesses opening in a strip mall at the corner of Ringgold Road and Truman Street.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.