153 Complex Gets Bigger
Friar’s Branch adds 3 buildings off Shallowford
Chattanooga Times Free Press, October 23, 2003

By Bob Gary Jr.
Staff Writer

Motorists passing by the intersection of Shallowford Road and state Highway 153 soon will have a great deal more to see there.

Developer Butch Lunsford and real estate appraiser Bill Haisten are adding three new buildings to their Friar’s Branch Crossing office complex. The buildings are set to cover 56,000 square feet and will max out the 10-acre development, Mr. Lunsford said.

The corner on which Friar’s Branch Crossing sits is “one of the most high-profile locations in Hamilton County,” Mr. Haisten said.

Mr. Lunsford said the Tennessee Department of Transportation estimates 80,000 cars traveling on Highway 153 pass that intersection daily. Once TDOT’s work on 153 is complete, he said, that traffic count will be closer to 90,000 cars per day.

“And those are Chattanooga and Hamilton County people,” he said, “not like on (Interstate) 75.”

The first building, a 21,000 square footer, should be open by March 1, Mr. Lunsford said. The concrete slab has been poured on a second 20,000 square-foot building, he said, and the $4.5 million project should be complete by late 2004 or early 2005, when the third 15,000-square-foot building is set for completion.

Mr. Lunsford said two-thirds of the space in the first building has been leased to Volkert & Associates, a civil engineering firm moving from its Hixson location. He hopes to have commitments from one or two more new tenants in a few days, he said.

The Volkert firm will settle in alongside the development’s current tenants – WFLI-TV, wireless company Nextel, Miller Motte Technical College, Lighting Expo and Weather Tamer, a Knoxville-based window maker.

Mr. Lunsford said WFLI and Nextel were leasing at Friar’s Branch when he and Mr. Haisten paid $3 million for the 10-acre site two years ago. Matt Pryor, WFLI’s vice president and general manager, said he finished that five-year deal and signed a new one in May.

“We liked the direction they were taking,” Mr. Pryor said of Mr. Haisten and Mr. Lunsford. “We really liked the things they said about taking care of the property and enhancing its value.”