2015 Highlights

Wow! What a year. We can’t believe we are closing out our THIRD year here on Glass Street. We hope you enjoy reading a few of our highlights from the past year.

– Glass House Collective hosted ‘The Next Big Thing’ urbanism workshop and brought 100+ respected leaders and residents to Glass Street to define GHC’s new work plan. Numerous scalable and low-cost creative placemaking initiatives were articulated within a short-term,mid-term, and long-term time frame. Read the national article published here.

-The former Glass House was purchased and is undergoing construction. We are working with the building owner and look forward to another incredible tenant activating that space.

-LAUNCH hosted another successful business planning class on Glass Street.

-Glass Street Lunch and Breakfast House opened. Grab some hot fish or an egg biscuit and support a local business owner.

-Glass House partnered with Blue Cross Blue Shield and Hope for the Inner City to install a brand-new $80,000 KaBOOM! playground at Hope’s Roanoke Avenue location.  The playground is now heavily used by neighborhood youth and families.

-The former Custom Cycles building on the corner of Dodson and Glass Street is home to Binary Brew Works and Glass House Collective.

-Empower Chattanooga adopted East Chattanooga as a focus area and began hosting free cost saving energy workshops.

-In partnership with Public Art Chattanooga and CARTA three bus shelters wrapped in public art were installed.

-Chattanooga Symphony and Orchestra, Love Fellowship, and ArtsBuild helped Glass House Collective provide two months of weekly violin lessons to ten Hardy Elementary School students, and thanks to this partnership funding was secured to continue the classes throughout the school year.

-Empower Chattanooga started our pop-up family movie nights series in East Chattanooga showing monthly films outside on Love Fellowship’s front lawn from August to November.

-In partnership with Hardy Elementary, Glass House Collective, Studio Everything and Empower Chattanooga hosted a Back to School Bash to give students a kick-off to their new school year.

-Studio Everything and Chattanoogan Ashley Conrad received a Causeway grant and launched One Hundred 100s, a project bringing young people together by connecting youth from different racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds with one another in a creative but structured workspace to imagine, plan and implement community projects.

-We debuted our community feedback bike cart created by Rondell Crier of Studio Everything.  Bike trips in the community provide residents an opportunity to give one-on-one feedback regarding Glass House’s programming.

-As a part of United Way of Greater Chattanooga’s Day of Caring the Chattanooga Rugby Club visually transformed four residential and six public spaces along Glass Street through simple landscaping improvements.

-We hired Zachary Atchley as our Director of Operations and Buck Gentry as our CFO.

-In partnership with the Tennessee Arts Commission and Marcellus Barnes of Unity Performing Arts Foundation of Chattanooga, Glass House Collective hosted the second annual Gospel on Glass concert and festival.  The event featured 17 African-American performers as well as food, fun, and fellowship for the over 300 in attendance.

-Glass House Collective was fortunate enough to be included in a hands-on workshop for this year’s Tenneessee American Planning Association’s annual convention held here in Chattanooga. We received great ideas from planners on how best to connect Glass Street to Sherman Reservation, a 50-acre National Park in Glass Street’s backyard, as well as the South Chickamauga Greenway.

-As a part of Chattanooga’s Start-Up week Chattanoogans of all stripes visited Glass Street for an open studio night and art shows hosted by Studio Everything, East Chattanooga Academy of Art and Social Justice, and artist Mary Ann Twitty.

-Glass House Collective and The Good Neighbor Network gave the Dodson Avenue and Glass Street intersection a makeover by planting 14 red bud trees. Special thanks to our resident-led team for organizing the day.

-Resident Gail McKeel of the Good Neighbor Network animated a vacant storefront on Glass Street with the Glass Street Pop-Up Flea Market which serves the community every Saturday and Sunday.

-Mark Making, the Good Neighbor Network and Glass House Collective hosted the annual Glass Street Holiday Party.  The event was heavily attended and featured the unveiling of Mark Making’s Painted Gardens murals and Kings and Queens of East Chattanooga 3D printed sculptures, as well as dinner from the Glass Street Breakfast and Lunch House and gifts from Santa.

-In partnership with Outdoor Chattanooga, Trust for Public Land, National Park Service, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs is exploring ways to connect the Glass Street community with a National Park north of Glass Street. We’ve gained traction and will be announcing exciting updates this year.

-Glass House Collective co-led a Creative Placemaking Panel at the National League of Cities Conference in Nashville.

-We announced that we would continue focusing on the North Chamberlain and Glass Street intersection, but will expand our footprint to include the Dodson and Glass Street intersection. We also narrowed our focus to include impact areas that include: business development, public space and streetscape, and residential improvement.

-We secured a residential parter! Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI)  is a program nestled under Habitat for Humanity. NRI serves families by responding to community aspirations with an expanded array of products, services and partnerships, empowering residents to revive their neighborhoods and enhance their quality of life. NRI chose the Glass Farms Neighborhood as their next neighborhood! We are thrilled to partner with them.

-Launched our Next Big Thing Outcomes document.

-Launched our second ‘How To Guide’ filled with lighter, quicker, cheaper ways to accomplish temporary and permanent community projects. Projects from this guide will begin in February led by an artist and resident. We secured funding from Tennessee Arts Commission and Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga to implement these projects.

We are excited to launch into 2016! Stop by for a visit at 2501 Glass Street or shoot us an email if you’d like to get involved or help support our work, info@glasshousecollective.org. Happy New Year!