We can’t let this year end without stopping here for one minute to welcome the opening of the Save-A-Lot Grocery store.

It’s hard to believe that it was only just last year in May of 2019 when the  headline of the Chattanooga Times Free Press read “$2 Million Grocery Store Planned for Dodson Avenue in Chattanooga.” We also know we join so many East Chattanooga community members who have been long-time advocates for intersection improvements at Dodson and Glass. The anticipation and hope for this moment go back too many years. 

When our work in the neighborhood began in 2012 as we started to have conversations with Glass Farm residents and business owners to imagine a cleaner, safer and more inviting area, we focused much of our collective energy on the opposite end of the commercial corridor, at the intersection of Glass Street and North Chamberlain Avenue as a major node of activity and tactical activations. 

By 2016 our work together started to focus on the other end of Glass, the intersection of Dodson, with an idea to “book end” the corridor and we did what we do to decide our next steps: community dinners to gain input, temporary streetscapes and more resident input surveys, tree-planting along Dodson Avenue, and even temporarily relocating Glass Street Live. Why? To test ideas. To let planners and investors know what the community wants and needs. To keep the volume up on these issues and let our leaders know we’re watching and ready to level up. Sometimes these short term changes can lead to long term permanent change!

Today, as our community continues to work together with city partners to create a vision for a renewed Glass Street Pedestrian Gateway, we welcome our newest neighbor, partner, valued resource and commercial anchor, Save-A-Lot. Congratulations to the hundreds of Glass Farm and Boyce Station residents who have worked so hard to get us here! 

IN THE NEWS:
Chattanooga Times-Free Press – Save-A-Lot Opens In East Chattanooga… , Nov2020