Zach Wamp

Staff Photo by Angela Lewis
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court will remain in Chattanooga's historic Custom House on 11th Street.

With plans for a new Chattanooga federal courthouse on hold, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court plans to remain in one of the most historic downtown buildings through at least 2024, the building owner said.

“I’m ticked to death,” said Greg Vital, president of Custom House Realty Partners LLC, which purchased the century-old Old Post Office Building nearly six years ago.

The U.S. General Services Administration last year extended its lease on the building, also known as the Customs House next to Chattanooga's City Hall on 11th Street, for another 15 years of use by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

“The building was the original federal building in Chattanooga and it is now really designed for (the bankruptcy court),” Mr. Vital said.

The GSA and federal judicial officials have developed preliminary plans to eventually move the bankruptcy court into renovated courtrooms of the Joel Solomon Federal Building after a new federal building is erected elsewhere in downtown Chattanooga to house the U.S. District Court and related offices.

In 2002, GSA placed Chattanooga in its five-year plan for a new federal courthouse and the city targeted 1001 Market Street, which formerly housed the Civic Forum, for the new building. But in 2004, Nashville moved ahead of Chattanooga for the next new federal building in Tennessee.

In a related move, Chattanooga’s biggest parking lot operator has taken over the former Civic Forum tract.

On Jan. 1, the Chattanooga Chamber Foundation sold the Market Street block to Republic Parking System International LLC, which continues to operate a surface parking lot on the site. The city of Chattanooga maintains an option on the property to help make the block available for a federal courthouse if and when it is actually funded.

“The Civic Forum site in the only one that comes close to meeting all of the specifications that would be required for a downtown federal courthouse so we have maintained an option to protect that site,” Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said last month.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he continues to push for a new federal courthouse for Chattanooga. To comply with the enhanced security requirements for new federal buildings, the new courthouse is likely to cost more than $75 million to build and another $25 million would be needed to renovate the Solomon building.

“It’s a huge investment, but our courthouse is definitely old and antiquated,” he said. “Realistically, the soonest you could begin the expenditures for Chattanooga is probably fiscal 2014 based on how long it takes to get things in the five-year plan and then actually begin to spend money. But it is still very much alive that in the next decade a new courthouse will be built in Chattanooga.”