The Tennessee city of Chattanooga has emerged as one of the more sustainable cities in the country and a shining example of a government entity that has embraced energy efficiency, as Building Operating Management profiled in its June edition.
Now, one of the city’s bigger employers is planning to relocate its headquarters within the city to accommodate the increasing work-from-home trend.
The Tennesse Valley Authority (TVA) is the nation’s biggest government utility. It announced plans to leave the biggest office complex in Chattanooga’s downtown and move to a smaller office facility to meet employees’ desires for remote and hybrid work.
“Our current office space was set up under the assumption that we call came into the office every single day and we each had our own desk and telephone, but those assumptions are not true anymore, and our office needs have changed,” Tricia Lynn Roelofs, senior director of facilities transformation for the TVA, says in an interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
The office complex the TVA currently occupies was built in 1985 and includes 1.3 million square feet and 8.1 acres spread over four six-story buildings. At one time, about 2,600 employees and contractors worked at the downtown office, but now about 1,000 employees work at the facility daily.
One potential use for the TVA site is a new federal courthouse, according to the article. The General Services Administration is considering three sites in the downtown to build a $200 million building to replace the Joel Solomon federal building which is more than 90 years old.
“Even if we are not selected for this GSA opportunity – and we certainly hope that we are – there is still an opportunity to develop this area for the benefit of the city,” Roelofs says.
Dave Lubach is executive editor of the facility market.
