Authored By chloe.morrison

A new Southside residential and commercial space-formerly a car dealership-is about 80 percent complete, and some of the space is already claimed.

“It’s been received well,” Garage Lofts owner and builder John Straussberger said. “The [Southside] location has matured.”

Straussberger has owned the old Chevrolet dealership for seven or eight years-before the Southside really boomed.

About two years ago, he saw the economy pick up more; at the same time, there was the push for more residential development, he said.

“Those two things kind of made the project,” he said of the $5-million-plus investment. “Before, we were looking at doing all commercial.”

Instead, Garage Lofts features 16 residential units that take up 20,000 square feet of space, along with an additional 20,000 square feet of commercial space.

The residential lofts, located at 1700 Broad St., should be ready by Oct. 1.

But Straussberger described the residential portion as a new style of lofts.

Instead of being one open room, the bedrooms are defined, but they also have traditional loft characteristics, such as high ceilings, exposed metal structures and concrete flooring.

Some of the large windows were originally garage service doors.

There are five one-bedroom units and 11 two-bedroom units.

The one-bedroom spaces are nearly 700 square feet.

The two-bedroom units are large at between 1,100 and 1,400 square feet.

Having more two-bedroom living spaces goes against what a lot of other downtown developers are doing-creating mostly studios and one-bedroom apartments, Straussberger said.

“In the end, we had to take what the building would give us,” he said, adding that it wouldn’t have been easy to create a bunch of small spaces.

So far, seven are leased, he said.

One-bedroom units cost $1,200 a month and two-bedroom units range from $1,550 to $1,850.

Those prices include utilities, such as sewer, water and free garbage service. The lofts are pet-friendly and include a washer/dryer, parking and other features.

About 6,700 square feet of commercial space are still available. Whoever gets that part will join Elemi Architects, Chattanooga Diagnostic Associates, a dentist and a physical therapist.

One big draw has been parking, Straussberger said.

“Our building was a Chevy car dealership, so it had a big parking lot for cars,” he said. “We are keeping the parking lot, and will repave it and make it nice. The new tenants needed on-site parking, and there weren’t many locations in the Southside that could provide [that].”