On Friday, August 17th, 2007, there was a fire in a grocery store located on Lookout Mountain about 15-20 feet away from the town’s city hall. It began towards the back of the store near a natural gas line. The gas line ruptured which caused the fire to burn out of control.
The fire at the Mountain Market caused a lot of damage, burning down the grocery store and narrowly avoiding a gas station and some convenience stores nearby. City Hall moved several important papers as a precaution in case it spread. However, with help from Walker County Mutual Aid, the city hall was kept from burning.
This fire began a long proposal process for a new city hall building in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Instead of just rebuilding the Mountain Market grocery store, the mayor and the town decided to partner with grocery store owner, Scott Maclellan, to build a bigger and better city hall. This is where the proposal for the new city hall in Lookout Mountain, Georgia began.
David Bennett, the Mayor of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, said that in the town’s partnership with Maclellan, they “decided to take a step back, think bigger, and create a new concept for downtown.” They want the new city hall to be larger and more accessible than before. The new layout will include a police and fire building, the city hall, and a common area.
“We laid out the floor plan so [the city hall portion of the building] can be multifunctional,” Bennett said. Things like Boy Scout and Girl Scout meetings and other events will be able to be held there. The structure on the far left of the previous town hall building will be redone for fire employees.
The Vice Mayor of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, Arch Willingham, is overseeing the construction of the new building. DBS Corporation, located in Tennessee, is the contractor for the construction process.
Currently, the city hall is relocating to the United Methodist Church on Lula Lake Road for meetings and work while the funding and construction processes needed to finish the city hall are being finalized. According to Bennett, “right now we are in the process of trying to finalize funding with the USDA.” If given approval for loans in the month of March 2020, the funding part process should be completed by April of the same year.
The new city hall will take about 3.5 million dollars to build. Once the mayor and the town break ground on the funding process, about nine months of construction will take place before the building is fully functioning. If you drive past the previous location of the town hall, there is a sign out front with a picture of the layout for the new city hall proposal that gives a preview of what it should look like once all the construction and funding is finally completed.