December 15, 2003
Blended Community: Highland Park and Tennessee Temple Look to Vibrant Past for Future Plan
Mike O'Neal
© Chattanooga Times Free Press
October 26, 2003
[This article is reprinted here with the express permission of the Chattanooga Times Free Press]
Having a university "smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood" makes the Tennessee Temple area of Highland Park unique in Chattanooga, according to downtown planners and many neighborhood residents.
"One of the strengths of Highland Park is its mix of income, age, race, building types and sizes," said Christian Rushing, senior planner with the Downtown Planning & Design Studio. "But how do you integrate an institution like Temple into the overall community?"
Residents say it used to be easy.
"When we moved here, our street was all Highland Park Baptist members or Temple students," said Judith Schorr, who moved with her husband from Ohio in 1975 to attend Tennessee Temple.
"The four-block walk from home to school was unique," she said. "Everyone had a common bond, and there was never a fear factor in the neighborhood."
Today, Mrs. Schorr is vice president of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association and chairwoman of the group's crime and safety committee. She said the bond between neighborhood and university is not what it once was, but both are improving.
A 1999 report by the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency describes Highland Park as a once-thriving, in-town neighborhood that "today suffers from decades of declining economics and physical conditions."
Mrs. Schorr and other residents, along with Temple officials and those planners, are working on pieces of an urban puzzle to revitalize the 96 square blocks of Highland Park -- a community including about 1,200 parcels of land and the 65-acre Tennessee Temple University campus.
The community's health has tracked that of the university, Mrs. Schorr and other residents said.
Geography and a mission history
Highland park first was developed in the 1890s, when many Chattanoogans began moving to higher land to avoid Tennessee River floods, according to local history.
As the community grew, so did Highland Park Baptist Church, which became the impetus behind building Tennessee Temple University, founded in 1946.
Kevin Woodruff, head librarian for Tennessee Temple, said the church's major growth occurred after Dr. Lee Roberson became pastor at Highland Park Baptist Church in 1942.
At its high point, church membership included nearly 100 branch chapels -- some as far away as Monteagle, Tenn., and Bridgeport, Ala.
Tennessee Temple University also was intended to be part of the church's outreach in mission work. It prepared students for evangelical and missionary work while providing a "Bible-based" education.
School officials said it was not unusual for 12,000 to attend Sunday school classes regularly, and academic enrollment surpassed 6,000 in the church, school and community's heyday.
With growth, more classrooms and dormitories were needed, so the school purchased an eclectic mix of homes on and near the campus to serve as housing for faculty and married students.
But several factors, including the conversion of Bailey and McCallie avenues to one-way streets about 50 years ago, combined to stunt both community and school, according to school administrators, longtime residents and former students.
Helen Miller, a 64-year resident of the Bailey Avenue home her parents bought in 1938, said the street conversions doomed the area's commercial district.
Retail shops closed, and the ensuing financial troubles, coupled with school integration, hastened a residential exodus, Mrs. Miller said.
"Some people who couldn't keep up with the times sold their property and moved," she said.
Changes were occurring in the church and college, as well, and a major leadership change in the early 1980s prompted a drop in enrollment. With fewer married students needing housing, properties were rented to anyone, Ms. Schorr said.
"That is when the cohesiveness broke up," she said, and the overall neighborhood began to deteriorate.
But the changes never clouded the 78-year-old Mrs. Miller's vision of her neighborhood.
"I've never been away for more than a few months," Mrs. Miller said. "If you ever spend much time in this place, you will eventually want to come back to live here."
Coming back to life
"Everybody is really excited about seeing the rejuvenation of the neighborhood," Tennessee Temple University President Dr. David Bouler said. "In my 12 years here we've spent millions of dollars working toward renovation of all the facilities, and we feel the next 10 years will bring greater things."
One of the goals, he said, is to expand the school's ministry, not to manage the many houses in Highland Park still owned and rented by the university.
With enrollment drops, the financial drain of maintaining the Tennessee Temple schools (there also is a K-12 academy, a seminary and Bible school in addition to the university) and aging houses was more than the institution could handle.
Dr. Roger Stiles, the university's executive vice president, said school officials want to spend available money on teaching facilities, not housing.
"We are not good landlords," Dr. Stiles acknowledged. So the college is selling or tearing down the houses it owns, he said.
Darrell Dunn, a 1963 graduate, recalled living in a very pleasant university-owned house in the neighborhood during his years of study. But for the past two and a half years, Mr. Dunn's son and daughter-in-law have lived at a similar location in very different conditions.
"The best thing they could do to this house is tear it down," Mr. Dunn said recently as he helped his son's family pack to move from their Temple-owned Union Avenue house to Steffner, Fla., where his son, David, will pastor a church.
The home must have been charming at one time, Mrs. Dunn said of the $350 a month. It has architectural detailing both inside and out, hardwood floors and a broad, shady porch.
But it also has roof leaks that can make the mantel a waterfall, the Dunns said, as well as rotted plaster, crumbling lathe walls and a central heating unit that never operated until the day the family packed for their move.
David Dunn Jr., 11, showed where decayed plumbing had allowed raw sewage to splash into the basement. And although the house is across the street from the Temple men's dormitory, the women's dormitory and the campus security office, theft and prostitution also have been problems.
"The revitalization of Highland Park hasn't reached here," Mr. Dunn said.
But some homeowners and school officials are seeing a resurrection of the neighborhood.
Jackie Phelps said she and her husband, Andrew, bought a former Temple house/dorm on Bailey Avenue from its interim owner at a back tax sale. Both are Temple graduates, and Mrs. Phelps said she would like seeing her alma mater become more actively involved in the Highland Park neighborhood.
"It has potential to again become a positive influence," she said.
Victoria and Eric Cummings moved to Highland Park after finding an old house on the Internet. Mrs. Cummings said that was three-and-a-half years, and three houses, ago.
"We were looking for a cool city and an affordable house," she said. "We'd seen neighborhoods turn around in Atlanta and wanted to live in one that was poised for change. It is very exciting."
Since moving to Chattanooga from Atlanta three years ago, Jonathan and Heather Bell have seen business pick up at Old Homes Inc., their company.
"We could barely give a house away when we started," Mr. Bell said. "Now we show homes six or seven times a week."
Mr. Bell said Temple first sold many of its properties in lots of 15 or 20 houses at a time to buyers specializing in rental property.
That hurt the neighborhood, he said, but the church and school administrators have changed their mindset toward the community in recent years.
"There is more cooperation to make this a safe and attractive neighborhood, he said."
Students speak out
While they welcome the improved look of the neighborhood, faculty and students say to judge by outward appearances is to misunderstand Temple and its mission.
"You learn to look past facilities and into hearts," Pete Sudlow said.
Mr. Sudlow and Paul Taylor recently were sweeping up fallen plaster at Phillips Chapel, the original Highland Park Baptist Church and now home to Spanish-language services.
"These are not the nicest facilities, but it is a close-knit community. It is like a family," Mr. Taylor said.
Senior Marlon Lake, a native of Anguilla, British West Indies, who intends to go into youth ministries after graduation, said Temple has a history in the Caribbean.
The school and its sense of community are what brought him to Chattanooga.
"I visited and I knew. It was the only school I applied to," Mr. Lake said.
Bob Richey, a junior from Florence, S.C., is a basketball player and transfer student who wants to enter the ministry.
"My dad is a doctor, and I spent half my life growing up on a golf course," he said.
But instead of a country club, Mr. Richey and others continue an outreach ministry following Monday basketball practice.
"It's community gym night," he said. "Kids come in off the street and we let them play. Halfway through we take a break, have a devotional for less than 10 minutes and then let them play for another half hour or 45 minutes."
Mr. Richey said as many as 30 people, ranging from 9-year-olds to those in their mid-20s, attend regularly.
"It's a good outreach," he said.
While youngsters are coming off the streets to play ball with college students, Ms. Schorr said she has seen something equally important.
"It's exciting to see kids and moms with strollers back on the streets, and it is exciting that Tennessee Temple is starting to take an active part in working with us to revitalize the neighborhood," she said. "We are seeing a partnership being formed."
Posted by Admins at 08:01 PM
December 12, 2003
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