IDB Approves Development Agreement with Champy's

The East Ridge Industrial Development Board approved an incentive package with the owners of Champy’s, Thursday afternoon in a meeting at City Hall.

The development agreement would provide about $5.4 million over a 22-year period to offset development costs and managing the new restaurant that is anticipated opening in the Spring of 2020.

City Attorney Mark Litchford presented a pro forma to the board showing city revenues from local option sales taxes, property taxes and a 30 percent share of Border Region taxes would be about $5 million. Champy’s owners would receive 70 percent of the Border Region taxes generated from retail sales at the restaurant.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.