The Bend — the planned 28-block riverfront development on the former GE Power site west of downtown — has run into a trust problem with the Chattanooga board that oversees its tax incentives.
What changed: Developer Elliott White secured a $47.5 million loan from Chicago-based Hilco Global back in January, which he says let the project move forward under his leadership. In the process, he bought out his original local partner, Hiren Desai, and picked up additional stakes from other investors — putting him at roughly 91% ownership. The Industrial Development Board’s agreement requires their sign-off on any “change of control,” and members say that never happened.
Why the board is frustrated: It’s not just the ownership shift. Board member Melody Shekari pointed out that details about the project keep surfacing in news coverage before the board itself is briefed, and that the entities involved keep shifting — including a previously unknown company, IV James LLC, which White clarified is his alone, created for tax purposes. Shekari’s core complaint was less about any single change and more about a pattern: she said it’s hard to build trust when the board learns things secondhand.
White’s response: His team calls the concern a paperwork technicality, not a real change in control — he says he always held veto power over the project regardless of who owned what percentage. He’s also pushed back on what he sees as unfair suspicion of his financial partners, including Hilco Global and Colorado-based Venu, the company behind a proposed $300 million, 12,500-seat amphitheater he’s compared to Las Vegas’s Sphere. When asked for specifics on Venu’s plans or whether it will seek its own public incentives, White said he’s bound by non-disclosure agreements and can’t share details his partners haven’t authorized him to release.
Where it stands: The board tabled the ownership question until its August meeting, giving both sides time to sort out the documentation. In the meantime, the bigger pieces of the project — the amphitheater, a planned 300-slip marina, and a retail district — remain paused on getting that relationship resolved first.
Why it matters for our clients: The Bend is slated to bring 1,700 residential units, over a million square feet each of office and retail space, and 600 hotel rooms to the riverfront — a project size that will directly shape property values and development momentum in that corridor for years. A stalled or renegotiated incentive deal doesn’t kill the project, but it’s a signal worth watching if you’re evaluating property near downtown or the riverfront on a multi-year horizon.