Unveiling of Montague Park Vision Plan

The new vision for Montague Park includes hundreds of new canopy trees, close to 4 miles of new paths and trails, 7 acres of meadows, and 25 locations for new sculpture acquisitions. Montague Park has been the home of the Chattanooga Football Club Foundation since 2019. Through the Vision Plan, the one grass pitch will soon be transformed into three new fields with permanent lighting and seating built into the surrounding terrain.

We are proud to announce that Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors unveiled the $80-100 million Vision Plan for Montague Park at a community event on September 27th, 2023.

The Montague Park Vision Plan unites art and culture, recreation and diversity, and community and health in Chattanooga’s largest public park. This 46-acre landscape is re-positioned as a premiere destination for residents and visitors alike, unified and accessible but with diverse appeal to many communities. It is the product of a forward-looking collaboration with Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors and Chattanooga Design Studio.

Montague Park is home to two leaseholders, the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park and the Chattanooga Football Club Foundation. Through the Vision Plan, Reed Hilderbrand brokered the requirements of all parties as well as the wants of neighbors and aspirations of the wider city by integrating new program and community uses with the Heart and the Community Front Porch. These interstitial spaces of the park are activated to complement established uses with new features essential to engaging the neighbors and residents of Chattanooga today. The new vision for Montague Park includes hundreds of new canopy trees, close to 4 miles of new paths and trails, 7 acres of meadows, and dozens of locations for new sculpture aquisitions.

The planning process, which began in early 2023, was a led by Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors and the Chattanooga Design Studio, with a design consultant team led by Reed Hilderbrand. Public engagement included community workshops and stakeholder focus group meetings throughout the planning process. Groups included adjacent property owners, community groups, city staff and leadership, and developers. The goal was to understand opportunities for synergies between other surrounding initiatives, review design proposals, and integrate feedback.

For more information, please visit the project website at www.MontaguePark.com

The Community Front Porch, a new main entrance and civic edge along Polk Street, serves as a ‘park within a park’, an everyday destination for neighbors and visitors. A series of pavilions under shaded arbors running the length of the park will provide seating, picnic and BBQ areas, splash pad, outdoor games, restrooms, market space, and maintenance/volunteer support facilities.

The Great Lawn, a new event lawn and sculptural stage set against the site’s undulating topography, provides a generous and flexible space for events and community programming.

The Heart, a new space in the center of the park with an emphasis on exploration and immersion, will include play elements like slides, swings, nature play, and scrambles for a range of ages and abilities. Trails and overlook bridges will bring visitors up, down, and across new landforms with views to Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and downtown.

Sculpture Fields, a world-class outdoor sculpture museum founded by John Henry, started as a grassroots effort in the park over a decade ago. The enhanced design for the Sculpture Fields includes new accessible pathways lined with trees to provide shade and comfort to the visitors, new ravines and bridges, and outdoor garden galleries for experiencing art in the landscape.