Chattanooga U.S. Courthouse

Chief Judge Travis R. McDonough called it “our city’s most consequential building in generations.” GSA released the design concept on June 8, 2026, and the reaction had less to do with the courthouse than with its columns.

Project Scope

The building runs about 191,000 square feet on the downtown block bounded by East 5th Street, Lindsay Street, Vine Street and Georgia Avenue. It holds seven courtrooms, nine judges’ chambers and 40 interior secure parking spaces, and consolidates the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the Circuit Library into one secure facility. Tenants also include the District and Bankruptcy Clerks, the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Probation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Trustees, congressional offices and GSA itself.

Total appropriated funding stands at $282,802,000 for site acquisition, design, construction and related expenses. An earlier congressional authorization was reported at $180 million, so the program has grown substantially.

HOK is designer of record, announced on SAM.gov in November 2024 with the A-E contract awarded in April 2025. Brasfield & Gorrie took the construction manager as constructor pre-construction contract with a GMP option on February 27, 2026. GSA acquired the Vine Street site in April 2026 after a supplemental Environmental Assessment and a January 2025 finding of no significant impact.

Why It Matters

The exterior is classical, and GSA framed the release explicitly as delivering on the executive order to make federal architecture beautiful again. The National Civic Art Society praised the scheme publicly. Whatever your position on that fight, the practical consequence for the trades is real: stone, cast stone, ornamental metal and specialty masonry scopes that a modernist glass-and-precast courthouse would not have carried.

Design completion is targeted for the third quarter of 2027. Early work construction is planned for the first quarter of 2027, full construction start in the fourth quarter, substantial completion in the third quarter of 2030 and occupancy in the fourth. Geotechnical exploration and Phase II archaeological investigations are already done ahead of mobilization. GSA also opened an Art in Architecture commission in April 2026, with artist selection expected by year end.

Project Team & Details