Tennessee Aquarium Hooks Tourists

Nobody’s written a song about it yet and you won’t find signs on roadside barns urging you to see it, but Chattanooga’s newest tourist attraction is getting good reviews.

“I thought they’d have a lot of neat fish,” said 10-year-old Kevin Crowe, one of the first to tour the Tennessee Aquarium during a preview for members.

“But I wasn’t expecting so many foreign fish, and I didn’t think I’d get to see birds and bugs and lizards.”

The $45-million Tennessee Aquarium, the key to an ambitious public-private effort to revitalize the city’s riverfront, recently opened.

Kevin is among more than 20,000 people who had an early look at the nation’s first major freshwater aquarium.

The seven-level, 130,000-square-foot building, topped with glass peaks like futuristic fins, has more than 3,000 live specimens.

Civic leaders believe the museum, modeled after the successful National Aquarium in Baltimore, could become a bigger draw than such local favorites as the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and Rock City Gardens, which is advertised with signs painted on barns across the region.

Officials project an annual attendance of 650,000, out of the nearly 8 million visitors who already pass through Chattanooga each year.

Ocean species such as porpoises, small whales and sharks populate most public aquariums. In Chattanooga, the stars will be freshwater inhabitants such as piranha, alligators, river otters and a 50-pound catfish.

“Fishermen will love it,” said aquarium spokesman Gene Pinder, noting the collection of trophy-size bass, trout and carp. “They’ll go nuts.”

Reproductions of an Appalachian cove forest and a Mississippi Delta cypress swamp, complete with mist and Spanish moss, anchor the river theme.

Snakes, birds and fish from rivers in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America highlight other exhibits.

The aquarium will provide education programs, but its main goal is to attract tourists.

It’s at the heart of a $750-million project to develop the city’s Tennessee River front, particularly Ross’s Landing, a historic area that bears the city’s original name.

Officials hope there eventually will be a 20-mile string of commercial, residential, educational and recreational sites along the river.

A riverside park with a jogging path and fishing piers near Chickamauga Dam has been completed. The 101-year-old Walnut Street Bridge, Chattanooga’s oldest span, is scheduled to reopen this fall as a pedestrian park.

City officials began thinking about riverfront development when the Riverbend Festival, a summer entertainment fair, premiered at Ross’s Landing in 1982 and was an immediate hit.

The aquarium didn’t get rolling until 1988, when supporters decided to build it entirely with private donations.

Even then, some opponents called it a waste of money.

Officials estimate it will mean 1,600 permanent jobs and eventually generate $3.9 million in annual tax revenue for the city and Hamilton County.