Construction of a new, $260 million Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute is planned for a site 4 miles southwest of its present location, on an almost 50-acre site between Chattanooga’s Lookout Valley community and the Georgia state line.
The plans come more than two years after Gov. Bill Lee said no new facility would be built on Moccasin Bend, considered one of the most historically and culturally important sites in the region.
The new hospital will have capacity for up to 200 beds and will still be visible from Lookout Mountain.
Officials said the project is expected to be completed by summer of 2030.
The present facility has 165 beds.
(VIDEO: Site named for new Moccasin Bend mental hospital)
Tennessee Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Commissioner Marie Williams called the site selection “an important, incredible milestone for the Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute and the future of in-patient mental healthcare here in this community, as well as for 52 counties in East Tennessee.”
Williams thanked state lawmakers, local elected officials and the present hospital’s management and staff for their support of the replacement project.
“This project required a great amount of coordination, problem solving and patience,” Williams said during the site announcement Wednesday. “And the Department of General Services has been all of those things and more from beginning to end with us.”
Williams also spoke to opposition voiced Wednesday by members of the community about the surprise announcement. She said the people of Lookout Valley will have a voice going forward.
“We will be meeting with the community leaders and the community individuals living in the Lookout Valley,” Williams said. “I know that there are some concerns that we have not met with them first.”
Chattanooga City Council member Chip Henderson of Lookout Valley said he was disappointed in the selection.
“I have serious concerns about this being located in the area that it is,” Henderson said prior to the press conference. “This whole process was put together under a cloak of secrecy. I was not engaged, the community was not engaged. That’s not how democracy works. I have serious concerns about the impact that this will have on our community.”
Williams said the state made the property deal recently.
“I will tell you that this was done pretty quickly, so it was in no way, in no way, trying not to talk with the community,” she said. “We do want to talk with them, and some of the concerns about how wide the road is and how traffic will come there, we’ve already been looking at how to address that with the Department of General Services because this will take a while to get done and accomplished.”
For people working at Moccasin Bend, the site announcement just a few miles away was celebrated.
Hospital CEO Mary Young said the new facility will provide better mental healthcare for future generations.
“We could not be more excited about the fact that we will have a new truly state of the art building in just a few years,” Young said.
State Sen. Bo Watson, R-North Chattanooga, who along with former state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, drew praise from Williams for helping secure funding for the project four years ago, also applauded the site selection as a significant stride in mental healthcare.
“Over the last three years, the state, along with our delegation, has evaluated about 127 sites across nine East Tennessee counties to find the right home for this facility,” Watson said Wednesday. “And we think this is, and believe that this is, the right home.”
The site checked all the boxes, he said, and the project should be completed within the $260 million budget.
Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp said the site selection was also important for the historic preservation of Moccasin Bend, a legacy of conservation his grandmother, Beth Wamp, handed down to his father, former U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, who was instrumental in a federal designation for the Bend more than two decades ago.
He added that both he and Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly wanted to see a new hospital built, but not on Moccasin Bend.
Kelly met with Williams in 2021 and immediately urged state officials to reconsider building a new hospital on the same site. After years of collaboration, Kelly said he was happy to see a new site inside the city and a new door opening for Moccasin Bend’s preservation.
“By transitioning this facility to a new location, we are going to unlock Moccasin Bend’s true potential as a landmark public historic park, a space that will help protect its heritage, protects sensitive land, serves as the world-class recreational resources our community and visitors visit,” Kelly said during the announcement.
Officials also highlighted the site’s proximity to Interstate 24 and the urban core of Chattanooga.
The site for the new facility is around 49 acres, carved from the southern end of a larger parcel owned by Koch Foods LLC at 1001 Birmingham Highway, state Building Commission records show. The purchase was approved by the Building Commission on Aug. 25.
Following Wednesday’s announcement, Henderson said he’d spoken with Williams and invited her to meet with him and the Lookout Valley community as planning moves forward.
Henderson said he didn’t think the hospital was inevitable yet, and he only opposes the project’s location, not the goal of building a much-needed new hospital.
“I feel like it’s not a done deal until the shovels are in the ground,” he said after the announcement.
After Wednesday’s press conference, Williams said there was plenty of time to work with the community.
“We’re going to have time before it’s built to meet with the community, listen to what their concerns are and do our best to respond to them,” she said as Henderson spoke to media nearby.
LEAVING THE BEND
The hospital on Moccasin Bend had opponents before it was originally opened in 1961.
National Park Partners, the leading local conservation group championing the preservation of Moccasin Bend, teamed with other entities to build upon the grassroots “Save the Bend” campaign in the 1980s and 1990s. The effort culminated in the creation of the only national archaeological district in the U.S. in 2004.
In late 2021, Lee’s administration presented a plan that would use $276.52 million, money the state received through a federal law, for renovations of the existing hospital, which serves East Tennessee adults with severe and persistent mental illness. Many of those individuals lack health insurance and struggle to find other means to access the care they need.
In September 2023, Tennessee State Building Commission members gave the green light for the Lee administration to proceed with planning the project, but an archaeological survey was required first. New South Associates of Stone Mountain, Georgia, was contracted to perform a study of a 7-acre site and an 8-acre site near the now-abandoned Winston Building on the Bend at a cost of $258,400, according to Department of General Services documents.
The present hospital lies within the 780-acre Moccasin Bend National Archeological District, and supporters of the district and defenders of Moccasin Bend’s archaeological importance immediately rose to oppose the hospital staying where it was.
In April 2024, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina passed a resolution opposing any new construction on the Tennessee River peninsula.
(READ MORE: Gov. Lee: No new mental health hospital on Moccasin Bend)
In September 2025, Lee announced the state’s decision to instead seek another site for the replacement facility based on the archaeological study’s findings. Local conservationists and the Cherokee celebrated the action while state officials took on the task of finding a new site for a replacement hospital. Removing the old facility on Moccasin Bend would clear the way for more preservation work on the site, designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDINGS
When findings were released early 2025, archaeologists reported more than 3,700 artifacts on less than 20 acres near and around the existing Winston Building.
Human history on Moccasin Bend dates back more than 12,000 years, and the peninsula has ties to 23 indigenous tribes, including the Cherokee, who were forced in 1839 to march on what would be called the Trail of Tears. The Bend also had strategic importance in the Civil War. Researchers in 2024 found strong evidence of indigenous human habitation.
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The survey found thousands of bits of history tying Moccasin Bend to the earliest humans on the continent rather than those who occupied it in recent centuries, state archaeologist Phil Hodge said in a 2024 phone interview. Most were “precontact” artifacts, meaning they are from the period before European contact.
Members of the nonprofit conservation group National Park Partners are celebrating the announcement, executive director of the group, Tricia King Mims, said by email.
“National Park Partners of Chickamauga, Chattanooga and Moccasin Bend celebrate today’s announcement of a new location for the Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute,” Mims said Wednesday. “We are grateful to Gov. Bill Lee and Commissioner Marie Williams for their commitment to relocating this important facility, built decades prior to the creation of the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District.
“We appreciate the efforts of our Hamilton County legislative delegation to balance the significant workforce benefits a local hospital provides with the need to protect this landscape containing Chattanooga’s 12,000-year history,” she said. “We thank Mayor Tim Kelly and Mayor Weston Wamp for their roles in achieving this win-win outcome that will benefit Chattanooga and Hamilton County for generations to come.”
Contact Southeast Tennessee reporter Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee’s Bledsoe, Bradley, Franklin, Grundy, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Rhea and Sequatchie counties.
Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005. Ben was born and raised in Cleveland, Tennessee, a graduate of Bradley Central High School. He has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.