The Hamilton County Commission has put a resolution on the March 11th agenda for the Jail House Studios project. This is a project where Urban Story Ventures, headed by CEO Jimmy White, plans to lease the former downtown jail building and turn it into a music, movie recording studio (Jail House studios) with short term vacation rentals, a helicopter pad on the roof and an Oracle data center in the bottom floor of the building. The leaders of this project have assured the public that no environmental protections will be needed for the data center, but have released no information on the data center itself in terms of how much electricity and water it may need.

When this project was first announced, Urban Story Ventures announced 3 Oracle data centers would be going into the Bend innovation district. After some community push back, the decision makers said the downtown jail project won't be a data center, it's simply just a server room, backtracking from the original statement of "after Oracle starts storing their data in Chattanooga? Everyone will want to store their data here" (Jimmy White, County Commission January 7th).

After we asked how many jobs this project would create? Project leaders went from saying the downtown jail project would "create hundreds of jobs" to "this project will create the opportunity for hundreds of jobs."

While this project does seem to have much potential in terms of workforce development, the public has received no measurable commitments to job creation from Urban Story Ventures. There is no public information on the details of the lease agreement between the County and Urban Story Ventures and how this lease agreement could potentially put tax payers on the hook for additional funding. Jimmy White told the Times Free Press on January 9th, that Oracle was already shipping in hardware to Chattanooga before a vote had been scheduled to approve this project.

The public deserves to have access to the following information:

- What are the terms of the lease agreement between the county and Urban Story Ventures? What county resources will be allocated through the execution of this project?

-Jimmy White and Urban Story Ventures have promised this project will create hundreds of jobs. How many jobs can this project commit to creating? What are the businesses being recruited for this project who will be creating those jobs? What will be the average wages of these jobs? Will there be any Department of Labor certified apprenticeship programs involved with this project?

- How many full time operational jobs will this project require for the day to day operations of the project? What is the estimate of construction side jobs this project will create?

- Will Jimmy White and Urban Story Ventures commit to hiring local contractors for the construction work?

- What is the timeline for this project?