East RidgeTennessee

Doing Business

The Border Region District

East Ridge sits on the Georgia line, so retail dollars had been crossing the border for years. The district was the City's answer to that.

Building facade grantsContact Economic and Community Development

How the Designation Works

The 2011 act let Tennessee municipalities that border another state and have an interstate running through them apply to the state Commissioner of Revenue for a district designation. Inside that district the City can enter financial incentive agreements to bring new development, and the state reimburses the City for the cost of those incentives out of its share of the increased sales tax.

East Ridge applied under a City ordinance adopted October 26, 2011, and the designation followed in October 2011.

What the district covers

  • Exit One
  • The I-75 and I-24 interchange
  • The central business district along Ringgold Road
  • South Moore Road
  • Germantown Road
  • North of I-24 along Germantown Road

Ringgold Road at Wimberly Lane in late afternoon. A row of low brick and painted storefronts runs the length of the far side of the road, the wooded slope of the ridge rises directly behind them, and cars wait at a signal strung across the intersection.
Ringgold Road at Wimberly Lane East Ridge, Tennessee LittleT889 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · cropped

District investment

nearly $800 million

Sales tax growth in the region since the district began.

2024

Excellence in Economic Development from the Tennessee Municipal League, for meeting sales tax leakage across the border with incentives and investment that revitalized the downtown business district.

950 acres

Designated by the State Commissioner of Revenue under the Border Region Retail Tourism Development Act, 2011.