Chatt TFP: Rock City vs its neighbors in cableway gondola plans: "Gatlinburg Lite"
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Rock City faces Lookout Mountain neighbors upset over gondola: ‘Gatlinburg Lite’
8 hours, 30 minutes ago by Daniel Dassow | Updated February 25, 2026 at 2:48 a.m.
Staff Photo by Seth Carpenter / Lookout Mountain, Ga., residents watch a presentation by Rock City Enterprises at Lookout Mountain City Hall. The city was holding a public hearing on Rock City's zoning request related to a potential gondola leading up to the attraction.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, Ga. — Dozens of neighbors of Rock City made clear in a public hearing that they do not support the 93-year-old attraction's plan to build a gondola lift up Lookout Mountain.
The hearing at City Hall on Tuesday night was at times testy as Rock City Enterprises made a case for itself as a good corporate citizen in need of expanding.
The meeting culminated with a sales director from Doppelmayr, the Austrian engineering firm that's built more than 15,000 of the systems across the world, comparing extreme weather in the Swiss Alps to extreme weather in the southern Cumberland Plateau.
The gondola is contrary to the town's comprehensive plan, said resident Jonathan Kent. The 10-year plan from 2022, which several residents quoted in their statements, lays out a vision to "preserve and enhance the peaceful and beautiful residential nature of our community."
Residents asked how increasing attendance at Rock City would affect the noise levels and peace of the community, how safe or disruptive the gondola system would be and whether the project would fundamentally alter their community.
"We're talking about the most dramatic, irreversible, devastating change to Lookout Mountain, Georgia's scenic and environmental landscape since the road was built up this mountain," Kent said. "They want to change our ordinance, and in order to do that, they need to make full disclosure of their long-term future plans and how that affects our community."
(READ MORE: Half of St. Elmo residents oppose Rock City gondola, survey shows)
The hearing was the strongest opposition Rock City has received at a public meeting since unveiling plans for the gondola in January.
The Walker County Board of Commissioners approved a rezoning request from Rock City earlier this month to allow a pole to be placed on a 14-acre parcel on the mountainside. But Rock City is asking the town of Lookout Mountain for a larger change.
Photo Gallery
Rock City faces Lookout Mountain neighbors upset over gondola
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Blowing Springs Farm, which is owned by Rock City, would become the new main entryway to Rock City if the company gets approval to build a gondola lift system up the side of Lookout Mountain.
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The question remains whether the opposition from the hearing will lead the town's Planning Commission to vote against recommending the town's City Council approve two amendments to the local zoning ordinance.
One amendment would add "aerial and non-aerial passenger conveyance systems, including gondolas, cable cars and chair lifts," to a list of permitted uses in the town's commercial district. The other would delete the words "chair lifts," "sky lifts" and "other mechanical rides" from a section that prohibits certain uses of property in the commercial zone.
Rock City is not interested in building rides other than the gondola, said Doug Chapin, CEO and fifth-generation local owner of Rock City Enterprises. At the direction of attorneys, the company made the request broad to defend against potential future challenges.
"We cannot build amusement rides. We cannot build carnival rides. We cannot build a hotel," Chapin said at the hearing. "We can't build mini golf, and we're the people who invented mini golf."
(Garnet Carter, founder of Rock City and Doug Chapin's great-great uncle, is widely credited as the inventor of mini golf in the late 1920s on Lookout Mountain.)
GROWING ATTENDANCE
Rock City's main pitch to Lookout Mountain residents is that the gondola would divert as many as 3,000 cars on the busiest days from Ochs Highway, the main road to the town, according to a traffic study the company commissioned.
That's because the main parking and entrance to the attraction would move to the town of Flintstone at the base of the mountain. Blowing Springs Farm, which Rock City owns and is zoned for commercial use, would become a parking lot and gondola station.
The gondola would cost between $30 million and $40 million and take two years to build, according to Rock City. If the company receives approval from Lookout Mountain, it could begin building the ride as early as January 2027.
At the public hearing, Rock City answered a question asked at several earlier meetings: How would the gondola impact visitor traffic to the main attraction?
The increase in traffic would be around 66 guests per hour, or 26.4 more cars per hour, according to data shared by Rock City. While the attraction's regular attendance growth is 3% annually, the gondola could push it from just under 600,000 visitors in 2026 to more than 800,000 visitors in 2029, the year the ride would likely open.
The gondola would include 12 cabins that can hold eight to 10 people, with a total initial capacity to move 900 people an hour. The ride would move between 9 and 10 miles an hour and make little noise, said Shawn Marquardt, senior director of sales at Doppelmayr USA.
Some residents worried the gondola meant Lookout Mountain, a town of around 1,700 people, would vault to the next category of tourist destination.
"Turning Lookout into Gatlinburg Lite is not what we want in this community," Cari Gervin, who's lived in the town for decades, said of the gondola. "It just makes no sense, it's tacky and it's not an asset to our community."
Rock City leaders have said the gondola would not disrupt the tree line, would complement the view off the mountain and would ease the traffic burden on the mountain.
"The hardest part of my job is to convince folks that it's not just a tacky novelty, but it's a true, safe, reliable transportation system," Marquardt said. "This idea of a clickety-clackety gondola from the 1970s, that's really a thing of the past."
With the right design, Marquardt said the gondola could "disappear into the landscape." One resident shouted out her disagreement with the statement.
"It's right in front of the waterfall. It is not going to disappear into the landscape," Virginia May Jones said. "You're a salesman. I get it."
Residents asked Marquardt what would happen with the gondola in the event of an extreme weather event. He said Doppelmayr was used to high winds and unpredictable events.
"I don't want to diminish the weather elements here," Marquardt said. "But I can say, we have these systems in extremely harsh, harsh climates. I can't imagine the weather here is any worse than at 12,000 feet in an alpine environment above the timberline."
GOOD RELATIONSHIP
Rock City Enterprises owns three other Lookout Mountain spots in addition to its main attraction: a Starbucks coffee shop, the Chanticleer Inn Bed and Breakfast and the Grandview venue. Several residents said the company had been a good neighbor.
Rock City put expansion plans on hold last year because it was concerned about how an expansion of its trail on the mountain could negatively impact residents.
"This is so hard, because I do think it's a good working relationship," said Beth Murphy, who lives nearby. "Rock City does affect me, and I can't say that it's always positive because of where I live, so the encroachment is a big deal for our area. I feel that there is so much that is still so unknown."
(READ MORE: Clumpies in St. Elmo closing as Rock City ends Incline contract)
The gondola would create 20 full-time jobs and add $900,000 of tax revenue to Walker County, though Lookout Mountain receives only a small portion of that revenue on a predetermined basis. Early market research shows that 90% of guests to Rock City could rather park at the bottom of the mountain and ride the gondola than drive to the top, Chapin said.
Rock City has received three emails at feed...@rockcityenterprises.com, Chapin said. He encouraged more residents to send questions or concerns to the inbox.
"We know we are not at our limit," Chapin said. "Our goal is not just to drive attendance."
The Planning Commission will set a meeting time in the next 40 days to consider the rezoning request, though the City Council has the final say.
"I think right now you feel the community is really alarmed at what's happening," Murphy said. "Thank you for listening, and I hope that you really are."
Contact business reporter Daniel Dassow at dda...@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.
Daniel Dassow is a business reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He earned degrees in English and religious studies from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2023, where he served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Beacon. He previously worked as a tech and energy reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel. He is the youngest of six siblings. Contact him at 423-757-6318 or dda...@timesfreepress.com.