Commercial Cleaning & Janitorial
- Manufacturing plants210
- Ambulatory health care: physician, dental, outpatient and urgent care165
- Senior living and skilled nursing61
- Owner-occupied and owner-managed commercial buildings55
- Auto dealerships28
Chattanooga has 1,574 businesses with 20 or more people on site across the categories commercial trades sell to, and it leans toward hotels and golf courses and country clubs more than the U.S. as a whole. Here is how each trade's market looks, where the buildings are and when to call.
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Ranked by larger buildings per contractor against up to 100 markets (only markets with 10 or more contractors in a trade are ranked; n/r means not ranked). A higher rank means more buildings worth calling for every competitor working them.
| Trade | Contractors | 1-yr change | Larger buildings | Per contractor | Rank | Eligible targets | Push months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial Cleaning & Janitorial Largest buyer group: manufacturing plants | 96 | -23 | 600 | 6.3 | #5 | 850 | Year-round |
| Commercial Landscaping Largest buyer group: retail stores | 138 | -10 | 765 | 5.5 | #12 | · | Jan–Mar |
| Fire Protection Largest buyer group: restaurants | 17 | -2 | 917 | 53.9 | #27 | · | Year-round |
| Paving & Asphalt Largest buyer group: retail stores | 16 | 0 | 785 | 49.1 | #34 | · | Jan–Mar |
| Commercial Construction Largest buyer group: manufacturing companies | 93 | 0 | 504 | 5.4 | #40 | 2,356 | Year-round |
| Commercial Electrical Largest buyer group: retail stores | 60 | -8 | 681 | 11.3 | #47 | · | Year-round |
| Commercial Roofing Largest buyer group: retail stores | 14 | +1 | 811 | 57.9 | #64 | 2,356 | Jan–Mar |
| Commercial HVAC & Mechanical Largest buyer group: manufacturing plants | 68 | -4 | 540 | 7.9 | #78 | 1,091 | Mar–May, Sep–Nov |
| Commercial Flooring Largest buyer group: ambulatory health care: physician, dental, outpatient and urgent care | 4 | 0 | 457 | 114.3 | n/r | · | Year-round |
| Commercial Painting & Coatings Largest buyer group: retail stores | 8 | -3 | 815 | 101.9 | n/r | · | Jan–Mar |
Every trade has its own target list. Here are the five largest target industries for each program in the Chattanooga metro, with local location counts; each guide lists all ten and who your SDR asks for.
Locations with 20 or more employees, U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023. Property management and similar categories count every company, whatever its size.
Named, sourced projects current as of 2026-09, and the trades each one puts to work.
A new three-story, 52,000-square-foot medical building and an emergency department renovation, about 90,000 square feet in total, at Erlanger East Hospital on Gunbarrel Road in East Brainerd.
Hospital additions run long mechanical, electrical and fire protection scopes, and the emergency department renovation inside an operating hospital adds phased flooring, painting and infection-control cleaning work.
Chattanooga Times Free Press, 2026-05-27 →A Southside Chattanooga development with shops, a food hall, a pedestrian plaza, condominiums and a hotel.
A food hall and hotel mean restaurant-grade mechanical and electrical work during construction, then plaza hardscape, landscaping and recurring cleaning contracts once it opens.
Chattanooga Times Free Press, 2026-08-20 →A roughly $50 million Hamilton County Schools elementary in Hixson that consolidates three school zones and shares a campus and gymnasium with the North River Family YMCA.
A new school targeted to open in fall 2028 needs roofing, mechanical, electrical and site paving packages, and the shared gym and YMCA programming increase long-term cleaning and grounds demand.
Chattanooga Times Free Press, 2026-08-27 →An approximately 90,000-square-foot home for the UTC College of Nursing at Palmetto and East 3rd streets in Chattanooga, with classrooms and a simulation lab, built by The Christman Company.
With the structure topped out, the 2026 to 2027 work shifts to fire sprinkler, mechanical and electrical rough-in, then flooring in classrooms, labs and corridors, followed by custodial and floor-care demand once the building opens.
UTC News, 2026-04-30 →A Hamilton County Schools renovation of Soddy Daisy Middle School that modernizes classrooms, adds a new gymnasium and upgrades the cafeteria to hold up to 650 students, funded by the county facilities bond.
A phased renovation of an occupied school runs flooring, painting, fire protection and mechanical upgrades in summer and after-hours windows through 2029, and the new gym adds athletic flooring.
WTVC NewsChannel 9, 2026-06-03 →A 148-room AC Hotel by Marriott developed by Vision Hospitality Group in Chattanooga, with an O-Ku Japanese restaurant on the ground floor.
A new-build hotel with a ground-floor restaurant needs fire sprinklers, kitchen exhaust and mechanical systems during 2026 and 2027, then guestroom carpet and hard-surface flooring before the 2028 opening, and housekeeping and kitchen cleaning after.
LODGING Magazine, 2026-06-22 →Health systems, campuses, large employers and industrial parks hold the biggest concentrations of commercial buildings here. Each fact links to its source, checked 2026-10.
Erlanger's fact sheet lists 930 acute-care beds across its system, which is headquartered at Erlanger Baroness Hospital in downtown Chattanooga.
Runs the downtown Baroness campus with the attached Children's Hospital plus Erlanger East and Erlanger North, a mix of inpatient towers, clinics and parking that needs constant mechanical, cleaning and life-safety upkeep.
Erlanger Health System →UTC reports 12,060 total students.
A downtown campus of classrooms, labs, residence halls and athletic venues, with a stated goal of growing toward 15,000 students.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga →The airport served 632,384 travelers in 2025, an all-time record and a 14 percent increase over the year before.
Terminal, airfield and parking operations, including a four-story parking garage the airport broke ground on in 2025.
WDEF News 12 →Enterprise South is a 6,000-acre site in northeast Chattanooga on the former Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant.
Home to the Volkswagen assembly plant, an Amazon fulfillment center and auto suppliers such as Gestamp and Plastic Omnium, so the park is dense with large plants, warehouses, lots and access roads.
Chattanooga Trend (Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce) →Hamilton County reports over 1,902,000 square feet of building construction completed in the park, which is primarily a distribution and light industry park.
Tenants listed by the county include UPS, Federal Express, DHL, Frito-Lay and Kenco Group, so the park is mostly warehouses and distribution buildings with truck courts and parking.
Hamilton County Government →Volkswagen says 4,500 employees work at its Chattanooga plant.
A single large vehicle assembly plant inside Enterprise South with production halls, offices and employee parking.
Volkswagen of America →McKee Foods employs more than 3,000 people in its Tennessee production facilities and corporate headquarters.
Collegedale is home to two McKee bakeries, a research and development center, a corporate office building and several support buildings.
McKee Foods →Compared with the national mix, Chattanooga over-indexes on hotels, golf courses and country clubs and retail stores. The fastest-growing categories over the past year: grocery stores (+16), apartment and residential property managers (+5) and golf courses and country clubs (+2).
| Category | Sites with 20+ | All establishments | vs. U.S. mix | 1-yr change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants | 462 | 1,114 | 1.26x | -61 |
| Retail stores | 286 | 2,004 | 1.51x | -48 |
| Manufacturing plants | 210 | 535 | 1.48x | -78 |
| Medical, dental and outpatient offices | 165 | 1,081 | 1.19x | -54 |
| Wholesale distributors | 97 | 614 | 1.05x | -177 |
| Senior living and nursing | 61 | 138 | 0.88x | -1 |
| Churches and religious organizations | 57 | 531 | 0.88x | -5 |
| Grocery stores | 51 | 259 | 1.26x | +16 |
| Trucking companies | 46 | 220 | 1.03x | -42 |
| Hotels | 36 | 129 | 1.76x | -6 |
| Auto dealerships | 28 | 72 | 1.24x | 0 |
| Private K-12 schools | 27 | 43 | 1.29x | +1 |
| Bank and credit union offices | 24 | 380 | 1.47x | -15 |
| Warehousing and distribution | 11 | 37 | 1.26x | -8 |
| Hospitals | 9 | 15 | 0.92x | -2 |
| Golf courses and country clubs | 4 | 11 | 1.65x | +2 |
| Colleges and universities | 0 | 6 | 0.48x | -2 |
| Commercial property managers | 0 | 21 | 0.87x | -3 |
| Nonresidential building owners | 0 | 55 | 1.31x | -2 |
| Hosting and data processing companies | 0 | 19 | 1.11x | -14 |
| Apartment and residential property managers | 0 | 80 | 1.15x | +5 |
Hamilton County, Catoosa County and Marion County hold 96% of the metro's larger business sites. Most programs start in those counties and add the outer 3 counties for larger accounts, depending on how far your crews travel.
| County | Larger business sites |
|---|---|
| Hamilton County | 1,245 |
| Catoosa County, Georgia | 120 |
| Marion County | 48 |
| Walker County, Georgia | 42 |
| Sequatchie County | 13 |
| Dade County, Georgia | 10 |
Outdoor trades (roofing, paving, landscaping, exterior painting) work the months with lows of 40°F or above and sell in the months before. HVAC sells ahead of its heating and cooling peaks. Each trade page has its own calendar.
Tennessee requires a contractor's license before bidding or contracting on projects of $25,000 or more, issued by classification with a monetary limit. Electrical, mechanical, plumbing, HVAC and roofing subcontractors also need the license at $25,000 or more, and masonry at $100,000 or more.
Trade-by-trade rules are on each trade page. Confirm with Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors. Checked 2026-09-30.
Before you hire a sales development rep in Chattanooga, price the whole job, not just the salary. Here is the local pay for sales representatives, and what a first year really costs once you add commission, payroll taxes and benefits, tools, recruiting and the manager time it takes to coach them.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025. Sales representatives of services, except advertising, insurance, financial services and travel (SOC 41-3091).
In-house adds $15,000 commission, 25% payroll taxes and benefits, $500/month tools, $5,000 recruiting and 4 manager hours a week at $75/hour, before ramp time or turnover. Abstrakt includes the SDR, management, tools and data.
Abstrakt's U.S.-based business development reps build a Chattanooga target list around your trade, service area and ideal buildings, work it by phone, email, LinkedIn and direct mail, and book meetings with the people who sign. We will not run the same program for a direct competitor in your territory.
Selling into Tennessee? See the Tennessee outbound calling rules: do-not-call lists, calling hours and registration, so you know what a program here has to handle.
Yes. Abstrakt runs outsourced appointment setting for commercial trades across the Chattanooga, TN-GA metro: our U.S.-based business development reps call the buildings, qualify the opportunity and book meetings with the person who signs. We run one program per trade per market.
Measured by larger buildings per contractor against the 100 markets we track (where a trade has at least 10 local contractors), commercial Cleaning & Janitorial (#5), commercial Landscaping (#12) and fire Protection (#27) rank best in Chattanooga.
Compared with the national mix, Chattanooga has more hotels (1.76x), golf courses and country clubs (1.65x) and retail stores (1.51x). Those industries are the best-represented buyers for trades that serve them.
The metro covers 6 counties. Hamilton County, Catoosa County and Marion County hold 96% of the larger business sites, so most programs start there.
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