Development continues to move rapidly, with more deals and construction starts and stops to come. I recently dropped the sculpture (now completed) from the list and today I’ll add one and finish off three others. We’ll take up the ongoing ones in a subsequent article (or two).
We’ll start with a new edition to the watchlist: The roundabout at Island Home and Sevier Avenue. Leslie detailed the project in January, noting that construction would soon begin. It has and, as expected, it’s the temporary mess everyone expected. The announcement of the pending closure of Landing House isn’t directly related, but it shows the difficulty businesses experience. You can see the restaurant in the background of the photo above.
It will all be better eventually, of course. The intersection has been problematic for years and the increased traffic from new businesses and residential developments accentuated the problems. The $19 million project is anticipated to take two years, with utility work schedule for this summer. This is going to be a longer ride than I would have expected. You can follow the progress here.
The next three I’ll cover today have been part of these updates for a year or more and have now reached a point there will be little to document from the outside going forward: They are full-grown buildings (more or less)! That said, of course, they aren’t finished and the internal work will now begin (or has begun) in earnest. Next stop in coverage of these buildings will likely be when they open to the public or to residents.
First up in this group is The Delaney Building, a nine-story building and one of the tallest structures to be built in recent Knoxville history. The building abuts the western side of the stadium and the views of the field make it a hot property for baseball fans. The prices reflect as much, topping out at about 2.3 million (2329 sq ft). Price per square foot ranges from about $675 psf for small, plaza-facing homes to over $950 psf for some with stadium views.
It’s a premium, for sure, and for a very specific reason. Properties may currently be found around downtown closer to $500 psf, though $600 to $700 is where many sale prices currently land. Worth noting is the fact that there are a large number of downtown homes currently available in a range of buildings.
That has not been true for the last decade or so, and is fueled by the fact that several large condo developments have come on the market recently, including new homes in the Century Building, The Delaney, and Lone Tree Pass, as well as major rental-to-condo conversions in Sterchi Lofts, The Emporium, The Medical Arts Building and the White Lily Building. I suspect the market will absorb it all in time, but that’s a lot at historically high prices and it does not include the normal ebb and flow of homes on the market.
The result is some list prices are being reduced. If you want a quick, easy way to look at available downtown homes, you can do so easily at Downtown Realty where Kimberly Dixon Hamilton has a easily clicked downtown link. It sometimes inadvertently includes homes that aren’t downtown and there are a few there right now, but it lists sixty-seven right now.
To finish the Delaney Building, when completed, the nine-story building will include around forty condominiums on the upper floors and second-floor office space for Boyd Sports. A community space is also set for the second floor private viewing deck extends on the fourth floor. The bottom floor facing the plaza will be commercial space and two tenants (to open this fall) have been named to assume the south end of the commercial space. T. Ralph’s Burgers & Fries and Disco Chicken and Donuts will be open year-round, seven days a week.
Also coming off the list after this update, will be the Axle Logistics Building, with its exterior nearing completion. Heather wrote the first article on this project in November 2022. The building was simply a concept at the time, with plans for the five-story building to provide work space for 900 employees. I think the building is rather striking and serves as a nice companion to their original office building just across the street, the historic Hull-Dobbs building.
I’m sure InsideofKnoxville.com will garner a look-around inside as the building nears completion. I’ll be curious about those balconies attached to an office building. I’m not sure we’ve seen that around here recently though, as I think about it, this is the first office building to be built near downtown in a long time.
The final project that will roll off the list with this installment is quite literally finished. The Pryor Brown Garage, anchoring the corner of Church and Market for over a century as finally and completely been removed. In its wake, the city has inherited a full city block of flat ground. Several plans have been floated by various groups to develop the block in a major way, but so far none have been officially announced. Here’s hoping you see a big announcement for the spot in the coming months.
In the meantime, just as new buildings offer new views of the city, the removal of this building allows a clear view of the facing block of Market Street, one of my favorite blocks in the city. Unfortunately, until there is a facing building, the block loses its cozy charm. Here’s hoping any future project takes this block into account and offers a step-down of similar scale to the block it faces. Let’s hope it addresses it with something other than the back side of a building facing Gay Street.
Tomorrow we’ll continue with some we’ve been following for a while, which are clipping along rapidly.