Yesterday I mentioned the influx of new housing on the downtown market, with multiple new buildings and several older ones converting from apartments to condos. One of the larger conversion projects is the Medical Arts Building which, at the beginning of October added forty-nine newly available residential units, as well as three commercial spaces, and one mixed-use space to the downtown market. The homes are mostly one and two bedrooms ranging from 500 to 950 square feet. Deeded interior parking spaces were offered separately, with most of them priced at $35,000. Home prices ranged from $340,000 to $825,000, hitting mostly in the upper $500 to mid-$600 psf range. (Website for more info here.)
Thinking it might be interesting for readers to see how these new projects are selling, I contacted Melinda Grimac (865-356-4178), the listing agent, to get details about sales seven months in. The commercial and mixed-use spaces remain available to investors or others. Of the forty-nine residential units, thirty are sold or pending and nineteen remain available, meaning over 60% are spoken for.
Of interest, only one unit, which is on the street with a separate entrance, allows short-term rentals, which are banned throughout the remainder of the building. While investors may prefer buildings to allow short-term rentals, people buying a home for their primary residence are likely to prefer buildings which do not allow STRs. And will people pay for parking spaces? Yes. Thirty-two have sold, or just over one per unit.
Moving northward downtown from the Medical Arts Building, the Walnut Building renovations are suddenly moving rapidly. The building, long home to Urban Hair Salon and Yassin’s Falafel House, will be converted to a Holiday Inn Express. The announcement first arrived in May 2022, which shows how slowly some of these projects move. Upon completion, the building will include 91 guest rooms, a very different facade and a lobby facing Walnut on the first floor.
I was told that Yassin’s will be closed for several months, though they have been open during the early stages of construction. The good news is that they will return to their original location. Urban Hair Salon closed, but opened under another name, Vintage Rose Hair Studio at Sola Salons Bearden, 4928 Homberg Dr., Suite 5.
Next up, moving further north, the AC by Marriot, announced in February 2024, with a projected opening of fall 2026, is beginning to come out of the ground. Located in the sliver of what most recently was paved parking, but which once was the site of the home of Peter Kern who served as Knoxville’s mayor from 1890-1892. One end faces Walnut Street and the other fronts Locust.
As a staging ground for the project, the parking lot at the corner of Union and Locust is now filled with building materials including large faux marble cast concrete pieces, I assume for the facade. It would be great to see this corner developed at the conclusion of its time as a repository. Presumably Chesapeake’s customers would have found other options by then and the lot could be converted into a nice mixed-use building. For now, we’ll watch the AC grow from the ground up to seven stories sporting 162 rooms. Plans include a rooftop bar, open to the public.
Moving next to downtown’s most visible major project, Lone Tree Pass on the western side of the 200 block continues to rapidly change and grow. When we last tuned in, which was January, the building didn’t have a roof, could still be seen through and didn’t have balconies. It’s easy to pass by daily and see that work is happening, but not really appreciate the major steps taken.
I was able to get a couple of unique views this time around. One shows the building from an aerial view and the other shows how it fits into the fabric of the other buildings when seen from a distance. I am endlessly fascinated and more than a little amazed when I walk around downtown and look at different angles as the buildings that have emerged over the last twelve years or so make their presence known.
The building in question here is the rear of two that are planned, with construction on the street-facing building not yet obviously begun. The building appears to be ready for the final siding, and we should see the front-facing, shorter building coming up soon. A larger portion of the street is now taken by fencing, I assume because of the need to back up to have space to work in the next building.
This larger (west) building will include homes on the top floors with commercial spaces on the bottom facing the interior (public) plaza. The smaller (east) building will also include a mix of residential and commercial space. A commercial corridor will be developed between the two buildings. When completed, the project will include fifty-seven homes, fifty-three for sale and four for lease as work-force housing. Also included will be over 22,000 square feet of commercial space, split roughly evenly between each side of the interior passageway and the side facing Gay Street. Commercial space is already available for pre-lease.
Pre-sales on homes have begun for an anticipated opening of fall 2025. The address for the homes in the west building (the one already standing) is being given as 327 W. Summit Hill Drive. Of the twenty-seven units there, four are for lease and four are under contract. Those in the (to-be-constructed and smaller) west building run roughly from 500 to 900 square feet for studios and one-bedrooms. Of the eleven residential units there, six are under contract. I found a range in prices of $369,500 (503 sf) to $1.725 million (2318 sf), mostly hitting at just over $700 per square foot.
For more information regarding commercial or residential spaces, check the website.
Finally, let’s look up the hill from Lone Tree Pass to City Summit, which isn’t as far along as One Tree Pass, but is making up for lost time and gaining. It’s also planned for opening in the spring of 2026. In our most recent look (last January), the shape of the project was becoming obvious from footers and other ground level construction. Since, the building has spring out of the ground and the elevator shafts/stair wells are now in place with the rest of the building rising around it.
You can read in much greater detail about the project here, but once completed, the five story building will provide an additional 89 homes to downtown. While the entire project is designed to be more affordable, nine of the units will be dedicated to work-force housing. The homes will be for lease, though I can’t see that pre-leasing has begun. It will likely come soon.
