Hey Knoxville, Can We Think Big?

When was the last time you heard someone say, “Wow! Have you seen what they are doing in Knoxville?” I’ve heard people say something similar about Big Ears, but they are usually expressing their incredulity that a city they saw of no relevance has this world class event. I’ve also heard them say what a nice city we have, but that isn’t the same. What about something our city has accomplished, built, imagined; some arena in which we’ve blazed a trail?

I’ve documented before the great buildings I see in other cities. Cincinnati, Atlanta, Nashville, and of course New York City have striking buildings, buildings that seem imaginative, even improbable. On a recent trip to Charleston a building popped into my attention before I ever reached my accommodation. I mentioned it to a friend who identified the building before I could name it. Why? Because, while we have some good in-fill in Knoxville, this in-fill building included materials and design we simply don’t get here. Why is that accomplished elsewhere, but not here? How is it that those cities can demand excellence and we cannot?

We’re getting 1 GB of internet speeds across the county. That’s an accomplishment . . . To which Chattanooga says, “Isn’t that cute?” a decade or more after they made it happen. We may or may not get a science center and apparently it won’t be downtown, but how many other cities already do that (Chattanooga taps us on the shoulder)? We finally got a baseball stadium back inside the city and it is, in my opinion, wonderful—but cities across America have stadiums. What have we done first? Or amazingly better?

I’m pretty sure everyone who’s read this website for a long time knows I love this city. We’ve had some great growth and the tiny footprint around Market Square, on Gay Street, and in the Old City is picturesque and currently thriving. You might argue they are special—and I totally agree. I’m certainly not trashing what I’ve written about for the last fifteen years or the people who have gotten us this far. What I’m talking about here, though is capital “V” Vision.

Big Projects. Grand Projects. Ideas and development that can only be implemented with a combination of public and private input, only with a vision of doing something better, bigger than it needs to be or maybe even doing something that doesn’t have to be done but simply makes the city amazing. Something that is certain to be controversial and to use political capital, led by people brave enough to take the risk of failure.

So, as we approach the fifteen-year mark for Inside of Knoxville, I’ve put together a list of projects or ideas that might qualify. Many of these were recommended by the Urban Land Institute eleven years ago. Of the nineteen recommendations I identified at the time, we could argue that we’ve accomplished two. What if we’d taken the recommendations seriously and got started right away? Some might have been completed by now.

None of this is new, few ideas here are original, and most have been discussed in this space over the years. None of them are radical, though they’ve been branded as such. Most great projects ever accomplished were ridiculed along the way.

No doubt there are others, but here are some I wish we would tackle. Most involve reclaiming space we’ve squandered up to this point:

Return the Urban Grid and Build a Performing Arts Center to Our East

To me, with the demolition of the Safety Center up on the hill and the apparent loss of the science center for that location, we have a massive opportunity. The city owns most of the land and can dictate what happens there. Greenville, S.C. had a similar plot of city owned land and developed it brilliantly, with mixed income housing, a massive park, and retail. It became a new urban node. Just as we hope the stadium creates a new section of downtown that connects to the Old City, this could be a new part of downtown.

I would suggest three things, none of which are radical:

First, build a performing arts center on the space where the Safety Building once stood. Parking garages are already in place and this space could be a game-changer for the city. I recently visited the Performing Arts Center in Charleston. Seating less than 1,000, the sound, lighting, and built-in comfort all hit the mark for a modern facility. Build one that can accommodate thirty-five hundred to five thousand but is flexible enough to be used by smaller audiences.

Second, remove the auditorium and coliseum. While the performing arts center is under construction, they can operate normally. When it is opened, they are no longer needed. Demolish both. I’ve enjoyed both for my 40+ years in Knoxville, but they do not represent a modern, forward-thinking city and are in bad shape. It’s time to stop talking about it and move on. I know that leaves hockey dangling and I’d hope we could find a solution, but this non-standard sized rink isn’t it.

Finally, with those moves accomplished, put the city grid back in place for the entire area. Require mixed income housing. Build a large park. Require that commercial spaces be included. With the anchor of the performing arts center and a very short walk to the stadium and downtown, this part of downtown could be a highly prized residential area—for people of all incomes.

Claim, Connect, and Celebrate Our Waterfront (Cut Neyland Drive Down to Size)

I’ve repeatedly heard tourists make comments that made clear they have visited our city and have no idea we have a river. People love rivers and it is foolish that we haven’t done more to connect our riverfront to the city and to make it into an area (like Savannah, for example) that people love to visit. It’s a built-in attraction that we ignore. With UT’s new effort along the river beside Neyland, we have a chance to build from there and connect the parts.

It starts, in my opinion, with the oversized, underutilized and ridiculous Neyland Drive. Built only for eight days a year, the road holds extremely light traffic outside football games, basketball games, and concerts. Make it two lanes along the river. On game day or for concerts, route all before traffic toward campus (both lanes) and afterwards all traffic away. Other times, two lanes work perfectly. Other cities do this (see Lexington, Kentucky) and so can we.

So, what we do next? Remove the two lanes closest to the river and build a river district. Now I’m just being stupid, right? No one can take on TDOT. Roads get built, not removed. Again, our little downstream friend, Chattanooga, says, “We did it.” And they did. Removing an ugly road along their river to make a beautiful riverfront. Greenville, SC also did it, convincing the state to close a main road into the city to reclaim their river. It was the catalyst that launched their widely celebrated resurgence into a paradigm of urban development.

With two lanes of Neyland removed, there would be plenty of room for mixed-use construction along the river. Again, this is city-owned land, so the city could dictate how it is developed. Produce a visually appealing, quality retail, and residential area and it would become as popular or more so than any other part of the city. Can you imagine it on game day? Or just a pretty Saturday?

We also must connect it to downtown and promote quick, easy access. I know we have a natural barrier, but the bluff can be conquered. We’re smart. Shuttle buses? Elevators? Make the connection an experience of its own. People are smart. This can be done.

Make a Light Rail Connection Between McGhee Tyson Airport and Downtown/UT

Back in 2018, Joe Hultquist wrote a series of articles, culminating here, detailing the benefits of and the way forward for a light rail connection between the airport and the World’s Fair Park. A former city councilman, Joe has studied this for years and has gone so far as to secure rail cars. He identified the unused railroad rights-of-way. This is not an impossible dream. It is something that could be done with bold leadership to take us there.

Have you ever been to Denver? Fly in, hop the train, and land in the middle of downtown. It is glorious. How many of us land in Newark, NJ and take the train right into Penn Station in NYC? They had to go under a river for that one. By comparison, ours is easy. Imagine the traffic that would carry. Downtown residents would never again take a car to the airport. Vol fans, student family members, and simply anyone coming to the city for any reason would hop the train.

Reimagine the Connections on Our East and West Sides

The Urban Land Institute pounded this theme in their study, particularly as they talked about Henley Street. They went lighter on James White Parkway, but I won’t. We’ve limited downtown by overbuilding these atrocious, virtually uncrossable moats that remove massive amounts of potential from our downtown. I know we need to get traffic where it is going, but that’s like excusing your bazooka because you need to kill a fly. OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but the point remains.

A large dip exists on Henley beside the convention center: Put a plaza over it. Reshape it into a slower-paced boulevard. Reclaim some of the lost space for retail or residential. The city, ignoring the ULI recommendation, allowed Church+Henley to be built without commercial space, making another whole city block incapable of expanding our retail footprint. Cut it out. Make Henley pedestrian friendly again. For goodness’ sake, Paris made the Champs Elysees pedestrian and retail friendly, and beautiful to boot, surely we can do that will our little road.

And the disaster that is James White? At least work over it. We did so in one shining moment when we built the transportation center. See? It can be done when we want to! Either eliminate some of that nasty spaghetti and unearth First Creek (the best idea) or cover it up one piece at a time adding more city fabric above the atrocity. Atlanta is currently doing this in a major way with I-75. Again, they can do it, but we can’t?

Aggressively Reclaim the Bighted Areas We’ve Squandered for a Generation

The ULI report gave very specific recommendations regarding the McClung Warehouse location on Jackson Avenue. Eleven years ago. We haven’t started. The city delayed taking the property until it was a mess. It burned. It burned again. The buildings had to be demolished thanks to the delays and the resulting fires. This left us with a massive parcel that could be redeveloped. More than a decade ago. We were told redevelopment would begin in earnest after the new Broadway viaduct was opened. It opened in 2022.

The Standard Knitting Mill has followed a similar trajectory. Wait. Fire. Wait. Fire. It is owned by an out-of-state firm who should be required to do something with the site or forfeit it. It was previously owned by an in-state group who should have had it taken. Why do we let ourselves continue to have the terms of our precious architectural jewels be dictated by people who don’t care about our city? I know we live in a property rights state, but we can do something. Make them miserable, at the least.

We are about to see massive development that will dwarf everything that went before, much of it by people who do not live here and only see Knoxville as their next profit center. The question is whether that development will be the cheapest for-profit product to be produced or whether we will stop accepting the least common denominator. We know what good urban development looks like. Let’s insist on it. If that means we lose some projects, so be it. It’s better to have nothing than to have poorly constructed, architecturally unappealing development that we’re stuck with for a generation or more.

And please think big. Show me the Vision.