Downtown Knoxville Development Update, September 2025

It seemed enough time had passed to take a new look at major downtown construction sites, but when I glanced at the last article we published with updated photographs (in May), I’ll admit I was shocked. Living downtown, I see these projects daily and the progress can seem incremental, at best. Pull back the camera to a four-month span and the changes present themselves in dramatic relief. Do yourself a favor and open the last article for a startling contrast to the photos shown here.

I’ve chosen not to include some projects for this round that we’ve reported on before, simply because there is little to show. As Heather reported yesterday, the Delaney is largely complete. Other projects, such as the Holiday Inn Express, Sevier Avenue Project, and the renovation of the 612 building are largely unchanged or internal. We gave an update of the 612 building in July and expect another this fall.

We’ll start this round with the AC by Marriot, announced in February 2024. Expected to open about a year from now, the building had barely started coming out of the ground in May, with only a few footers showing. Construction is now moving rapidly in the sliver of what most recently provided home to paved parking. One end faces Walnut Street and the other fronts Locust.

The adjacent staging ground, a parking lot owned by Mike Chase and Chesapeake’s, brimmed with materials for this project last time we looked. Materials that I thought were intended for the facade of the new building now shore up the embankment between the parking lot and the new building. The parking lot itself appears to be heading toward restoration, with improvements added. It seems my dreams this lot might be next for development will be deferred.

The AC Hotel, projected at seven stories with 162 rooms and a public-facing rooftop bar, is becoming easier to visualize as the progress continues. The beginnings of side walls make clear how little space will remain between the buildings. The two elevator shafts give a sense of just how high this building will be as it hides one side of the Daylight Building and extends above Langley Garage. That should make for a cool view from the rooftop.

Lone Tree Pass on the western side of the 200 block looks completely different from when I last photographed it (see link above). In May we saw one building just beginning to be enclosed. Now that building is enclosed and some of the final external materials have been applied. Now it’s joined by the second building included in the project and that building has rapidly taken shape.

With the addition of the hull of the second (eastern) structure, several aspects become clearer. The public stairwell leading from Gay Street to the elevated plaza is in place, for example, and the distance between the two buildings, which will form the plaza, is visible, though obstructed a bit by the width of the massive scaffolding. I’m a bit like the little boy I was long ago, when it comes to construction sites and the scaffolding alone fascinates me.

Also visible now are the large commercial spaces fronting Gay Street and (slightly visible) are the smaller ones facing the interior (though public) corridor. This larger (west) building will include homes on the top floors with commercial spaces on the bottom facing the interior plaza. The smaller (east) building will also include a mix of residential and commercial space. 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 currently available for pre-lease.

Pre-sales on homes have begun for an anticipated opening of the west building in November 2025 and the east building in February 2026. Of the forty-four units in the West building, one is for lease, thirteen are under contract, and thirty remain available. Those homes run from roughly 500 to 900 square feet for studios and one-bedrooms. All eleven residential units in the east building are under contract. Prices in the buildings range from $369,500 (503 sf) to $1.725 million (2318 sf), mostly hitting at just over $700 per square foot. Three leases have been signed for commercial spaces, including one for Tree Top Coffee.

For more information regarding commercial or residential spaces, check the website.

Finally, just up the hill from Lone Tree Pass is City Summit, which seems to have come from behind to catch up with Lone Tree Pass (though it’s a smaller project). It’s also planned for opening in the spring of 2026. The project has moved from mostly footers last January to elevator shafts and the beginnings of a structure in May (see the link at the top of the article), to an enclosed building today.

Windows and balconies are now being added, and work should be completely internal by the time winter weather becomes an issue. The building is complete enough that its position and size relative to its neighbors is clear. I found it a bit hard to picture earlier.

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 pre-leasing has not yet begun. Expect it soon.