Kerbela Site at a Crossroads as Developer Revises Plan

The future of one of South Knoxville’s most prominent sites, the Kerbela Shriners Temple property, is still taking shape as a proposed redevelopment attempts to balance community expectations with the realities of making the project viable.

Pitched up on a rocky bluff opposite the south Gay Street Bridge landing, the 5.72-acre site, while challenging in some ways, is about as juicy as SoKno real estate gets, with sweeping views of the river and downtown. 

Birmingham-based CR Endeavors is proposing a 217- to 223-unit apartment development marketed primarily to an active 55+ demographic, though it would not function as a retirement or assisted living community.

CR Endeavors was scheduled to take its plans to the Knoxville-Knox County Planning Commission on April 9 to seek variances from the South Waterfront form-based code but agreed to postpone its request for one month to gather public input on the project through two community meetings.

The community showed up. 

In South Knoxville, form-based code is scripture. The South Waterfront Vision Plan, crafted 20 years ago through a robust public process, places outsized importance on this site, describing the Gay Street Bridge landing as a nexus and “postcard image” for the riverfront.

At a meeting at Kerbela last Thursday, representatives from CR Endeavors sat down with members of the South Waterfront Advisory & Advocacy Group (SWAAG), city staff, and other stakeholders to walk through feedback gathered at two community meetings and to begin the process of translating that feedback into design changes.

That conversation circled around a handful of core concerns, well synthesized by Susanne Tarovella of SWAAG, including building mass, public access, connectivity and design quality. SWAAG emphasized the importance of maintaining the South Waterfront Vision Plan’s core principles: avoiding large, uninterrupted building masses; promoting a safe, engaging environment that supports pedestrian movement; and ensuring that density works with the infrastructure.

In short, even if the site centers on private residences, it needs to function as part of the broader urban fabric.

CR Endeavors representatives pointed to the physical and financial constraints of the property itself. The steep topography, split zoning designations and infrastructure challenges all complicate efforts to deliver on every aspect of the code as written. That complexity has triggered what’s known as a “Level 3” alternative compliance review, a process reserved for developments that can’t meet the strict letter of the form-based code but may still satisfy its broader intent.

The overwhelming sentiment in the room was a desire to establish a path forward for the proposal’s success. South Knoxville would, as former City Council member Tommy Smith put it, be fortunate to have CR Endeavors’ investment. 

That path, however, will require substantial revisions, more far-reaching and structural than procuring the JFG sign (pending an agreement with Reilly Foods) or preserving the ghost steps, which CR Endeavors has since committed to. Though both are welcome gestures toward public buy-in.

Changing public perception from “this is big and it’s not for me” to “this is big and it’s not for me, but I’ll still be able to engage with it in a meaningful way” will be critical, whether that’s through ground-floor retail, shared community spaces, creative connectivity solutions, or other public-facing amenities. 

Tommy suggested creating pedestrian pathways through the site to address massing and connectivity issues: “With a magic wand, that’s what you would do, and I think you’d solve a lot of problems.” 

SWAAG members emphasized that the site’s visibility demands more than a standard “cookie cutter” apartment complex. As Tommy’s City Council successor Karyn Adams put it, “This is a project that everyone coming across the Gay Street Bridge will see for decades to come, and it needs to be special.”

Beyond just quieting opposition and preempting appeals, embracing the concepts the public wants would elevate the project’s value as a place where people genuinely want to live and be. Karyn imagined the site as a destination “that is on the top 10 list of things you have to do. You have to come and experience this, because it’s something that is for the community.”

The tension between those expectations and the realities of development played out throughout the meeting, but CR Endeavors representatives said they were listening and receptive. They stressed that the design has already gone through more than a dozen iterations in response to site constraints and back-and-forth with the city, whose representatives present at the meeting signaled support and interest in partnership.

“I just want everyone to understand that we’ve put a lot of thought and effort into this,” said Ryan Robertson, chief operating officer for CR Endeavors. “We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to create something that adds value and isn’t just a building on a hill … We want to get it right, together, and create a project the community can stand behind.” 

Timing, however, is tight. To make the Planning Commission’s May 14 agenda, CR Endeavors would need to submit a revised plan by May 1. The development team appears to be on track to do so.

The question is whether their revisions will reflect an understanding of and substantive response to the feedback. If so, the Kerbela site has the opportunity to become a model for successful, community-aligned development, showing how a project of this scale can both work and belong.