Coffee Chat with New-ish Downtown Coordinator Ellie Moore

Downtown Knoxville has a lot of plates in the air, and somebody has to keep them all spinning in a (relatively) similar direction.

Last month I met up with the City’s new-ish Downtown Coordinator, Ellie Moore, on a rainy morning at Old City Java to see how she’s settling into the role she assumed in mid-March. 

Rick Emmett held the position from 2011 until his retirement in 2023, and since then the role has sat vacant. Which is surprising because downtown has been in a growth spurt, with more moving pieces than ever. So there was a collective sigh of relief when not only was a new Downtown Coordinator appointed, but it turned out to be someone many of us already knew, directly or indirectly.

If you spend much time in the downtown ecosystem, Ellie might already be a familiar face. She was with Nourish Knoxville, the nonprofit behind the Market Square Farmers Market and more, for nearly 14 years, starting as Markets Manager and working her way to Chief Operating Officer. She was so passionate about her Nourish work that she almost didn’t apply for the Downtown Coordinator job. 

“I love Nourish but I felt like this position was a next step for the work I was doing,” she told me. “On the very last day I closed my eyes and pressed the submit button on my application, and I’m really glad I did. It was hard to leave but this position has been a dream.” 

So, what does a downtown coordinator actually do?

Oversimplified answer: a liaison between stakeholders. 

In my imagination, her day-to-day entails bopping around downtown, checking in on merchants, residents, tourists, developers and whoever else crosses her path. In my wildest imagination, she carries a scroll, scribbles notes and grand plans with a feather pen tucked behind her ear, then dramatically drops it at the mayor’s feet at day’s end. While wearing a top hat. In this fantasy it’s always a perfect spring day and everyone is getting along beautifully.

In reality, Ellie Moore’s role is considerably … more pragmatic. For instance, Ellie said, she has spent a lot of time liaising with engineers, solving sexy puzzles like “can we dig this hole in the ground?” 

And the work she does often requires coordination across several departments at once.

“I’m getting a full view of the city and all the city does,” Ellie said. “When I started I thought, I know what the city does, and I get in there and it’s like, this is massive and there is so much to be done. And there are so many different departments and they all do different jobs.”

Another surprise, at least to me: Her “downtown” extends beyond what one might think. For example, she’s spent considerable time lately working in downtown Burlington, the business district along MLK Jr. Avenue that is in the midst of a glow-up.

“It can be a little bit daunting, just because each community is so very different, and what they need from the city is very different,” Ellie said. 

Facilitating communication is a big, and challenging, part of Ellie’s job. 

“If the communication isn’t there people and businesses feel like things are happening to them rather than with them,” she said. “The city has solid reasons for decisions, but if the people affected don’t understand the why, frustration can build.”

The position is overseen by City of Knoxville Chief Operating Officer Grant Rosenberg. Mayor Indya Kincannon said in the hiring announcement, “Ellie’s experience working alongside downtown merchants makes her a familiar and trusted face. She is the ideal candidate to help continue the positive momentum downtown.”

I asked Ellie what she loves most about downtown, and her answer wasn’t about buildings, restaurants or development projects. It was: people.

On her walk from her office to meet me at Old City Java that rainy morning, she said she ran into former coworkers, the Mayor, a neighbor, and a previously unhoused man she’d met through the Farmer’s Market, where he used his SNAP benefits, who now has permanent housing.

“Downtown is for everybody,” Ellie said. “I’m super passionate about pedestrian access, safety, multimodal transportation and making sure people can get here. There are barriers, some intentional and some accidental, and I think part of the work is breaking those down so more commingling can happen with all sorts of people. That’s what is special about downtown to me.”