Ground Broken on 144-Unit MAC on Fifth Development

Ground was officially broken this morning for MAC on Fifth, a five-story, 144-unit mixed-use development planned for the former MAC Auto Loans property at 200 W. Fifth Ave. The project lands in a corridor that has long felt like a missing tooth between downtown and the growing energy around Emory Place, Broadway and Central.

The nearly one-acre development is being co-developed and co-owned by Bluedog Capital Partners and Dominion Group. Plans include 134 traditional apartments, 10 live/work units and 2,300 square feet of ground-floor commercial space fronting Fifth Avenue and Williams Street.

Fourteen apartments will be reserved as workforce housing for residents earning up to 80% of the area median income. The remaining apartments will include a mix of studios and one- and two-bedroom units.

On a recent sweltering afternoon, I met Bluedog Capital Partners Chief Investment Officer Sarah Harris and her husband, Andrew, at the site. 

Their enthusiasm was palpable. Harris has been working toward the project since putting the property under contract in 2020. “It’s been a long time coming,” she said. “It’s been four years, so we’re excited to finally see it happening.” 

Although Bluedog is based in Rhode Island, Harris and her husband are both Knoxville natives and Bearden High School graduates. The couple moved to Rhode Island while he completed his medical residency, knowing they eventually intended to return home.

Harris began scouting potential Knoxville development sites with Justin Cazana of Avison Young years in advance. When she toured the former MAC Auto Loans property, she discovered she already had a personal connection to it: Her grandfather’s janitorial company cleaned the building in the ‘60s, with help from her father.

“We immediately fell in love with the site,” she said, seeing it as an opportunity to establish Bluedog in Knoxville by delivering something the city needs, designed beautifully and created by local talent. 

The team includes Sanders Pace Architecture, Hedstrom Design and Kristina Wright Interiors, all of which do beautiful work. There’s no shortage of well-deserved public grumbling about standard-issue five-over-one developments, and it’s refreshing to see one with a more artistic sensibility and intent. Other local partners include Empire Construction, Haines Structural Group, c2RL Inc. and Engineering Services Group. 

The building, constructed in 1957, was demolished in 2023. Harris said they explored several options for preserving it, but extensive asbestos contamination—“the whole building was hot,” she said—made reuse impractical.

Its familiar MAC sign will survive, however. It’s incorporated into the new building’s design as a blade sign attached to the Fifth Avenue facade. They secured a variance allowing the neon to remain illuminated. Bird on the Wire Studios was brought in to assist. 

The building will form a large U shape around the property, with its commercial corner facing the intersection of Fifth and Williams. Harris said they are currently targeting a restaurant for the 2,300-square-foot retail space, which will include an outdoor patio area.

The 10 live/work apartments will line portions of the ground floor and are designed for artists, makers, wellness professionals and other small-business owners who want to operate a public-facing workspace from their homes: “It was a very important aspect of our design, making sure the makers have potential space,” Harris said. Seven will include mezzanine levels made possible by the property’s changing grade.

Resident amenities will include a fitness center, rooftop deck and coworking lounge designed to give residents space to meet with clients or collaborate outside their apartments.

The development will include about 45 on-site parking spaces, supplemented by an agreement with a neighboring church, new on-street parking and a bike lane. Harris also teased a “really fun future development very close by” that will help with parking, though details aren’t ready for release. It’s also worth noting that, for the past five or six years, they have let neighboring businesses including A Dopo use the lot for free rather than squeezing interim revenue from it as paid parking.

“We want to be great neighbors,” Harris said. “We want to be a tight-knit community here, so instead of charging for parking, it was more important to us to make sure we’re all on the same page and helping build each other’s businesses.”

MAC on Fifth is Bluedog and Dominion’s first joint development. Harris said Dominion joined the project as it shifted from conventional financing to HUD financing, an area in which the Knoxville-based company has extensive experience. 

The project also received a PILOT agreement supported by the City of Knoxville, Knox County and Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation. “They’ve been fantastic to work with us,” Harris said. “Everybody there has been a pleasure, and they’ve been in huge support of us. And in return, we’re bringing affordable housing units to make sure that everybody is winning.”

Construction of MAC on Fifth is expected to take approximately 22 months. It is one of a handful of residential or mixed-use residential developments coming to the downtown<North Knox corridor (and I recently compiled a roundup of notable incoming businesses along Central and Broadway here). In the near vicinity:  

Alan previewed the development in February of this year, and Compass reported this week that Michigan-based Quad Capital Partners has closed on the 2.2-acre property beside the Historic Southern Railway Station, paying Dewhirst Properties $3.8 million. The developer plans an $83.2 million, seven-story mixed-use building with retail, two parking levels and 270 apartments, including 27 workforce units. 

There’s also movement on the townhomes planned by Paragon Development, L.P. for 609-617 North Central Street, on the site of the former Dempster Building. Alan wrote about those in January.  Nine town homes will be included, ranging from three to four stories. The office space, which will face Broadway, will be used by Paragon.

And further down Fifth, Riella on 5th officially broke ground in May — I wrote about that here.  Co-developed and co-owned by KCDC and Dominion’s affordable housing arm, DGA Residential LLC, the four-story, 121-unit affordable housing community is expected to be completed in late 2027. DGA Residential is also partnering with KCDC to redevelop a portion of the former St. Mary’s Hospital site with 170 townhome and apartment units, including 40 units earmarked for seniors.