A Fresh Perspective Comes Upriver to Knoxville in Eric Myers 

Knoxville has long had a fascination with Chattanooga. We’re both Tennessee River cities, and for decades we’ve watched with interest as our neighbor to the south reimagined its downtown and riverfront. 

We marveled at Chattanooga’s aquarium, pedestrian bridge, revitalized downtown and ambitious public spaces. We spent years fumbling around for our own silver bullet before settling on a more pragmatic approach: building on what we already had, investing in public spaces and finding our own way forward.

Our city has come a long way, and now we’re entering another chapter, with major development taking shape on both sides of the river (and beyond). There’s plenty of opportunity ahead, along with some big questions about how we grow while preserving what makes Knoxville, well, Knoxville.

Which brings me to Eric Myers, a LEED-accredited professional architect and urban designer who spent much of the past three decades helping shape Chattanooga’s transformation. Now, he is returning to Knoxville as the East Tennessee Community Design Center‘s new DesignWorks director.

Eric graduated with honors from UT’s College of Architecture and Design in 1995, and a lot of people are excited to have his brain back in town. I recently sat down with Eric and ETCDC Executive Director Ellie Kittrell to talk about his experience in Chattanooga, what lessons might translate to Knoxville, and what he sees when he casts fresh eyes on a city he first got to know more than 30 years ago.

A disclosure: I serve on the Design Center’s board, so I’m admittedly biased. But I’d be excited to pick Eric’s brain regardless.

Eric grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, the son of a computer scientist and a “crafty” special education teacher. He credits his father’s analytical mind and his mother’s artistic sensibility with influencing his career.

As a kid, Eric built Lego cities and filled sketchbooks with imaginary worlds. In drafting class, he mostly drew gears and mechanical objects until the day his teacher put a building in front of him to draw — and then he was hooked. 

That early passion for architecture brought him to UT’s College of Architecture and Design in the early ’90s. For his “study abroad” semester, rather than following classmates to Rome, he headed just down the road to Chattanooga.

There, Eric studied under Stroud Watson, a visionary and profound influence on downtown Chattanooga who passed away in April of this year. Then he stayed for a summer internship. After graduation and a stint practicing architecture in Nashville, he returned to Chattanooga in the late ’90s as an urban design coordinator at the Riverfront / Downtown Planning & Design Center, working on the Tennessee Riverpark, downtown streetscapes and Southside redevelopment.

He later co-founded Polis Studio and established Elemi Architecture. In 2017, he became executive director of the Chattanooga Design Studio, a position he held for nearly a decade and which shaped some of the city’s most significant housing intiatives. His contributions to architecture and urbanism range from streetscape and infrastructure sustainability strategies to urban infill housing.

Community participation was also central to Eric’s experience in Chattanooga.

By the time Eric arrived, Chattanooga had spent years engaging residents in its future. Beginning in the early 1980s, initiatives such as Chattanooga Venture and Vision 2000 brought thousands of people into conversations about downtown, neighborhoods, housing and the river, generating plans and investments that would transform the city.

Eric calls it “relentless public participation planning.” The Design Center served as “the great convener,” bringing residents, designers, elected officials and developers together around a shared vision. One result was the preservation of the Walnut Street Bridge, saved from demolition and converted into a pedestrian bridge after citizens advocated for it.

“When you act upon what people want, it just generates more and more engagement and more involvement,” Eric said.

He recalls a planning charrette that drew some 400 people on a Thursday night. People showed up because they’d seen their ideas put into action and believed their participation held water.

I wrote last year about Knoxville’s own shift toward community-driven planning, particularly the extensive public process behind the 2006 South Waterfront Vision Plan. Speaking of which, there’s a direct Chattanooga connection here: After the original Chattanooga Urban Design Studio was dismantled in 2005, several of its leaders formed a consultancy that helped guide Knoxville’s South Waterfront planning.

The two river cities have been learning from each other for decades. And Eric is quick to recognize Knoxville’s own strengths, including a community design organization with a remarkable 56-year history.

When I asked Eric what struck him about Knoxville after his return, he started with the people.

“First and foremost, I love Knoxville,” he said. “There’s a positive energy here that maybe if you’ve been here for a while, it might not seem that way, but it’s here.”

He noted how, when people learn he’s new to town, they are eager to share their favorite coffee shops, places to walk and bike routes. Knoxville has lots of enthusiastic ambassadors.

Another strength, he says, is its historic architecture. “I think one of the biggest strengths downtown Knoxville has is the authenticity of history,” he said. “There’s so much historic fabric that has not been modified or torn down.”

Longtime residents may dwell on what we’ve lost, but compared with many Southern cities, Knoxville has retained an impressive amount of its architectural character. Eric remembers the effort to save the Sterchi Building during his student years and admires Gay Street, even with its gaps.

“There are missing teeth on Gay Street, but for the most part, it is a beautiful stretch of public realm,” he said.

He sees opportunities to extend that quality throughout the downtown grid, creating more inviting, comfortable public spaces. He recalls Stroud Watson’s emphasis on “not things, but people.” 

“It doesn’t all have to be perfect 100% urbanism-to-a-T mixed use,” he said. “It just needs to be of high quality, and it needs to have those containment qualities that make you feel like you’re in a room. A safe shared room. And I think the more that the 15-square grid of downtown Knoxville can kind of fill in and continue to intensify in that way, the better off it’ll be.”

Myers also sees a stronger connection emerging between UT and downtown, which historically operated somewhat independently of one another. “Now it feels like there’s becoming more of a downtown campus and a downtown experience for University of Tennessee, which can only be a win-win,” he said.

Of course, I couldn’t resist asking Eric about the Tennessee River.

Chattanooga’s riverfront transformation is one of its great success stories, and Eric helped shape it. Now Knoxville is approaching its own new wave of riverfront renaissance, from a North Waterfront Redevelopment Plan dovetailing with the planned Neyland Entertainment District to the South Waterfront’s Down River Master Plan, which I wrote about last December.

With more people soon living, working and visiting along both banks, Eric wonders whether it’s time to take a more cohesive approach to the river’s edge. Knoxville already has waterfront parks, greenways and gathering spaces, but they’re often disconnected.

“Where are the places for people?” he asked. “Because they’re there, but they’re there in pockets.”

He sees an opportunity to better connect those destinations, existing neighborhoods and new developments. 

Speaking about the Neyland Entertainment District, Eric sees opportunity: “How do we connect these folks to the river and to downtown? We’ve got to have quality connections.”

And those connections are important well beyond the waterfront.

My mind goes to ETCDC’s most recent Community Collaborative project, involving an 18-month, robust assessment process on what vision could be cast for the future of two North Knoxville properties: Knox Central (1000 N. Central St.) and Knox County Schools Maintenance & Operations (900 E. Fifth Ave.). Both have the potential to be catalytic to their respective corridors. 

“Even if you just renovate a storefront on Broadway, it will flex and change the dynamic of the street and everything around it,” Eric said.

Eric is enthusiastic about Knoxville but recognizes the pressures of growth, particularly outward expansion that strains infrastructure and natural resources. “Our cities are expanding at an alarming rate,” he said. “It’s a nationwide phenomenon that I don’t know how it’s going to play out.”

He also hears concerns about preserving Knoxville’s character amid rapid change. “There’s a pretty palpable conversation about, well gosh, there’s a lot of change going on. It’s happening very rapidly. Let’s not lose what makes us cool.”

Historic preservation, thoughtful development and better connections between neighborhoods are all part of the equation. “People want to have safer connections, more options,” he said.

These are familiar debates around here, often passionately argued in the comments section of this website. I’m inclined to see that as a good thing, even when things get rowdy. People care deeply about Knoxville and want to protect what makes it special.

That philosophy is a natural fit for the ETCDC, founded in 1970 to provide professional design assistance to nonprofits and community groups.

Ellie Kittrell, who succeeded Duane Grieve in becoming executive director earlier this year, first encountered Eric moderating a panel exploring Chattanooga’s riverfront past, present and future.

“My perception in that moment was, we need him,” she said. “We need someone with that experience who has been able to navigate very complex system-level conversations with multiple entities.”

She was so impressed, in fact, that she initially offered him her job. He declined but agreed to help guide the organization’s transition and strategic planning, joining as interim and now permanent DesignWorks director.

Together with the staff and board, they’re strengthening the DesignWorks process, particularly helping community groups move projects from conceptual designs toward implementation. Eric created a comprehensive archive of the Chattanooga Design Studio’s work, complete with a project timeline, and intends to do the same for ETCDC’s 56-year history.

They’re also expanding professional development opportunities through the Community Design Fellows Program, something particularly meaningful to Eric.

“I’m getting to that age where I can really make a difference by helping people younger than me become more confident and do meaningful work,” he said. “That’s really what I was looking for, a chance to use my skills and experience to help others be their best and do the kind of work I’ve had the magnificent fortune to do.”

Eric counts the approximately 50 interns who passed through the Chattanooga Design Studio during his tenure among his proudest accomplishments. At ETCDC, he sees an opportunity to build on 56 years of community-driven design while helping the next generation find its footing.

“I don’t have all the answers,” he said, “but I certainly love to roll my sleeves up and work with people.”

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