Metro Pulse Wants You...

...For a public forum on downtown Knoxville. How important is downtown? What's the best way to revitalize it? What's the proper role of local government? Is tourism the solution?

Come listen and give your own opinions at a panel discussion sponsored by Metro Pulse.

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17

Where: Lucille Thompson Auditorium in the Customs House building (corner of Market Street and Clinch Avenue, across from Krutch Park)

Who: Moderator—Mark Schimmenti, associate professor of architecture, University of Tennessee; Panelists—Doug Berry, city of Knoxville; Pete Crowley, Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership; Jack Neely, Metro Pulse staff writer; Ron Watkins, developer, Partners and Associates, Inc.

What: Panel discussion followed by questions and comments from the audience

Join the debate on one of the most important issues facing Knoxville and Knox County. For more information, call 522-5399.

Suburban dwellers don't have anything against the center city. They just don't go there.

by Jesse Fox Mayshark

The late August sun is bouncing orange and pink streaks off the clouds above Concord Park. Midday heat has faded to an easy evening warmth, perfect for splashing around the chlorinated waters of the park's public pools. It still feels like summer, but dead leaves in the parking lot, fallen from a tall diseased elm, give a hint of the season to come.

It's quiet here off Northshore Drive, along an open bend in the Tennessee River. Just down the road are houses built right on the water, with docks and boats standing in for two-car garages. The houses look expensive, the way most of the houses around here do, their design characterized by nothing in particular except the desire to take up lots of room. And there is lots of room to take up in these suburban reaches of the county, where there are subdivisions instead of neighborhoods and miles of roads with no sidewalks.

In the swimming pools, a handful of families linger, putting off supper for a few extra minutes of idle wading. Among them are Mitch and Cathy Ivey and their infant daughter Emily. Mitch is in the kiddie pool, gently pushing Emily on a round yellow floater. Cathy watches from the edge, her feet dangling in the water. They're friendly when approached by a stranger with a notepad but bemused when asked a few questions about something that seems very far from here: downtown Knoxville.

"We go maybe two or three times a year," says Mitch, an engineer who grew up on a family farm in West Knox County and works in Solway.

"Downtown?" his wife says skeptically. "I don't even go downtown, do I? When do I go downtown?"

Downtown Knoxville is in the news a lot these days. The convention center, Market Square, the on-again off-again baseball stadium, Fort Sanders—in one way or another, it seems everybody's talking about it. The city has progressed from holding meetings about Knoxville's "Next Big Steps" to actually soliciting development proposals for several key areas. For downtown boosters, the people who live, work, or play there, the attention is long overdue. They've spent years complaining about lack of enthusiasm among local leaders for anything but occasional lip service to the Old City, Gay Street, or the World's Fair Park. And while a lot of the plans on the table are sketchy—e.g. Market Square redevelopment—at least they're a start.

But Knox County is a big place, with 360,000-plus people scattered from Mascot to Hardin Valley. Less than half of them live within city limits. And, thanks to Knoxville's snaky annexations, some of those who do live in the city are still miles from "the city"—the high-rise office buildings, boarded-up blocks, nightclubs, banks and restaurants that make up downtown. It's easy to talk about downtown being the heart of the city, about the need for a vibrant core at the center of what planners call the Knoxville MSA (metropolitan standard area). But what does that talk mean to the people who live—and in many cases work—miles away from downtown?

Conversations with people around the periphery of the city don't give a clear answer—but they do produce some common themes. Few people, wherever they live, are ready to give up on downtown. Most would like to see new things happen there, for the overall good of the area. On the other hand, a lot of them don't spend much time visiting—or even thinking about—Knoxville's central district. And they're not sure they would even if it were full of activity. As one Farragut resident says, contemplating the long drive to downtown, "We seem to have everything we need out this way."

Concord Park

Mitch and Cathy Ivey actually do go downtown sometimes. After thinking about it for a minute, Cathy—brushing straight red hair back off her cheek—recounts periodic trips to the farmers' co-op on Willow Avenue (the Iveys still live in Mitch's family home). They've been to old movies at the Tennessee Theatre and concerts by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. But other than that, Cathy says with a shrug, "There's no reason to go."

Not that she has anything against downtown. She grew up in the city and has family on its east side. But as parents of a young child, there's not much they want by way of entertainment or social activity that they can't find easily in the family-laden suburbs. Most of their friends are the same way. When the issue of the Knoxville Smokies' baseball stadium is raised, Cathy says the team is right to think people won't come from West Knox to the Bill Meyer site; it's just too far.

"They say people are afraid to go there," she says. "It's not that. You're not afraid to go there, are you honey?"

"Well," Mitch says, a little doubtfully, "I'm not thrilled with the parking. But they say it's safe..."

"I grew up down there. He didn't," Cathy says with a laugh.

The Iveys think a more energetic downtown would be good for Knoxville and its environs—"But personally I don't think it would matter to us," Mitch says. If the city wants to really revive, he opines, it can't look solely to its suburban residents for help. What it needs is a stronger 24-hour population base.

"It's so obvious to everybody but the government that what you've got to do is establish residents down there," he says.

Across the road at the Concord soccer fields, practice is in full swing. There are cheerleaders on the lawn, a dozen or so pre-teen girls are waving their arms and kicking in synchrony to chants like, "Who rocks the house?/The Admirals rock the house/And when the Admirals rock the house they rock it all the way down." Martin Cumpston is sitting on the sidelines with a shaggy Irish setter named Molly, watching his daughter's soccer team run through its drills. He coached his children's teams for 10 years but has retired to the role of enthusiastic spectator.

Cumpston, who has an athlete's lean build himself, works as sales manager for a plastic piping company based in a Cedar Bluff office. He has many thoughts about downtown Knoxville.

"I like downtown cities, and in my job I travel all over the Southeastern U.S., so I see what some cities have done with their downtowns," he says. "I was in Nashville last week, downtown. It's amazing what Nashville has done. Very nice." He also mentions Greeneville, S.C., Pensacola, Fla., and—inevitably—Chattanooga. His favorite regional city, though, is Charlotte, N.C., which he calls "amazing."

As for Knoxville, he goes downtown sometimes. He had jury duty this summer, which gave him a chance to explore a little on breaks. He likes the blocks right around the City County Building—the landscaped lawns, the lunch spots, the Andrew Johnson and Whittle buildings. "And then you go a few blocks and you go to Gay Street, and it's depressing as heck," he says. "It's sad."

Before he moved to Knox County several years ago, he'd heard about the Old City from friends. What he found, however, didn't meet expectations. "I would say I was unimpressed...It just isn't clean, safe, nice."

So what does downtown need? "Stuff going on," Cumpston says. "People walking along the streets. Things to do. Some businesses on Gay Street. You've got to have parking down there as well. If all those buildings on Gay Street had a restaurant downstairs or a shop and upstairs had office spaces and up above that some residential areas...it would be really nice.

"I hate the suburbs," he continues, as his daughter and a friend come over to pet Molly. "I hate having to drive a car to go anywhere." On the other hand, he's not ready to be a downtown pioneer. "I wouldn't move there yet," he says. "So how do you start? What comes first?"

He's not sure, but he favors any initiatives—including tax incentives—to boost interest and investment in downtown. He thinks a new stadium at Bill Meyer could work, with the help of a new interstate off-ramp and easy access to and from the Old City.

"People love that kind of stuff," he says. "Personally, I would much rather do that than go out in the suburbs, in the county."

For now, though, most family outings to eat, shop, or recreate don't take him too far afield. "We go as far east as West Town Mall," he says with a grin.

West Town Mall

James R. Proaps remembers downtown Knoxville—and "remembers" is the right word for two reasons. He hasn't been there in years, and the downtown he used to know doesn't really exist anymore.

The affable retiree is on a bench in one of West Town's mini-courtyards, relaxing under a skylight and waiting for his wife to finish shopping. One gets the feeling it's an old ritual—she spends money and he pretends to be pained by it. When she walks up carrying a bag from the Disney store, he groans and says, "Oh, she's hit me a lick."

Then she's off again, leaving Proaps to talk about other shopping trips in other places. When the Lenoir City couple got married 50 years ago, there was no question where the best buying could be had: downtown Knoxville.

"She'd go from one end of Gay Street to the other end," Proaps recalls, arms folded across his yellow shirtfront. "She nearly walked me to death. She got me twice like that. After that, I stayed home and let her go with her sister."

He made frequent trips downtown himself. As an engineer with the state Health Department, he brought milk for analysis to labs in the heart of the city. He liked it then. "We used to eat at the S&W Cafeteria," he says.

But the stores are long gone from Gay Street, the S&W may be slated for demolition, and West Town's a lot closer to Lenoir City. Proaps says his daughter-in-law worked for a bank downtown. She had her car stolen. From what he hears, there's not much left in central Knoxville except bums on the street and "nightclubs for queers."

"They haven't got anything to offer me anymore," he says.

He does have some ideas about how to help the city, though. A mass transit system that could bring people quickly from the edge of Knox County to downtown would eliminate parking problems and make the city more accessible, he says. Noting the growing population in Loudon and other surrounding counties, he asks, "Where are those people going to shop? Knoxville had better get going."

Over in the West Town food court, Ben Burton is finishing a bowl of Petro's chili. Young and dark-haired, the 24-year-old is a long way from Sevierville, where he lives and works as a police officer. He's in Knoxville today because he's taking graduate classes at UT.

Burton says he likes downtown and visits the Old City sometimes. (Asked why he drove all the way to West Town for lunch from campus, he shrugs and says, "Just where I ended up, basically.")

"I used to like the little festivals they had down there, like St. Patrick's Day," he says. He wonders why they don't do that as much anymore. He thinks downtown is a nice contrast to the efficient rush of mall shopping—"It's a little bit more laid back, more like come in, look around the shop as much as you want."

But he says for an out-of-towner, downtown doesn't have the visibility of the malls. There are billboards in downtown Knoxville for Pigeon Forge, but there are no billboards in Pigeon Forge for Knoxville.

"I think they should just advertise it a little more," Burton says, setting the paper chili cup aside. "Like my friends in Sevierville, if I told them to meet me on Gay Street, they wouldn't have a clue."

Holston Hills

Dick Hyatt's getting ready for a noontime round of golf at Holston Hills Country Club. It's pushing 90 degrees on a cloudless Tuesday, and the retired dentist with the sunburned face sits in the shade of his golf cart's awning and thinks for a second.

"There's not anybody downtown anymore," he says flatly. "I don't have any reason to go there."

Hyatt lives close to the country club, well within the city limits but separated from downtown by the green hills and neighborhood streets of East Knoxville's most affluent area. Although he'll occasionally make the trip to Chesapeake's for seafood, he finds downtown uninteresting and inconvenient—"High taxes, high rent, no parking." And he doesn't think much of the "revitalization" talk.

"It's dead. I'm against it. I don't think it would work," he says. "I wouldn't want to try to start a business down there." Then he excuses himself—"They're waiting for me to tee off."

In the Holston Hills clubhouse, Scott and Amy Smith are having lunch with their son Jack, 4, and Amy's father, who's visiting from out of town. They moved here from Sacramento last year (Scott's a doctor at the University of Tennessee Medical Center). Although they don't live too far west of center—off of Lyon's Bend Road—they don't find much cause to go downtown either.

"It's not convenient for us, and there's really nothing downtown that we can't get closer to home," Amy says. She did like the Southbound restaurant in the L&N building, but that's closed now and chef Bruce Bogartz has moved to Harry's on Kingston Pike.

When they first visited Knoxville, Scott says his impression of downtown was "that it was clean but not terribly active."

Having lived in Detroit, Amy knows how damaging a dead downtown can be to a city's image and economy. For that reason, the Smiths hope renewal efforts take hold.

"The couple of times we've been downtown in the evening, I couldn't believe how deserted it was," Amy says. "I would worry it would develop a bad side."

Halls

When you drive over Black Oak Ridge and begin the descent into Halls Crossroads, there's a sense of crossing a border. Separated from the city by both geography and fierce community pride, Halls emits an aura of tenacious independence. Periodic rumors of plans by Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe to annex bits of Halls send local patriots into blustery outrage. The town is also growing, like all of the county's northern and western communities. With its subdivisions and shopping centers, it now has the feel of a full-fledged suburb.

It's a Sunday evening, and the church parking lots are packed full. Down the road from Halls Baptist, Jim and Paul Vaughan are just finishing a game of tennis on the courts next to Halls Elementary School.

"You don't want to ask me about downtown, because I never go there," warns Paul, a math teacher at nearby Halls High. At most, he guesses, lifting his ball cap to wipe his forehead, he makes the trek that far south once a month.

His brother Jim, on the other hand, is in or near the area often. A survivor of the lay-offs at Levi's Cherry Street plant, he heads downtown on business probably once a week. "It's much improved," he says. "I think it's kind of interesting, a little bit of an exciting place to go."

But, both brothers admit, when it comes to leisure activities, central Knoxville rarely comes to mind.

"I don't think about going downtown," Jim says. "But there's really some pretty good places to eat and some nice places to browse around down there." He suggests Knox Countians might need a little reminding that it even exists.

Paul agrees. When he's making plans to go out to eat, for example, he says he just never thinks of downtown. Instead, he's likely to head to West Knoxville—which is farther in actual miles but seems nearer. From Halls, it's simple to hop on I-640 in Fountain City and loop around to I-40 westbound.

"It's easier to head west than in any other direction," Paul says.

The Vaughans don't doubt the importance of downtown. "The way any city is laid out, particularly Knoxville, there's really no central area [except downtown]," Jim says. "It seems that certain businesses belong in the central area of the city." He can't imagine all of downtown's banks, law offices, and professional firms simply strung out along a section of I-40.

On the other hand, he says, whatever happens downtown, he's not likely to spend much time there at this point in his life—with family and job, he's just too busy. "The kinds of stuff I can break away fairly easily to do are in a three to five mile radius, because I can get there in four to five minutes," he says. "It takes 30 minutes to get downtown."

Farragut

Dick Woodring is coiling a hose around the elaborate flower beds behind his Farragut home. In a straw hat, shorts, and a white T-shirt, the former Oak Ridge engineer is the only person on his block braving the early afternoon sun. The Alabama native has been in Tennessee since 1975, although the original house on this site burned down a few years ago. He and his wife decided to rebuild on the same spot, in a quiet subdivision with tree-lined streets.

They moved to Farragut because it split the difference between his job at Martin Marietta and hers at Cumberland Securities in Knoxville. These days, neither one of them goes downtown much.

"We've been to the Old City once or twice," Woodring says, leaning against a car in his driveway. "We haven't been there in eight months, I guess."

Asked for impressions of downtown, he shrugs and says, "I don't think all that negatively of it. I just know there's not all that much to do down there. I know it's a place for lawyers and people doing county business."

He can't think of anything in particular that would make downtown more attractive. Most of what he needs—most of what he can even imagine needing—is available close by. "We have all these restaurants and stores," he says.

Woodring's not opposed to downtown revitalization efforts. But he's not convinced they're crucial, either. The West Knox-Oak Ridge axis has grown on its own even as downtown has faltered. "I think it's a pretty low priority," he says. "[This] is the center of population now. It just happened that way."

What do these impressions mean for the future of downtown? Maybe a lot. They suggest that new efforts—like those already under way (e.g. the condo-izing of Gay Street)—may be lonely ones, carried out by true believers without much support from the county's fastest-growing areas. On the other hand, many who don't come downtown now say they would like a reason to. The suburbs will not rebuild the downtown they helped dismantle, but they could be a key part of keeping a rejuvenated one alive. What planners, investors, and boosters have to do, apparently, is get downtown back on the suburban radar. Figuring out how to do that may be the next big step.