What's going to happen to Market Square?
Two years ago, the Urban Land Institute—a national consulting firm hired by PBA to give input on the convention center—made several recommendations. One of them looked five blocks to the east, to Market Square, the heart of downtown. ULI said the city should focus on energizing the square to make the entire area more attractive to residents and visitors.
The Market Square aspects of the PBA proposal are mostly vague references to needing more shops and restaurants. One, however, is specific enough to have elicited the entire project's most negative reactions: a dome for the plaza. "The central open area should be retained," the report states, but with "an unobtrusive glass enclosure." It's hard to picture. Unfortunately, no drawings are included.
The plan's most unpopular single proposal may also be its most unlikely one. Most of the report's recommendations tend toward the emphatic; perhaps responding to early negative reactions, mention of the glass dome in the published report is comparatively meek: "consideration should be given" to the idea, it says.
A few Market Square entrepreneurs are attracted to the idea, among them preservationist developer Kristopher Kendrick, owner of the Hotel St. Oliver overlooking Market Square on Union. He compares it to the Crystal Palace, the freestanding exhibition hall built at London's Hyde Park in 1851. "It's basically like a big greenhouse that encloses Market Square, but with the windows open. What I saw from the drawings, the covering would actually protect the Square. To me, it was almost preserving a capsule of history to protect all those buildings."
Edwards touts the idea, saying the "enclosure" will be only a glass roof, with open ends. Asked how that would "make the space usable on a year-round basis," as the report states, he answers, "We may have side walls in February." On warm days, he says big fans would draw in air from the outside to keep it from getting muggy.
"Unobtrusive" as it might be, the enclosure would have to be gigantic. The Square is about 120 feet wide and 450 feet long; you could play NCAA football here, with room for an audience. The buildings that frame the Square are of various heights from two to four stories tall. Edwards won't hazard a guess as to what this �berdome would cost to build or maintain (it's not included in the proposal's $130 million infrastructure costs).
Edwards says the enclosure's purpose wouldn't be to protect the buildings. He justifies it as something that would draw certain retailers attracted to the option of "spilling out into the open area."
"But don't get hung up on the glass dome thing," Edwards says. He and the other developers seem frustrated that since the rumors got around, many downtowners have regarded the whole multi-block private development as the glass dome thing. Or the "Dumbdome," as it's already been nicknamed by the Internet activist group K2K.
The reaction seems only natural. The rest of the development offers only a few causes for regret: the fancy, relatively new firehall and the circa 1910 Daylight Building on Union are among the few mournable losses contemplated by the plan. The rest of the construction sites consist of parking lots and blankfaced modern buildings few will miss.
Market Square, by contrast, is an institution, and any structural change to it is likely to prove it's a lightning rod for passion. The 148-year-old public space is arguably Knox County's most historic spot. Center of Knoxville's cultural, political, and commercial life for over a century, Market Square's commercial activity has ebbed since the old Market House was torn down in 1960.
Today, two rows of Victorian and early 20th-century commercial buildings face each other with trees and a shed for the farmers who still sell here three days a week. Market Square's oft-lamented "decline" has been inconsistent at its worst. Some corners have bounced back in surprising ways.
Market Square still hosts eight restaurants; in Knoxville, few areas of comparable size support this many. Though its non-restaurant retail has indeed declined—since the closure of the package store last month, the only retail remaining is a tailor shop—Market Square still hosts several thriving businesses, including a new graphic-arts group, a new architectural office, an engineering firm, the upscale Hotel St. Oliver, and, for the time being, UT's urban design studio. Added to that is a new phenomenon Market Square hasn't seen in decades: middle-class residences. Three renovated, resident-owned walkup condominiums are on the Square today, with two more to be completed and occupied before the end of the year.
Though folks over 50 may recall Market Square mainly as the cavity where the Market House used to be, two generations have grown up knowing it as a pleasant open space—a town square. Today, on a nice evening, it's not unusual to see kids climbing trees and Frisbees flying.
Last year, author Norman Mailer strolled through Market Square at lunchtime and turned to remark to a stranger that it was a "wonderful place—many cities wish they had a place like this." Charming as the Market House may have been during its crowded days of 50 years ago, it rarely struck newcomers that way.
The Worsham Watkins plan calls for a thorough renovation of the whole Square, with the intent of filling all the storefronts with retail, restaurants, and nightclubs, to make this a hub for downtown residential needs and an entertainment center for tourists. Shoppertainment is the unfortunate buzzword sometimes used to describe it. The produce facilities would be enhanced to attract more vendors to this urban-style market; what those facilities would look like has yet to be determined. The most specific Market Square proposal is to occupy the old Watson's building with a grocery. The upscale chain Chelsea is rumored to be a likelihood.
Few argue with that proposal. Mark Schimmenti opened UT's urban design studio in the old Watson's space just over a year ago. He fought for the place and is proud to be there—but says he'd be happy to give it up for a good grocery. As an urban architect, he practices what he preaches and knows that groceries are more important for urban design than urban design studios are. He's also a Gay Street resident.
The plan also calls for smoother access by permeating buildings on both sides with mid-Square corridors to the Walnut Street developments on the west and Gay Street on the east.
Schimmenti, who is involved in the planning, is careful about commenting about the Market Square aspects of it. "I'm very happy that Mike Edwards said this is open to public feedback now."
Spoiling Market Square's current positive potential is Andie Ray's main worry. Eight months ago, she bought a Victorian commercial building on the west side of Market Square, and is currently in the process of renovating the upper floor of her building to live in, with the street level to lease for retail. She says she's "cautiously optimistic" about the Worsham Watkins proposal, but has several concerns.
"I'd like to be supportive," she says, "but I'm a little bit leery of giant plans that don't have substantive detail about how they'll be carried out. I'm also leery of big guys who might come in here and squash the urban pioneers who are putting their hearts and souls on the line.
"There's a shadow hanging over Market Square," she says. Owners are reluctant to develop their property "because they don't know if they're going to keep it."
That uncertainty is not a new problem to Market Square. In 1997, City Council passed a sweeping initiative to oust do-nothing landlords from the Square; but in the two and a half years since, the city itself has imitated them, not following up on the plan, leaving the targeted landlords in place, and offering owners little confidence about how to proceed. Ray fears the proposal will punish those who have invested time and money and reward the do-nothings who've been sitting on decaying buildings hoping for prices to go up.
Ray dislikes everything she's heard about the enclosure idea. "If you want to hermetically seal an environment," she asks, "why be downtown? We already have enclosed malls." She has heard the explanations, but she still doesn't understand what the enclosure's for. "We'll have to pay to heat and air-condition it," she says. "And hope they can find some way to keep it clean," she adds, alluding to the daily bird visitations. "I also have reservations about the 'shoppertainment' aspect of it. Residences, retail, restaurants—that's what we need. But we already have an entertainment district. It's in the Old City." Three blocks away, the Old City is closer to Market Square than the convention center is.
"I think it's horrible," Ray says of the enclosure proposal. "It would crush the spirit of what Market Square is."
Mahasti Vafaie, with her husband Scott Partin, is owner, proprietor, and head chef at two of the Square's most successful restaurants, Tomato Head and Lula, which are also the only two that are open after 6 p.m. A presence on the Square for more than a decade now, Vafaie has been the exception to all the rules of downtown's alleged decline. As Whittle closed and TVA shrank, Vafaie's restaurants have expanded. She introduced the outdoor café idea to Market Square; other restaurants have followed her example.
She finds most of the redevelopment plans exciting, especially the proposal to restore Market Square's facades. However, she strongly opposes the dome idea. "I just don't see any need for it," she says, adding that her customers enjoy the sun and breezes on her patios.
The report promises the "successful" businesses would be allowed to stay. Since all eight of the restaurants on the Square are apparently successful enough to pay the rent, what that means is unclear. However, Mike Edwards talks of "covenants" which will govern businesses in the private-development era.
Six of the Square's eight restaurants close after lunch. By the new plan, that would have to change.
"We'd have covenants of a sort that are common wherever you have multiple owners and tenants," Edwards says. "For example, you've gotta stay open a certain number of hours—you'd better not be just a lunch business. If we want things to be lively at 11 at night, we need businesses to serve that."
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