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Seven Days in May

Wednesday, May 24
A report from the American Lung Association ranks Knoxville the 12th smoggiest city in America. It blames pollution from TVA power plants, automobiles, and other industrial sources. It doesn't say anything about gaseous emissions from the City County Building.

Thursday, May 25
County Exec Tommy Schumpert announces "no new taxes" for the coming year's budget. The school system and Sheriff's Department hasten to remind all and sundry that that also means "no new money" for salaries, textbooks, etc.

Friday, May 26
A University of Tennessee committee gives UT prez Wade Gilley its plan to make the Big Orange one of the country's "top 25 institutions." The recommendations: get better students, better faculty, better facilities, and give them all more money. Should be a piece of cake.

Saturday, May 27
The Tennessee Smokies' Leo Estrella was pitching the game of his life at Smokies Park in Sevierville when the rains came in. Only nine outs away from a complete-game no-hitter, the game was called after six due to rain. Estrella's been credited with a no-hitter anyway, since the game's considered complete. But it just doesn't seem the same.

Knoxville Found

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Good Game

Maplehurst landlord tries strange, new concept in redevelopment: preservation

While landlords in Fort Sanders have for decades razed beautiful old homes and replaced them with sterile apartment complexes, an out-of-town company is doing things a little differently.

Taking advantage of a 20 percent historic tax credit, Game Day of Auburn, Ala., is renovating eight old homes in Knoxville's other college neighborhood, Maplehurst.

Game Day bought a majority of the housing in Maplehurst earlier this year, and plans to build a 75-unit condo complex facing Neyland Drive—which should be selling by August 2001. But the core part of Maplehurst will be renovated.

"We want to preserve [the homes]. They're beautiful; we want to restore them," says Pam Abate, property manager of the Maplehurst properties. "We just wanted to offer something to the community. This is a neat area. We wanted to clean it up and make it neater."

It's a sharp contrast to what most landlords in Fort Sanders do with old homes: rent them out at cheap rates without spending any money on upkeep, or simply knock them over for parking lots.

The company is taking advantage of a tax credit program run through the National Park Service and the IRS. By agreeing to renovate the homes sympathetic to the original appearance, the owner gets a 20 percent tax credit for whatever he spent on renovation. So if a landlord spends $100,000 renovating an historic home, he gets credit for having paid $20,000 in taxes, which can be taken over five years, says Kim Trent, of Knox Heritage, which is working with Game Day to apply for the tax credit.

"Nationally, it's been a real big incentive for people to do rehab work because you're getting 20 percent back," Trent says. (For now, the tax credit program only applies to income-producing property, but Congress may soon extend it for home owners, Trent says.)

To get the tax credit, the homes must qualify for the national historic register. As a general rule, the homes must be 50 years old, and unique in some way. "The younger the building is, the more of a case you have to make for it. But in our neighborhoods, there are so few [historic homes] left."

After qualifying for the register, the owners must follow specific guidelines for restoration, Trent says. Although every building is different, Trent says that many times renovating according to the guidelines can be cheaper. "You try to repair, not replace. Paint is a lot cheaper than siding. It's less money to repair than replace a window. It takes a little more thought," she says.

Owners do not have to make the structure exactly as it was when built. "The goal isn't to create a museum house, the goal is to create a sympathetic house," Trent says. "If something is already screwed up and you didn't do it, they're not going to make you go back and make it like it was in 1890."

Although other cities are old hat at restoring and reviving their traditional neighborhoods this way, Knoxville hasn't quite caught on.

"We don't have a big history of that here in Knoxville. Here, I don't think enough folks have done it so people don't see the benefits," Trent says. "I think [Game Day] will be a nice model for folks to look at."

—Joe Tarr

Old City Roundup

Local club owners struggle to get their businesses off the ground

The evolving Old City club scene can be hard to get a handle on sometimes. Every day it seems another bar either opens or closes. Last year, the entertainment district lost the acoustic coffeehouse Bird's Eye View but gained Banana Joe's, the national club chain that caters toward a college and twentysomething sports and dance crowd. Here's the rundown on the latest openings and closings, following up on some of our previously-reported stories:

* Although Baffin Harper Sr. was denied a beer permit from the city without explanation or any apparent legitimate reason, he still hopes to open the Platinum Lounge later this year at 210 E. Jackson Ave. The beer board's 5 to 4 vote against his permit in March led many to speculate the real reason was racism. The Harpers, who are African American, plan to play soul, hip hop, and jazz at their club, presumably attracting a predominantly African American crowd. The same night beer board rejected Harper's application, it approved the applications of two white club owners who both had records or charges pending. Harper and co-applicant Tamelyn Harper (Baffin's daughter-in-law) have no charges in the past 10 years, the only amount of time the board is allowed to consider. Upset with the board's action, Harper says he's determined to open.

"We're still planning to open, but now we're looking at September," Harper says.

Harper consulted an attorney after the beer board denied his application even though it had no legal grounds to do so. But a lawsuit didn't seem practical. "We're going to try to apply later on," he says. "From a legal standpoint, I don't know what we can do. I think we'll just end up applying later on."

He's also been busy with his lawncare business, which ironically enough has a contract with the city.

* The Underground is back in business, although no one there is anxious to talk about it. What was once Knoxville's premiere dance club got so much heat last year over beer violations that the club managers seem to be lying low. Manager Lee Fling referred calls to owner Harold McKinney, who did not return a call from Metro Pulse. Although the club still cannot serve beer, it is serving mixed drinks and super beer—which are regulated by the state and not the city, as beer is. The club is open from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights; its sister after-hours-club, the Boiler Room, is open from 2 to 6 a.m. on weekends. The Boiler Room is BYOB.

* The Pilot Light at 106 E. Jackson Ave. (in the old Futopia building) should open soon, promises co-owner Leigh Shoemaker. Having promised that before, Shoemaker is leery of putting a date on it. The Pilot Light is waiting on final inspections for building and fire codes, she says. "We hope to be officially open and selling beer and hosting bands next month," she says.

At first the club will be open only when there are bands playing, but eventually it hopes to become an every-night bar. A small club, it will showcase experimental music and films.

* Three Nineteen at 319 Gay St. has clearance for shows of up to 50 people, but the owners are waiting until they get a larger capacity to open.

The hold-up is getting approval on a rear emergency exit, which would boost the club's occupancy to 150, says Kristen Chapman. Partnering with Chroma Art Gallery, the club will be a multi-art performance and display center. Musically, it will lean toward regional folk, bluegrass, and rock 'n' roll, Chapman says.

Like the Pilot Light, Three Nineteen is leery about setting an opening date. Chroma will probably have an art opening sometime in June, and look for the first concerts in July, Chapman says.

Although the owners hope to eventually get a beer permit, the costs of getting the space ready have run so high that they're waiting to get up and running before they apply.

"We haven't given up," Chapman says. "We've been in Knoxville too long—we know how it goes."

* Also, the 195 Degrees coffee shop is now called Java Old City and has new management. And Finney's Irish Pub has opened in the old Bird's Eye View.

—Joe Tarr

Fix or Flatten

Will private development be enough to save the S&W?

Just after he announced last month that the county was dropping its plans for a downtown justice center, Knox County Executive Tommy Schumpert told Metro Pulse that the decision might not save the S&W Cafeteria building on Gay Street ["Deco Dilemma," Vol. 10, No. 20]. Even though the county has no immediate plans to demolish the building, rehab efforts might be too expensive for private developers to consider, Schumpert said.

However, a University of Tennessee professor who inspected the S&W building two years ago thinks otherwise—though he doesn't have much hope that the county will act to preserve a building regarded by many as the state's finest example of Egyptian-deco architecture.

"It's just a matter of the people in charge not valuing our heritage as much as they should," says Mark Schimmenti, a UT professor of architecture and head of the school's Knoxville Urban Design Studio.

Schimmenti, who opposed the initial plan for the justice center when it was announced in late 1997, says he inspected the building in 1998 with Jon Coddington, also a UT architecture professor, and Jeff Wilkinson, a local architect and builder. Except for a rear portion that he says may have been added on to the original building, Schimmenti says the S&W is structurally sound and ripe for renovation. "We inspected it from the roof to the foundations, and we didn't find a thing wrong with it," Schimmenti says.

Schumpert is expected to make a final recommendation to the County Commission in August or September on a site for a new jail facility. Until then, county officials plan to hold onto their property on State and Gay streets, originally intended for the justice center. Commissioner David Collins says it's "very, very unlikely" that the justice center plan will be revived, but it may linger until an alternative is nailed down.

Collins says redevelopment of the S&W could be very expensive. "It all depends on what the market says for that block right now," he says. "The question is how much money somebody's willing to pull together."

But Schimmenti says shortsightedness on the part of county commissioners led to the present situation, and he'd like to see measures taken to ensure that the building is protected. "If you told an architect that he had to save the building in order to build there, the architect would find a way to do that... If they had started off saying that the architects had to save that building, then the plan would have done that."

Last semester, students at the Knoxville Urban Design Studio headed by Schimmenti developed alternative plans for the State Street property and the surrounding area—including a hotel built onto the back of the Farragut building and a restaurant in the S&W. Schimmenti acknowledges that the plan was intended primarily as an exercise for his students, but he maintains that it also offers exciting ideas for the transformation of downtown into a vibrant mix of residential, retail, and office space.

"It only takes will to save (historic buildings)," Schimmenti says. "I'm sorry when I hear people saying buildings like the S&W can't be saved, because they're just saying we don't have the will to save them."

—Matthew T. Everett