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Can the arts find a place in the Worsham Watkins plan?

by Heather Joyner

We've now had a week to consider the Worsham Watkins International plan for downtown redevelopment, served up with great fanfare last Wednesday evening at the Tennessee Theatre, and most of us are still digesting its various components. Whether gleaned from the presentation, the Public Building Authority's website (http://www.ktnpba.org), print, television, or elsewhere, much information has at last become available regarding the $600 million proposal to transform downtown Knoxville.

Impressive as this grand scheme is, however, my initial enthusiasm was nipped in the bud when I began to suspect that the proposal only pays lip service to the arts. True, Ron Watkins said at the presentation that the plan "...must create an environment that is pleasing and safe to live and work in, with attention paid to public art....Earl and I believe strongly in supporting our cultural arts and have included in our proposal a fixed percentage of annual total project income to be used for the sole purpose of adding permanent sculpture and cultural features throughout our region." But what would that percentage be? And what, precisely, are "cultural features?"

The absence of any solid commitment to the arts, combined with Worsham-Watkins' seeming indifference to public input thus far, has dampened my interest in the plan. Neither myself nor the average Knoxvillian is necessarily an expert on urban revitalization issues. Yet numerous individuals out there have good ideas and valid concerns about how Knoxville spends its money and shapes its future, many of which have surfaced via the Nine Counties One Vision process and K2K online discussions.

In the project presented by Watkins and Worsham, things arts-related would presumably be icing on the cake—plugged in or tacked on after "basics" have been established. And given that parking structures alone are projected to cost $83 million (almost one-third of the total that would come from our pockets, not those of private investors), one wonders how anything BUT the nuts and bolts of the development effort might be afforded. For those who view anything "non-functional" as being superfluous to city planning, I suppose that's fine. After all, sculpture doesn't carry us across the street (although it might inspire us to cross over). Dance, theater, and music performances are events, not aspects of downtown that we can live, work, or shop in. Nevertheless, one can only make so many visits to a touristy destination attraction or wolf down so much specialty pizza and croissants. It's generally accepted that to be lively and financially successful, our downtown must draw locals as well as conventioneers, and area natives will be equally eager for something dynamic to see and do. Exhibits like the one currently at the Knoxville Museum of Art (featuring glass guru Dale Chihuly), alongside permanent art installations, would benefit both groups.

Speaking of the KMA, it seems serendipitous that the world-famous Chihuly gave a lecture there less than twenty hours after the Worsham Watkins presentation, if only because it served to emphasize how different the proposal could be. As Chihuly showed slides of his installations, audience members audibly oohed and ahhed. Then came drawings of pedestrian walkways in the artist's hometown of Tacoma, Wash., wherein Chihuly's work plays a key role in the overall design. Luckily for us, Nancy Young (Vice President of Museum Advancement and "Interim Team Leader of Management") had weeks ago given thought to Chihuly's possible involvement in Knoxville's plans. Kudos to her for arranging a meeting last Friday of Ron Watkins and the two formidable Dales (that is, Chihuly and the P.B.A.'s CEO Dale Smith).

"The Chihuly work is so spectacular," Young says, "it felt like the right time to get Dale Smith and Ron Watkins together to say, 'Hey...here's a fabulous and very popular artist who could make a statement for Knoxville in a unique way, and maybe we should just sit down and talk about it.' What the heck?!....Even if it doesn't end up being Chihuly...if it ends up being other artists [who become involved], let's just start the sparks going about art in these public and private endeavors related to downtown development. We could do something very interesting that would be specific to Knoxville...and if we could tie it back into the museum, fabulous. If there were pieces in the museum and a piece in the convention center and a few pieces elsewhere, gee...we'd really have something that could be a signature for Knoxville."

Worsham Watkins' slick brochure mentions "eatertainment" and "shoppertainment" often. What's glaringly absent is any mention of incorporating art into the scheme, with the exception of an "Arts Market" in "Block CX" that emphasizes retail sales (and would be located further from "Corridor A" than anything else). Like the proposed "North End Park," it's at the bottom of the W-W Master Plan list, following descriptions of condos, parking facilities, laser shows, and the Sunsphere Lounge. If you go to the Worsham Watkins plan as posted on the P.B.A. website and search for the word "art," you'll find it appears frequently within words like "department store," "state-of-the-art," and "apartments." Other than its sparse occurrence in connection with the KMA, the word itself is rarely used. Ironically, the longest passage in which "art" is mentioned has to do with three galleries now housed in the Victorian houses along 11th Street. You know the ones...slated to be removed at the city's expense to make way for a barricade of carriage house apartments that might discourage—rather than encourage—interaction with Fort Sanders. Imagine this: eliminating only one of the secondary glassed-in pedestrian thoroughfares might lessen the "Habitrail" effect of folks scurrying like gerbils through a maze and possibly pay for a regional writers' center (named for James Agee?) that could occupy one of the historic 11th Street houses. In the current plan, along with the Victorians would go the tremendously popular Fort Kid.

"There's a nice sense that Fort Kid is a place that families want to come to [when they visit the museum], and that's something I would hate to see be destroyed," says Young. "It would be great to have something like Bennett or Hanson in the Victorian houses, or even some of the nice shops that are in the Candy Factory...a place where the synergy can take off, where if you need to spend an hour before you attend a concert or until your next seminar at the convention center, there's a place to hang out. A comfortable place for people to be...that would really bring in people from both sides of the development. I don't think the museum board has taken a position per se on that part of the development."

Shakespeare asked in Coriolanus, "What is the city but the people?" Yet our environment shapes who we are. Do people alone constitute a spirited environment? Doesn't history's presence in the form of older structures and artistic works give us a sense of being part of a continuum? And does the Worsham Watkins plan provide continuity with downtown Knoxville's past, recognize artistic talent, and honor what makes us unique?

Young believes that the KMA is poised to be an anchor for the convention center, and many people believe Knoxville could play a similar role within our region. That is, if we don't end up with a version of downtown that could have fallen from the sky and landed anywhere. Encouraging and providing resources for the arts is not the only way to inject energy into our city and further its prosperity. But to incorporate more of the arts in the Worsham Watkins plan before it goes much further would be a damn good start.