Metro Pulse/Secret History/Where Is Everybody?

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Downtown's secret to playing dead

by Jack Neely

I'll be relieved when the current arguments about downtown development are over, if only to stop hearing people eulogize downtown. The belief that downtown is dead is a concept so dear to so many Knoxville hearts that I'm sure mere facts will never pry it loose. It seems to be an article of faith, and I feel like a blasphemer when I question it.

A few weeks ago I was in one of those public meetings and heard one person after another, mostly in defense of a development project, emphasize the emergency of the situation by describing how Gay Street was "dead," that they were embarrassed by "all the boarded up buildings."

It had been several hours since I'd walked down Gay Street, and I wondered if they knew something I didn't. I took a break and strolled over to the Gay Street Bridge and hiked north to I-40. Of the few buildings that actually are empty, most fit one of the following categories: Still Officially Condemned For the Justice Center Project (the S&W and its neighbors on the 500 block); About To Be Auctioned Off (the old KUB building); or In the Process of Vigorous Renovation (several buildings on the 100 and 400 blocks).

In some respects Gay Street is booming. The Miller's Building, which I gave up on years ago, is occupied and looks much better than it has in my lifetime. The Tennessee Theater, which features shows every week if not every day, is much busier than it was 20 years ago; the recently renovated Bijou, likewise. The 700 block, improved by recent renovations, looks a lot better, and livelier, than it did when I sat at the bus stop across the street every day 15 years ago. The East Tennessee Historical Society's about to break ground on a major museum/archives expansion on the 600 block. And it's clear that even before the planned renovation of the giant Sterchi Building, more affluent people actually live on Gay Street today than at any time in the last 50 years.

It doesn't even seem a very bold thing to say that Gay Street is the busiest mile in East Tennessee. No other street has this density of employment. People complain about parking, but demand determines parking prices; is there another street in Knox County where people are willing to pay $8 a day to park?

I'm not saying it doesn't have problems, and one of the biggest is that it just doesn't look busy. One big reason for that is a little insidious.

Consider one block in particular, the 800 block, the east side. Hundreds work here every day; hundreds more visit. It has five dining establishments, including two sit-down restaurants and three takeout places. It has a full-service bank, a health club and a newsstand. It has a couple of brokerages and a copy center and a card shop. It has a travel agency and a Federal Express counter and a shoe-repair shop. That's all on one side of one block of Gay Street.

It may be as busy as any block in Knoxville history. But look at it from the street, and you won't guess it. All you see is reflective glass, occasionally someone walking in or out the glass doors. You drive by and say, isn't it a shame. Downtown seems to have died.

Inside, they're frying chicken and selling stocks and shining shoes and booking flights and ringing cash registers. It's convenient and comfortable and prosperous. You can work here, bank here, eat here, and take the elevator down to the garage, all without leaving this amazing block. But as far as revitalizing downtown in a way that would convince a passerby, Plaza Tower does about as much as a taco stand.

Nearby is the City County Building: lively on the inside, packed with everybody from the mayor and the county executive to fiancees, lawyers, litigants, legatees, reporters, expert witnesses, and the last public drunk they've hauled into jail. It's full of courts, clerks' offices, judges' offices, city and county officials' offices, conference rooms, several useful libraries and archives, the sheriff's offices, the jail, the MPC—and snack shops and lounges to serve them all. Outside, it's austere concrete and glass. The trickle of people through the Main Street entrance doesn't hint at that activity. Watching people push through the revolving door, you might guess there was just an ATM in there.

Many of the hundreds who work there don't even use that pedestrian entrance. They park underneath, take the elevator up, and never step outside into the mean streets of downtown Knoxville. To different degrees, the TVA towers (in recent years equipped with several indoor restaurants, so employees don't have to actually emerge during the day), the Riverview Tower, the federal courthouse, all of downtown's hotels, and even some retrofitted downtown churches now keep their life invisible, on the inside.

These huge, everything-you-need buildings, jealous about sharing their occupants with the world outside, started arriving downtown around 1970. Which is about the time people say downtown seemed to start dying.

The most popular culprit in the phony murder of downtown is West Town Mall. It didn't help any. But megalithic modern architecture, which showed up downtown at about the same time, was at least an accomplice. If downtown doesn't seem as busy and thriving as it did in 1950 it's partly because the 15,000 people who work downtown every day don't show their faces outside nearly as much as they used to.

When we consider new projects that promise to "revitalize downtown" with glassy buildings and enclosed restaurants, enclosed retail, enclosed parking, and other enclosed attractions, we might do well to remember how well that worked the last several times we tried it.