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Seven Days

Wednesday, Sept. 26
Three hundred people turn out to a rally at Norris Dam State Park to show support for funding state parks. They suggest some money be diverted from road construction. The next day, the state road builders' lobbying group changes its name to the Tennessee Association for Road Construction and Trail Maintenance.

Thursday, Sept. 27
Gov. Don Sundquist says candidates to succeed him in next year's gubernatorial race should "hope and pray that I solve this [budget] problem before they can take office." Why? They can just blame the whole thing on him anyway.

Friday, Sept. 28
Gov. Don Sundquist announces he's splitting TennCare into three equal parts: the people who use it, the people who pay for it, and the people who do the paperwork.

Saturday, Sept. 29
Increased security at Neyland Stadium leads to problems when the Vols' offensive gameplan is stopped for questioning at the gate. Fortunately, it makes it to the field by the second half. Final score: UT 26, LSU 18.

Monday, Oct. 1
In their ongoing spat with County Commission over control of school funds, Knox County school board members say they'll sue the commission—unless the commission sues them first. Is this what they mean by "character education"?

Tuesday, Oct. 2
Project GRAD kicks off at Austin-East and Fulton high schools. It will offer $4,000 scholarships to all students who earn diplomas with at least a C+ average. As if UT's "#1 Party School" ranking weren't incentive enough...

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

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.

Last Week's Photo:
Tricky one, this. The ornamentation in question adorns the pediment over the main entrance to Greystone, the North Knoxville manse that has housed the operations of Channel 6 WATE, lo these many years. So no surprise that the first correct identifier is a former WATEr himself. Robert Gray writes, "I saw it almost every day for the 17-plus years I worked there. Tried to find out who or what it is supposed to be, but never could. Apparently Major Eldad Cicero Camp took that secret to his grave." Apparently so. Although there is a slight resemblance to a certain current Channel 6 anchorman... Anyway, the astute Mr. Gray receives for his efforts a copy of R. Scott Brunner's book of essays, Carryin' On (and other things Southerners do). Carry on.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

RESOLVING ARAB STEREOTYPES LECTURE
Wednesday Oct. 10
7 p.m.
Shiloh Room of UT's University Center
Lecture by author and media critic, Dr. Jack Shaheen, sponsored by Arab American Club of Knoxville.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Thursday Oct. 11
1:30 p.m.
City County Bldg., Large Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular monthly meeting.

CITY COUNCIL ELECTION CAMPAIGN COMMUNITY FORUM
Thursday Oct. 11
6:30 - 8 p.m.
Mt. Olive Baptist Church
Intersection of Summit Hill, MLK, and Dandridge.
Sponsored by Solutions.

Artists' Colony?

City plans next steps for Candy Factory, Victorian Houses

"It's a golden opportunity. It's a great building. It's going to have great traffic. It's got a great tenant already."

After well over a year of fractious debate and false starts regarding downtown redevelopment, deputy to the mayor Frank Cagle sounds surprisingly hopeful about the future redevelopment of the Artists' Colony complex on the World's Fair Park. And, in many ways, he has lots of reason to be hopeful. The Candy Factory alone, built in 1919 by the Littlefield and Steere Candy Company, has 60,000 square feet of city-owned space, plus several thousand more square feet exist in the seven circa 1880-1890 Victorian houses. In addition, the district is home to an established arts community that already draws an estimated 200,000-plus annual visitors. "I think there's a lot of potential here," says 11th Street Espresso House operator Lorretta Granath. "It's just a matter of having a vision and carrying it through."

And, while Cagle describes the city as being in an "information gathering mode" regarding the anticipated redevelopment, there's one thing the city administration clearly envisions for the Victorian houses and Candy Factory—some form of privatization. "We're probably looking at proposals from developers," says Cagle, "for long-term lease or purchase with strict compliance provisions for the property to revert to the city if the developments don't happen."

As to why the city is looking to privatization, Cagle's answer is two-fold. First, there's the matter of generating return to offset the new convention center's debt, particularly by increasing retail sales to take advantage of sales tax recapture from the state. But increased retail leads directly to Cagle's second argument for privatization: that the city cannot use bond financing for improvements in order to engage in large-scale commercial leasing. "As a city," according to Cagle, "we cannot operate retail businesses. We couldn't operate a large-scale retail enterprise like the Candy Factory." Of course, the city has operated the Candy Factory and Victorian houses with retail businesses as tenants ever since the 1982 World's Fair. But that, as Cagle quickly points out, is different. Currently, for-profit retail is only a small portion of the complex's tenants, which also include a visitors' center, community meeting space and various non-profit organizations including Keep Knoxville Beautiful, the Actor's Co-Op and Circle Modern Dance.

The fate of those tenants adds a layer of complexity to any development proposal. Cagle, however, is hopeful that a number of the current tenants would be able to remain. "We'd hope proposals for use of the site would capitalize on the arts environment," says Cagle. "If you have a draw that brings more traffic, that should benefit the museum and the galleries." But ultimately, he adds, "It'd be up to the developer to propose and up to us and Council to consider what the best mix would be." For non-profit tenants, the real looming question is what impact privatization would have on lease rates.

"The city," says Tom Salter, executive director of Keep Knoxville Beautiful, "has given us a very favorable rent situation for many years and that's really helped our organization." With privatization, Salter says his organization would "have to look at the proposals, see if we'd fit, what the rent was and what the space was and go from there." Failing a fit within the redevelopment proposal, the city administration is confident alternate solutions can be found. According to Cagle, "There might be other venues, given we really don't know what's going to happen on Market Square, Gay Street or any number of venues that need tenants."

There is, however, one tenant the city is very interested in keeping: the South's Finest Chocolate Factory, whose co-owner/manager Cagle singles out for particular praise: "Ellis Bacon has done some tremendous things with the Candy Factory and wants to expand. He'd be an excellent anchor tenant for anyone."

Bacon, who is working with several unnamed partners in anticipation of submitting his own proposal for redeveloping the Candy Factory, sees expanding his business into a full-fledged attraction with tours and a public mezzanine surrounding the production facility. "We feel we have the capability," Bacon says, "of generating several hundred thousand visits a year. The only other facility like it [in the South] is [in] Miami." Bacon's proposal includes expanding his own company, a major restaurant space and a large retail gallery in addition to retaining some space for public uses and non-profits. "Generally speaking," he says, "what the plan seeks to do is accommodate a large portion of what's here now while strengthening the commercial component." Yet, while Bacon holds out great hopes for the redeveloped Candy Factory, he's less than enthusiastic about the neighboring Victorian houses. "I'm not of the opinion," says Bacon, "that a private individual, unless they wanted to be extremely altruistic, could do anything with the Victorian houses. I think that's going to have to be a city responsibility."

And, judging by the widespread public outcry when Worsham Watkins International proposed moving the houses to make way for a new residential development, defining the city's responsibility regarding the Victorian houses is sure to be another crucial factor of any future development proposal. "We want to see all the Victorian houses remain and the Candy Factory remain," says Randall Deford with the Historic Fort Sanders Association. "That's our number one priority."

For the time being at least, the Victorian houses are protected from demolition by the Fort Sanders NC-1 Conservation Overlay. DeFord, for one, would like to see that protection strengthened to the stricter H-1 Historic Overlay standard. When asked about that possibility Cagle responds: "I don't think we've really thought it through, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened since we supported the H-1 for Market Square."

One thing is certain though—before proceeding with a request for proposals, the city would like to evaluate the condition of the buildings. DeFord, an architect and board member of Knox Heritage, agrees that that needs to be done but says, "It's important that whoever's evaluating those buildings be contractors, architects and engineers that do preservation work. They're going to have the best idea as to whether or not the buildings are savable and that they can be rehabbed on a cost-effective budget." Which is something Cagle is quick to second: "If there are one or two beyond hope, we'd want the experts to make that decision, not us."

Overall, despite the potential for conflict over both preservation and non-profit tenants, the administration is hopeful that the RFP process can proceed soon. "With the convention center opening next summer," says Cagle, "we want to get these sites on line as soon as possible." The cur

rent timeline, while tentative, foresees issuing RFP's after the first of the year and, with luck, a decision by spring. Cagle is confident that the city will get a lot of response. "That much retail space right across the bridge from the convention center, right next to campus, would be attractive to any developer." Then again, he adds, reflecting on the long, contentious debate over Market Square, "I've given up predicting anything downtown."

—Matt Edens

Don't Go There Blithely

TIME: 8:30 A.M.
DAY: An early fall Monday
PLACE: The narrow, littered alley between Gay Street and Market Square

The debris of a thousand homeless, transient souls, deposited in careless disorder, strewn behind them in tiny fragments and scrawled legends, marks the lonely, empty corridor of the alley south of Wall Avenue. Those eclectic leavings are shunted to the sides or clustered in doorways, where shelter can be gained for a night or for a rainy stretch of daylight.

Beneath a urine-stained corner of brickwork lies a clump of tattered carpet that has served a time or two as a coverlet for someone's outdoor sleep. Empties of cheap vodka and cheaper wine and malt liquor are scattered about. A baby blanket, filthy, ragged and pink, is curled, raindamp and pitiful, matted against the asphalt.

An open can of white paint rests overturned on the pavement, its contents spilled and clotted. White footprints made by cleat-soled workboots lead away from the can, then back, but go nowhere else. Nothing in that alley, it seems, leads anywhere else at all. But no one is here now.

The witnesses to this and every morning are made up of a maze of wires and conduit lines and gas, water and drain pipes—copper, iron and galvanized sentries, often disconnected, but still in place. The patchwork of concrete and stucco and badly tuckpointed brick creates its own time-spattered mural, spotted here and there with closed up windowlights, darkened window glass or bent and rusted burglar bars.

Morning's cloud-paled sunlight casts quirky, ragged shadows underfoot. The irregular rooflines, many of them weathered by a century or more of combined commerce and decay, render a jagged skyline overhead. It's almost perfectly quiet now in the midst of an otherwise workday rush, ongoing just a few yards away in any direction. The sounds that filter in are muted, except for the oddly loud trickling of water from a vacant rear door, discharging the remnant from the demi-deluge of the previous day.

There are messages scrawled along the walls. They form graffiti not of the artistic "signing" variety. They make their statements, some plaintive, some angry, some plainly, simply sad.

"Rail Road Jerk," "Malignment Filthy," "Infectious Insanity," and "Malkav's Return," all in different hands and styles, or lack of styles, mark the brick wall to the east. Eight feet up on a doorway to the west is printed, lamely, "I'm not ya' spritzhead grlfriend!"

The gray of the asphalt paving is the agent that lends its tint to the entire scene. Then, as if to thrust a hint of new life and hope into the gloom, a couple of sprouts of loopy-leafed polonia shrub emerge from chinks in the bricks, no spot of nurturing soil in view. One of them comes directly out of the sheer face of a wall, 20 feet overhead, green and bright and promising.

Farther down the east side, though, is the call to "Legalize Murder," and just before things begin to sort of straighten out, with the renewed Miller's Building and the busy, tidied rear of the going concern that is the Tomato Head restaurant, is a set of poorly lettered words, drifting and dipping downward along the cemented-over bricks. It says:

"Stress just enough to make it no more"

—Barry Henderson