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Seven Days

Wednesday, Feb. 27
The Old City's first—in recent memory—strip joint opens to great fanfare, plus wild-eyed protestations from the city's law department. Nobody notes that the idea fits right in with the neighborhood's history, falling somewhere between the saloons and cathouses that once lined its streets.
The Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization's executive board votes to recommend extension of the James White Parkway in Knoxville, with the exception of the two city representatives who actually live in Knoxville. County and city officials from surrounding counties think we need the road, whether we want it or not. Mighty neighborly, aren't they?

Thursday, Feb. 28
For the umpteenth time, Tennessee lawmakers propose broadening the sales tax to end exemptions to a wide range of goods and services as a way to ease the state budget crisis. Lobbyists for purveyors of the goods and services that might be affected descend on the Capitol like so many S.W.A.T. teams.

Saturday, March 2
UT's Lady Vols lose to LSU in the SEC women's basketball tournament, despite the fact the Lady Tigers had only six players available. UT Coach Pat Summit labels the defeat a clear case of six discrimination.

Tuesday, March 5
John W. Shumaker, who impressed Tennesseans as a sort of an academic stand-up comic during a public forum, takes on the job of president of the University of Tennessee without knowing what his compensation will be—thereby removing any lingering doubt as to his status as a comedian.

Wednesday, March 6
It's disclosed that the Hyatt Corp. is leaving the Hyatt Regency downtown when its lease ends in April. Speculation is that the company is leaving it to TVA, in case the agency wants to crate up and move any of its dams.

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:
Now that is a fire station. This detail is from the historic fire hall in, suitably, historic Mechanicsville. Standing at attention on Deaderick Avenue for almost a century, it is our city's oldest remaining fire station. Speaking of standing at attention, this week's winner once again is City Councilman Rob Frost (maybe demonstrating his commitment to city emergency services?). We award Rob his very own iPix yellow foam coozie, which can help him keep his Coca-Cola cold during those long Council meetings. And, in the interest of giving the rest of the city a chance to play, we also induct Rob into our Knoxville Found Hall of Fame, removing him from prize contention for the near future. Congratulations, Councilman! We'll try to get a mayoral proclamation for you.

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

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Thursday March 14
1:30 p.m.
City County Bldg., Large Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
The city's request for H1 Historic overlay status to protect the "Coughlin House" on Lyons View Pike from demolition is scheduled for consideration by MPC.

Grad Housing Shuffle

UT to move its students around

The University of Tennessee's 10-year plan for student housing will shift about half of its apartments for graduate and married students from South and West Knoxville locations to a new complex at Cherokee Farms across the Tennessee River from the main campus in the next few years.

The move will also leave no room for faculty and staff members who now occupy about 200 of the existing apartment units, according to a UT housing official, who says those employees have been asked to plan to vacate their apartments by June of next year.

Sale of the 147 apartments on Woodlawn Pike and the 139 apartments at Taliwa Court and Taliwa Addition are also planned for next year, with a June closure.

The 834 apartments in the larger, Golf Range and Sutherland complexes along Sutherland Avenue are to be sold and closed in June 2006, James J. Grubb, UT housing's executive director, informed residents in a Feb. 4 letter.

Grubb says a new set of 400 apartments are to be built on the agriculture school's dairy farm on the south side of the Buck Karnes Bridge along Alcoa Highway. The dairy farm is being moved to a Blount County site.

With the closings and openings, plus the revamping of the school's Kingston Pike and Laurel Avenue apartments between 2004 and 2006, the university expects to reduce its total number of graduate/married units from 1,300 to a little less than 1,000. Grubb says that's in keeping with trends that have seen total occupancy fall to about 80 percent, including the faculty, staff and about 200 unmarried undergraduates age 21 or over who have been allowed to rent the available graduate and married student apartments in recent years.

Phil Scheurer, UT's vice president of operations, whose office oversees housing as well as other physical facilities, says the university has no way of knowing whether the apartments that go up for sale will be kept in rental use by private purchasers or will be converted to other uses or bulldozed for the value of the land itself.

"We won't know that until we put [them] on the market," Scheurer says.

He says the Cherokee Farms apartments, on part of a block of land also scheduled for use as a research center and intramural athletics fields, will be closer to the main campus and will be more accessible, at least eventually. The Tennessee Department of Transportation will be reworking the Buck Karnes Bridge, he says, and UT wants that work to incorporate pedestrian and bicycle access lanes.

Grubb says that the farm site will be accessible by shuttle-bus in the event the bridge is not modified in time for the apartments' opening.

No plans have been made either to ameliorate the potential business losses along Sutherland Avenue nor to insure access to essential retail outlets for students living on the Cherokee Farm site, which is more than a half-mile from the nearest commercial zones, according to Grubb and Scheurer.

The Sutherland Avenue corridor, from the east edge of Bearden to the west edge of Marble City, has sprouted ethnic food shops, produce markets and other specialty shops over the years, mainly to serve a foreign and graduate student population concentrated in the apartments across the street.

Joe Kamah, owner of the Holy Land Middle Eastern Food store across from graduate housing on Sutherland, says he's been there three years. "Sure, it will affect the business," Kamah says of the apartment closings, "but we don't depend entirely on UT grad students." He says he thinks about 10 percent of his business may come from the student residents. "People from all over Knoxville come here. It's slowly become an international shopping district."

With an oriental "supermart," two Indian food stores, two fresh produce shops and assorted other specialty businesses, that seems true.

Mark Mubarak, owner of Mark's Time-Out Deli along the Sutherland strip, says he's been there a year and has only "a few customers from over there. It will hurt though, every little bit hurts."

Where the next generation of foreign graduate students will get their groceries, though, is of little apparent concern within the UT administrative cocoon. Maybe the students will just drive over to Sutherland Avenue instead of walking there.

—Barry Henderson

Making History

Report calls for Gay Street preservation

"Gay Street is an asset not duplicated in suburban centers. In fact, comparable districts can be found in only a limited number of American cities."

At least, that's what a recently released report by the Metropolitan Planning Commission says. The study, begun in November at the request of Planning Commissioner Mike Edwards, assessed the potential of establishing either an H-1 Historic Overlay or NC-1 Conservation District on Gay Street. The street at the heart of the downtown's old shopping district, it contains, according to the study, "East Tennessee's finest collection of commercial architecture of the late 19th and early 20th century." And protecting that architecture is why the study concludes by recommending an H-1 Historic Overlay—the stronger of the two zones—extending the length of Gay Street from Jackson to Church, from the Volunteer Ministry Center to the former KUB headquarters.

But history isn't the only thing the district would protect. Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits, which allow developers to recover up to 20 percent of their renovation costs, are a critical complement to the City's new CityLife package of incentives for downtown residential redevelopment—particularly since they aren't dependent on local tax dollars. They are, however, dependent on a building being part of a National Register Historic District. And that, according to MPC's Ann Bennett, is where the danger lies. "There is a point," says Bennett, "at which the Tennessee Historical Commission and the Park Service says 'I'm sorry—you've lost too many buildings and you're not a historic district anymore.'" And that, Bennett says, is a serious worry. Of the 63 buildings in the targeted area listed on the National Register when the historic district was established in 1986, six have been lost—four to demolition and two to rehabs that stripped them of historic character.

Not everything's doom and gloom though. Thanks to the Miller's Building project, the district has actually gained two buildings in the same span of time (encased in glass panels, the Miller's Building was originally ineligible for the National Register when the Gay Street district was set up in 1986). And in the past few months, three high-profile renovation projects have gotten off the ground. In all three—Sterchi, the Emporium and Fowlers—preservation tax credits are an important part of the pro forma (renovation work actually began at the Sterchi building this week). And making sure there are more like them is one of the goals of the proposed overlay. "[For] anyone who ever wants to do a tax credit project," Bennett points out, "this protects them and ensures they won't lose that option due to someone else's demolition or inappropriate rehab."

But the study is only the first step. MPC can't apply for the zoning. Only the property owners or the city government can do that. "What I think needs to happen," Bennett says, "is we hold public meetings, invite property owners, tenants and other interested parties, answer whatever questions they have and see where they want to go."

That answer, says one of Gay Street's largest property owners, is to go forward. Emporium developer David Dewhirst supported the recent passage of similar zoning on Market Square and says the overlay can be a positive thing for Gay Street—particularly the 100 Block where he owns eight of the 20 properties. "Other than Market Square," says Dewhirst, "the 100 block is the most complete collection of historic buildings in downtown." And, according to Dewhirst, "for that area to reach its full potential, it needs to keep the historic nature of the area intact. If we allow people to tear down buildings or modernize the façades in incompatible ways we risk losing that—it's something we should have done several years ago, to be honest."

Beyond the 100 block, Dewhirst is supportive as well—although his support is tempered with concerns over the impact a historic overlay would have on the plans he, Brian Conley and Chattanooga-based developers Kinsey-Probasco have for a cineplex on the 500 block of Gay. Backed up by a letter of intent from Carmike Cinemas, the movie theater is the linchpin of Kinsey-Probasco's bid to be named coordinating developer of Market Square. The theater would theoretically go in behind the existing façade of the old, beloved S&W Cafeteria. But, as Dewhirst is quick to point out, the cineplex is "just a proposal—the level of detail that you take it to is not that complete at this point." Without a full structural assessment of the buildings, final plans are still open-ended. But, Dewhirst says, "At an absolute minimum we want to restore the façades of all those buildings on the 500 block. And, if possible, save as much of the buildings as we can."

For her part, Bennett doesn't see either the overlay or the movie theater as deal breakers. "The building's significance is the façade," she says of the S&W, "and its history as a gathering place and a social center. With a movie theater you sort of get back to that." The important thing, Bennett says, is to move forward with the overlay so that developers such as Dewhirst can continue to use the federal tax incentives. "I don't know that downtown wouldn't redevelop without tax credits," she says, "but it does mean that we've lost a very good redevelopment incentive—and I don't know that we have enough of them to give one away."

—Matt Edens