by Matt Edens
I'll tell you the great secret to center city revitalization. Fundamentally it's all about marketing. It's all about creating demand. Because, let's face it, if you look around downtown or any of the center city neighborhoods, there's no shortage of product out there.
Trouble is, the real estate market isn't too geared toward that particular product. Ask anyone who has ever shopped for a downtown loft or a historic house, and you'll often get the same answer. The conventional real estate industry is a little too, uh, conventional to even begin to know how to market something like a Gay Street condo, an immaculately restored Victorian in 4th and Gill or bargain fixer-upper in Parkridge. And, while we're being all honest like this, truth is that the average Realtor with his or her mugshot in the home tour book couldn't tell you with much certainty where 4th and Gill or Parkridge even are.
Which was exactly my original reasoning, more years ago than I care to admit, for writing this column—the desire to make the connection between cool people and cool places. And Metro Pulse seemed like a likely place to do it.
And now the folks over at RestoreKnoxville.com have done one better. The brainchild of Doug McDaniel—whose bungalow obsession I documented in last fall's architecture issue—the web site features loads of content for any old house lover or downtown aficionado. First off, there's an online historic real estate search engine, developed in conjunction with Coldwell Banker, Wallace & Wallace. Then there's the National Register information on every historic district in Knoxville and Knox County—all available for the first time online. Want to know what style your house is? Its approximate age? A little history about the neighborhood? It's all a few mouse-clicks away. Plus, the listings are open-ended, so users can add additional content—it's essentially an online database of historic Knoxville.
There are historic articles, tons of restoration tips and a regular email newsletter you can subscribe to. But the really cool thing about the site is that visitors can add additional content. Tracked down your home's original owner? Have a grueling restoration war story to share? Upload it to the database and give the 22nd century's version of Jack Neely something to work with.
Getting historic Knoxville on the web was only the first step though. Starting March 15th, McDaniel's rolling out a semi-monthly print magazine named—no surprise here—Restore Knoxville. A locally focused equivalent of magazines like This Old House or The Old House Journal, content will generally run similar to the web site. The first issue contains a feature article on Bleak House (Confederate Memorial Hall) and a piece on George F. Barber that includes a list of all the known Barber houses in Knoxville (OK, that one was a shameless plug; I wrote the darned thing). Also in the works is the reference book A Field Guide to East Tennessee Architecture. Developed in conjunction with Knox Heritage, the book will combine the same National Register data as the web site in one handy reference volume, but it goes a step farther to encompass the nine-county region surrounding Knoxville. I tell you, it's all about marketing.
And as if all that weren't enough, McDaniel's spent a fair amount of time on the road lately. And he noticed that most of the places he visited, even a town as known for restoration as Savannah, currently has no similar web resource. It's a niche market that the company—working under the umbrella name RestorationAvenue—is hoping to fill. They're gearing up to launch: RestoreAtlanta, RestoreAsheville, RestoreSavannah and on and on. Could anything short of world domination be next?
For further info: www.restoreknoxville.com
March 7, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 10
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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