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Seven Days

Wednesday, October 16
The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gives Tennessee's system of higher ed four Ds and one C on its report card. And this is the system that worries about the graduation rates of student- athletes? The system doesn't look as if it could earn a diploma for itself, thanks to a skinflint Legislature.

Thursday, October 17
The Knoxville area's spraaawl is among the top 10 of more that 80 cities surveyed conducted for Smart Growth America. Tell us something we don't already know...and lament.

Friday, October 18
It's disclosed that a state/TVA entourage led by the lame-duck governor and his wife spent only about $64,000 in state money on a week's "trade mission" to Europe, where the first couple spent an additional week vacationing in Italy at their own expense. If it's a "trade" they 're looking for, we'll trade a trip to Mountain City and Bristol for that Rome and Venice segment.

Saturday, October 19
The Vols have the week off from college football, mercifully enough, but they say they're looking forward to the next game with Alabama. Vol fans say they're looking askance at the next game with Alabama.

Monday, October 21
The restoration of a rare minnow species into the waters of the Tellico River is reported in the News Sentinel. The account of the release does not include the pertinent information that TVA's environmental regard for the Little Tennessee/Tellico River system is approximately the size of one of those 500 minnows.

Tuesday, October 22
A 27-year-old supporter of Bobby Clement for U.S. senator claims he was injured when Clement's opponent, Lamar Alexander, shook his hand too hard. The "victim" asked that a police report be filed. If Alexander is charged with assault in the matter, the Clement campaign may be the only one in American political history to suffer death by handshake.

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:
There are stumpers and then there are Stumpers. Last week's Knoxville Found was a capital "S"-type stumper. The plaque in question adorns the Safety Building, just East of the Coliseum, where, apparently, Knoxvillians rarely, if ever, venture. The first—and only—correct response came from perennial winner Rob Frost, city councilman for the Fourth District. We've speculated in this space before that the fix was in, given Frost's uncanny ability to almost always have the correct and first Knoxville Found answer. But, absent proof of our suspicions, we're forced to honor our commitment and dig a prize out of the editor's office for the councilman. And what could be more appropriate for this Knoxville Found and this winner than a Tribe One "Hug-A-Thug" T-shirt? Lots of things, probably, but that's what he's getting. Harrumph.

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

COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday, Oct. 28
2-7 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Large Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting. Quarterly reports from county agencies will be presented.

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, October 29
7 p.m.
Gresham Middle School
500 Gresham Road
Regular meeting.

KCDC BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Thursday, Oct. 31
11:30 a.m.
Northgate Terrace Social Hall
4301 Whittle Springs Road
Monthly meeting. Updates on current projects and an overview of the proposed funding plan for concerned individuals and groups within the Empowerment Zone will be presented.

What Recession?
Kingston retail holding on despite times

Weak economy or not, good times seem to just keep rolling along Knoxville's prime shopping corridor: the 13-mile stretch of Kingston Pike from Bearden to Farragut.

Instead of lots of vacancies and tales of woe one might expect to encounter, shopping center operators and merchants who were canvassed mostly paint an upbeat, if not rosy, picture of the state of Kingston Pike retailing. While one could suspect them of being endemic optimists in order to encourage Christmas sales, our search identified hardly any "For Rent" signs in Bearden or between Bearden Hill and Cedar Bluff.

The two most conspicuous vacancies that exist are former Food Lion locations. After Food Lion closed its store that anchored the Forest Hills Shopping Center in Bearden, "the center became a ghost town," recalls Leslie Baugues who manages the center for Holrob Commercial Realty. Within the past few months, however, new tenants have moved into all but the Food Lion space. Similarly, commercial realtor Tom Weiss reports that he's recently filled two vacancies in his Shoppes at Bearden Center a little to the west. And the hole that was left in Bearden when Mrs. Winner's fried chicken pulled out of Knoxville has been filled by the Shrimp Dock, a seafood market that relocated from Alcoa Highway in to the renovated space. "We've doubled our business since the move in August," says the Shrimp Dock's manager Dave Shroyer.

What was the other most conspicuous vacancy along the pike between Bearden Hill and Cedar Bluff has been filled as well. That's the space abandoned by the closing in early 2000 of Davis-Kidd Booksellers at the intersection of North Peters Road, where a new Caribbean-style restaurant called Tradewinds opened last week. That makes the 650,000 square-foot Town and Country and Commons shopping centers completely full. And a 16,000 square foot addition—the most that can be squeezed in—is in the works according to its director of leasing, Matthew Turner. "We've got more interest in space than we can begin to accommodate," he says.

Several major centers to its east—Suburban, Deane Hill, and the Gallery—are also full and doing nicely, their managers report. The same goes for the granddaddy of them all, West Town Mall. "Sales may not be growing by leaps and bounds, but the trend is positive," says the mall's manager, Tim Hill.

National or regional chain stores predominate in the 1,350,000 square-foot mall and at the 450,000 square-foot Centre at Deane Hill on the other side of Morrell Road. But there doesn't appear to be any crowding out of smaller local merchants who predominate in upscale centers like the Gallery and Franklin Square, not to mention Bearden. "Even with the warm weather until this past week, our business is up 15 percent over last fall," says Kelly Clayton, owner of Pam Kelly's women's apparel in the Gallery. The manager of Ethan Allen Home Interiors, Joanna Stott, adds that "we're having our best three months ever."

All of these signs of strength are somewhat surprising in relation to national indicators showing weakness in retail sales, especially apparel, except at big box discounters such as Wal-Mart. Conventional explanations, such as a diversified local economy that insulates Knoxville from downturns, don't seem entirely satisfactory. Restaurants have been a big part of the success story, and commercial realtor Robert Bedwell observes that "for some reason we eat out more than anyone else in the southeast." Dee Harrison, who manages Franklin Square, says, "All I know is that our parking lots are full."

What makes the apparent strength of Kingston Pike's existing shopping centers all the more surprising is that they are holding up in the face of competition from the 750,000 square feet of new retail space that the Turkey Creek development has recently added to the market on Parkside Drive. "When Turkey Creek came on the scene, we were afraid there was going to be a great sucking sound, but it hasn't happened," says one shopping center manager. "Turkey Creek is basically a big box discount market, and it really hasn't pulled things out of diversified upscale centers like ours," adds Turner.

True, when Goody's opened a store at Turkey Creek, it closed one at Deane Hill. But a Stein Mart soon moved into the former Goody's location. On the other hand, there's still a vacancy at Windsor Square in the space vacated by Rack Room Shoes when it moved to Turkey Creek.

The health of retailing in the two largest shopping centers west of Cedar Bluff Road—The Market Place and Windsor Square—isn't as robust as in those to the east. Each has one large vacancy as well as smaller ones. But the big ones were caused by national not local failures—the demise of Service Merchandise in the case of The Market Place and of Waccamaw in the case of Windsor Square. A Halloween store temporarily occupies the Waccamaw space, but a permanent new tenant is understood to be imminent.

The theory that things get weaker the closer you get to Turkey Creek is dispelled by positive reports from centers along Kingston Pike in Farragut. "Turkey Creek hasn't affected us at Village Green Center," reports Jerry Brodie, executive vice president of White Realty, which owns and manages the center. "A Radio Shack store moved out, but a Concord Telephone service center took the space, and other than that we're steady as she goes."

One conspicuous point of weakness amid the strength on either side is the top of Bearden Hill. Some commercial realtors refer to it as a "no man's land" but are at a loss to explain why. Several tracts of land remain undeveloped, and three empty buildings represent tombstones for chain restaurants that failed there. But Calhoun's remains a fixture, and a Japanese steak house, Wasabi, has recently opened in its own new building. As for retailing, Nature's Pantry has become what's known in the trade as a destination store that would succeed in just about any location.

Paradoxically, some shopping centers in the vicinity say they would welcome more development even though it would seemingly represent more competition. "When Deane Hill opened in 1998 some people were afraid of it, but it brings good traffic into the area and if anything we've benefited from it," says developer Nick Cazana whose firm owns and operates the nearby Gallery.

—Joe Sullivan

Clearing the Streets
What will become of the 5th Ave. Motel?

Back in 1998, the 5th Ave. Motel was not safe, says tenant Gary "Monster" Adams. Drug dealers and hustlers from the street were always taking over people's apartments, in which they'd sell drugs and hang out.

"You wouldn't believe what those people used to do. They'd walk right into your house," says Adams. "There are a lot of senior citizens here and retired veterans on disability. They can fall prey to the ones outside."

Adams and a number of other residents banded together to clean up the hotel. Although they still have problems here, they say they've made a difference, keeping most of the trouble outside the building. Some residents say that they now feel safe to leave their doors open.

But, as a stabbing death here Wednesday morning illustrates, violence and crime are still problems.

The intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway has long been a magnet for dealers, prostitutes, and the homeless. With two homeless shelters located here and the Volunteer Ministry Center considering moving here, residents worry that their neighborhood is unfairly carrying the bulk of this city's indigent services.

A lot of people blame the 5th Ave. Motel for the bulk of the trouble.

"We've had all kinds of problems with folks up there," says Major Dewey Alderson, commander of the Salvation Army on Broadway. "We've had folks coming from that direction we knew were selling drugs and prostitution. We can't tell for sure where they're coming from without going into people's rooms."

Residents of the 5th Ave. Motel say they're being made a scapegoat for the problems. People who cause trouble at Fifth and Broadway don't live at the motel, they say.

"We feel it's wrong for people to blame us for the intersection when we can't do anything to clear that intersection," Adams says.

Built in 1913, the hotel originally held doctors and lawyers offices. Today, it's a 74-unit apartment building (although only about 64 units are now being rented) that tenants can rent by the week or month. Rents vary depending on the size of the apartment, but start at $70 a week.

Dot Sherwood has been the on-site manager here for about 15 years. She says crime problems started about the mid '80s. Sitting in her smoky office at the motel, she's surrounded by nine male residents who make up the building's security team. The team has its own website, that includes a photograph of the security crew, a chat room, a newsletter, and a take on the neighborhood's problems.

The crew invited Metro Pulse here because they are upset with the way their home has been characterized by neighbors and in the press.

The security team patrols with walkie-talkies and Mace. They try to keep people out of the hallways and lobbies and offer help to any residents who get harassed. A few of them have guns in their apartments for added security.

They've also gotten more help from the police in recent years, Adams says. They've been able to keep most troublemakers out of the building and parking lots, but they still congregate on the sidewalks and across the streets.

"The same problems the neighborhood's had, we've had. The difference is, we've banded together and forced them out," he adds. "And the whole area is saying we're causing the problems when we're sticking our necks out trying to keep them out of here."

They say they've made a difference. Before Lynn Covington moved into the 5th Ave. Motel, he'd heard a lot of tales about how horrible it is to live here.

"I'd heard some stories that if you move in here, the only thing you're going to get is robbed. People on the streets are going to beat you down," says Covington, whose nickname—"Big'un" well describes his tall, bulky frame.

"I started coming around here more out of curiosity than anything else. I found out it wasn't that way," he says. He met Monster and eventually moved in this February. "I love livin' here. It's close enough that I can go visit my family. It's safe. It's one of the safest places I've ever lived in. I've lived in places out in the woods where people don't come and knock on the door in the middle of the night. They do that here sometimes, but it's homeless."

But, violence did erupt this week between two residents of the motel. At 3:30 Tuesday morning, Knoxville police found resident Anthony Robinson outside the motel bleeding, says KPD spokesman Darrell DeBusk. Another male tenant—whose name had not been released at press time—was found dead in the hallway inside. He had been stabbed, DeBusk says.

Sherwood says she believes the two men—neither of whom was on the security team—knew each other. "Evidently, they were fighting over something," she says. "I don't ever remember anything happening like this. They get drunk, put 'em in jail, but nothing like this. That was the scary part."

The death won't do much to improve the 5th Ave.'s image as palace of sin. Many neighbors would love to see it condemned or torn down.

The owner of the building could not be contacted by press time. Apparently, the building is up for sale. Alderson says the Salvation Army tried to buy it recently, but the price—$600,000—was too steep.

"If someone would buy it, remodel it or tear it down even, it would be great for the neighborhood," Alderson says. "If we bought it, we'd tear it down for parking until we could raise the money to do something with it." The Salvation Army would love to put family housing on the site, he says.

Tina Rosling, president of the Fourth and Gill Neighborhood Association, says she can sympathize with the residents problems. But, she adds, the building's owners have some responsibility for its upkeep. "If I had people in my front yard loitering and selling drugs, I'd do something to get rid of them," she says. "Clean the place up, paint it, it could be a nice looking building. Why are we allowing those people to hang out down there and making it worse for the homeless?"

Turning the now vacant First Tennessee Bank building across the street from the motel into a police substation would do a lot to cure the problem, she says.

Councilman Rob Frost, whose district ends right near the 5th Ave. Motel, says he's concerned about the concentration of homeless services in the area. He's opposed to the Volunteer Ministry Center moving into the old Knox Area Rescue Mission building next to Old Grey Cemetery.

"The intersection, unfortunately, is the cause of concern for many people who live in the affected area. Its proximity to homeless shelters allows each other to feed off each other in a negative way," Frost says. "The issue is not the quality of the missions involved. They're outstanding people doing wonderful things. It's solely the issue of location—location, location, location.

"Some people see the closing of [the motel] as part of the solution.....I'd say it probably would help alleviate the situation."

But residents at the 5th Ave. [Motel] say that would be the worse thing you could do. As a main cross section between North Knoxville, downtown, East Knoxville, Mechanicsville, and Lonsdale, Adams says it's a prime spot for drug dealing and prostitution, Adams says. Close the apartment building and the dealers, junkies, prostitutes, and homeless would still congregate here, he says. But they'd have a vacant building to squat in and work out of.

"Even though they're being run off, they're determined to hold that intersection," Adams says. "If they shut the place down, they'd break in and use the place. Their numbers would multiply and the problems would be worse."

"We want the world to know we're not bad people," adds Sherwood. "We don't want the dope around us. We'd be just as happy as anyone if they'd clear the street."

—Joe Tarr

A New Player
Convention hotel plot thickens

As soon as Mayor Victor Ashe set his sights on getting a new convention headquarters hotel built on the present state Supreme Court site, contending plans for a complete overhaul of the nearby Holiday Inn Select were floated once again.

This time, however, the Holiday Inn approach isn't being advanced by its controversial owner Franklin Haney, but by an Austin-based developer called The Landmark Organization. Ashe has made it clear he wants nothing to do with Haney, whom the mayor has branded as untrustworthy. Landmark, by contrast, is currently developing convention headquarters hotels in Austin and Omaha that have been cited as models by Knoxville's hotel consultant, Donald Hunter.

Landmark representatives met with city officials last week to express interest in becoming Knoxville's convention hotel developer and to sound them out on making the Holiday Inn its base in particular.

These soundings envisioned extensive exterior and interior renovation not only of the Holiday Inn but also of the adjacent state office building. The office building, assuming it could be bought, would be converted into a hotel addition that would nearly double its present 297 rooms. The approach also called for a major expansion of the hotel's garage and for acquisition of meeting room space in the city's old convention center that underlies the Holiday Inn and is due to be closed next June.

A Landmark spokeswoman, Terry Dusek, stresses that "it wasn't a proposal. We were just exploring what might be possible, among the many options in which we'd have an interest." But city officials weren't as quick to say no to it as they were to Haney's similar proposals in the past.

"We're not going to respond to a concept or hypothetical, but we're not going to discount any option at this point," says the city's director of finance, Randy Vineyard, who participated in the meeting.

Dusek says that "Landmark has had open discussions with the owner of the Holiday Inn, and we foresee no obstacles to acquisition of the hotel should the city show interest in that option." Such a buy-out would also represent something that the city and Haney have never been able to agree upon, despite sporadic negotiations, during the many twists and turns that have characterized their relationship.

This latest twist comes at the very time that Ashe is seeking to facilitate relocation of the state Supreme Court to the downtown post office in order to free up the court site for a new hotel. At the same time the city is proceeding toward the issuance within the next few weeks of a Request For Qualifications from prospective hotel developers.

The Holiday Inn's manager, Walter Wojnar, also says he's proceeding with the $6 million renovation that would enable the hotel to upgrade its status to a Crowne Plaza. The Landmark approach would involve many times that amount, and bigger is not necessarily better from Wojnar's standpoint. "From what I understand, the construction work on the building would require shutting the hotel down for about a year. So a lot of people, including me, are fearful for their jobs," he says.

—Joe Sullivan