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Seven Days

Wednesday, January 8
The NCAA tells UT it committed no violation when national championship quarterback Tee Martin was sent money by a childhood friend in Mobile, Ala. The News-Sentinel coverage next morning includes a picture of Athletic Director Doug Dickey appearing deep in prayer.

Thursday, January 9
Outgoing TDOT chief Bruce Saltsman says quitting preparations for the highly controversial Knoxville "Orange Route" bypass through the Hardin Valley is "the right thing to do." Critics point out that concept is a wholly new idea to Saltsman and wish it had dawned on him earlier in his tenure.

Friday, January 10
Knoxville announces a settlement with a street-paving company in which the city is paid $500,000 because the city noticed that the company's asphalt was shot through with pieces of metal. Tire dealers are openly disappointed that the city is using part of the money to remove the metal shards.

Saturday, January 11
The Tennessee Titans advance to the AFC title game by throttling the Pittsburgh Steelers with a sudden-death overtime field goal. Steelers' coach Bill Cowher is still trying to call time out on Sunday morning.

Monday, January 13
As a result of a crusade by national animal rights groups, Tennessee's newspapers and politicians are bombarded by angry mail over the weekend from people saying that they will boycott the state because of the shooting of the dog Patton by a Cookeville police officer. The writers expect to stay in a state where no police officer would do such a thing, if they can just find that state.

Tuesday, January 14
The new city-county tourism development agency's board closes its first meeting from the public or press. That's because, its president and CEO says, the meeting wasn't a meeting and when the board decides that a meeting is a meeting, the public will be notified and admitted.

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:
Quite a reverse from the previous week was last week's response to Knoxville Found. Whereas we had only one reply the week prior, last week we were inundated with entries. It seems everyone recognizes the rocket that formerly graced the track at South High School's football field, and which now resides at Mooreland Heights Grade School.

Some respondents added more information on the rocket. For instance, Jack Walker writes that "the 'rocket' is an old aircraft fuel tank that was obtained by the father of Bob Neff, who was a teacher and the track coach at South High School. The elder Mr. Neff had it erected shortly after the [football] stadium was completed in the fall of 1962." On the other hand, Linda Garner of Lenoir City tells us that "the graduating class of 1960 bought the rocket. I know because that was my class. We really thought that was the way rockets of the future would look."

Are these accounts in conflict, or did the class of 1960 provide the funding for Mr. Neff to purchase the old fuel tank? We don't know, but we hope somebody clears that little mystery up. In the meantime, our first respondent and winner was Knoxvillian Betsy Riley, who receives a copy of Shadow Planet: Quest for Tomorrow, a slightly different view of the rockets of the future by "New York Times bestselling author William Shatner," who will always be Captain Kirk to us.

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

POLICE ADVISORY & REVIEW QUARTERLY MEETING
Thursday, Jan 16
6 p.m.
Pellissippi State Technical Community College
1610 Magnolia Ave.
Regular meeting.

CITY COUNCIL
Tuesday, Jan. 21
7 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular Meeting.

KNOXVILLE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
Thursday, Jan. 23
3 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

Old City
Spicy's owner says city needs to do more to help area

Last week, Knoxville lost one of its best public patios and a mainstay of the Old City, when Spicy's closed its doors there.

The local chain's owner says Spicy's closed because business has been down and predicted bad times ahead for the rest of the Old City. Others there disagree, saying that with new residents moving onto Gay Street, the future looks bright, with new restaurants, a grocery store. and a free-parking lot in the works.

Located at Jackson and Central avenues, Spicy's has been managed under a number of different names (BW3, Old City Grill). With a nice brick patio perfect for people watching and a good selection of beer, it's been one of the entertainment district's standbys.

Mark Gierth, who owns the Spicy's chain, says there just haven't been any customers there lately. "Business has been off in the Old City for the last five or six months," Gierth says. "Basically, we weren't making any money, and I'm not in this business to lose money so it was time to shut it down."

(The property's manager, Ben Woodson, disputes Gierth's claim. Woodson says he evicted Spicy's, adding that the restaurant was several months behind on rent and owes more than $30,000.)

Gierth recently opened a Spicy's at Emory Road in North Knoxville, where he says business is booming. "We get a lot more families in there, post-football and -basketball games. We're enjoying that a lot more," Gierth says.

With the success there, Gierth says he's moving toward opening suburban, neighborhood-type bars and restaurants. He just signed a lease for one in Tellico Village and is thinking about opening another Spicy's in Maryville. However, business at the Spicy's on Cumberland Avenue is also hurting and Gierth says he might have to close that one.

And, he sees tough times ahead for other Old City clubs. "Nobody's making money," he says. "When I see the volume of people going in and out of Patrick Sullivans and Manhattans, there's no way they're making money."

Gierth is resentful that Knoxville is looking to spend millions to revitalize Market Square but ignoring the Old City. "I'd say the Old City's best days are behind them unless the city comes in," he says.

But, others in the Old City disagree with that bleak assessment. Ben Woodson, who manages the building that Spicy's was in, says business has been down, but it's been down everywhere.

Interest in the Old City has hardly dried up. He's got a prospective tenant for the Spicy's space—a popular upscale restaurant whose name he would not publicly disclose. "Something's going to move in, and it's not going to be a fly-by-night operation," he says.

Woodson says he is also close to signing a deal for a grocery store in a space on Jackson Avenue. It would be an upscale, New York-style corner grocery, located in about 1,800 square feet of space, he says. That would satisfy a long-time demand of downtown residents.

Frank Gardner, who owns Manhattans, Patrick Sullivans, and Jackson Avenue Antiques, is also optimistic that new residents will invigorate business.

"[Gierth] had a business and it closed, and that's his problem, it's not the Old City's problem," says Gardner, who is head of the merchants' association. "There is a lot of good stuff right around the corner that people are looking to open."

A couple of places have recently opened, including a retro furniture and gift shop called Flashback Jack, a gift shop on Central Avenue, and Old City Grill, a diner at Central and Summit. Next month, a gift shop called Romance Her (www.romanceher.com) will be opening next to Manhattans. And, there are entrepreneurs looking to open an Italian restaurant and a coffee shop/bookstore in the Old City, Gardner says.

There's also a chance the district might soon get a free-parking lot, Gardner says. Expensive parking has long been a complaint of patrons coming here.

"There's a lot going on. The Old City's always had this thing with businesses coming and going," Gardner says. "Compared to where the neighborhood was three years ago, it's a major improvement."

Gardner wasn't resentful about the money being spent a few blocks away on Market Square. "I think the city is doing the right thing with downtown. Market Square is the center of downtown and there are so many wonderful buildings there," he says. "What happens in Market Square helps what goes on in the Old City and the Riverfront."

—Joe Tarr

Market Square Delay
Renovation held up by utility work

Following two months of crash-bang construction work, a silence has fallen over Market Square since the Christmas holidays.

The lack of activity connotes a delay in the renovation of the square, which is due to be completed in time for the Dogwood Arts Festival starting April 9. The delay is due primarily to a hold-up in designing new electrical utility conduits, which will deliver additional power to the buildings on the square.

According to Brian Conley, president of Market Square renovation contractor Cardinal Enterprises, drawings for the new electric lines were only received from Knoxville Utilities Board within the past two weeks. Based on these drawings, the city has solicited bids for the electrical work, and an electrical subcontractor will be selected shortly.

Because the electrical conduits must be laid before the square can be resurfaced, it's presently just a large pile of dirt left over from last fall's demolition of its previous concrete surface and the shed that stood at the square's north end. Cardinal will begin erecting a new brushed and stained concrete surface adorned by a new fountain and concert staging area as soon as the electrical work is done, Conley reports.

"I don't think it will be a major delay, but to meet the April 9 deadline we need to get started as soon as possible" Conley says.

The Dogwood Arts Festival's public relations manager, Ruthie Kuhlman, says she has received assurances from the city that the square will be ready for the festival.

The city's finance director, Randy Vineyard, expects the work to add about $600,000 to the $8 million previously budgeted for Market Square renovation, subject to City Council approval at its meeting next Tuesday. Vineyard says that additional utilities were not a part of the original plan and that "we've been designing on the fly." But they represent a stitch in time, he says, because "we want to make sure we've got the capacity and flexibility that will last 30 years without having to tear up the square again."

—Joe Sullivan

Dueling Hotels
As one plan moves ahead, another rears its head

Now that the state has approved the relocation of the state Supreme Court to the downtown Post Office building, Mayor Victor Ashe says it's "full steam ahead" with city acquisition of the present court site for a new convention center hotel.

"We're going to have intensified discussions with the incoming [Bredesen] administration, and hopefully an early agreement can be reached," Ashe says. The block on which the present court building and an adjacent parking lot reside are across Henley Street from Knoxville's new convention center. Ashe believes that the block represents the best location for a new 400-room convention headquarters hotel for which the city is now soliciting proposals from prospective developers.

In an attempt to undermine support for Ashe's push for a new hotel, the owner of the Holiday Inn Select Downtown, Franklin Haney, is proposing a 100-room addition to that 297-room hotel, which is also adjacent to the convention center. Haney's proposal is contingent, however, on getting tax abatements and other subsidies from the city.

"The convention center needs a first class 400-room hotel adjacent to it, and the subsidy for 100 [new] rooms has got to be a lot less than for 400 rooms," Haney says. Regardless of whether the city backs his proposed addition, Haney says the Holiday Inn Select is committed to an $11 million upgrade of its existing facilities over the next 12 to 18 months. "These renovations will be the quality of a Four Seasons or a Ritz Carlton," he says.

However, Ashe dismisses as "a dead-end street" the idea of converting the Holiday Inn Select into a convention headquarters hotel in lieu of building a new one. The mayor has repeatedly denounced Haney as "untrustworthy" and made it clear the Ashe administration wants nothing to do with him.

The state court lease of Post Office space that the state Building Commission approved last week consummates many months of negotiations between the Post Office building's owner, Sam Furrow, and state court officials, principally Criminal Appeals Court Judge Gary Wade. The state courts will occupy the second and third floors of the Post Office that once housed the U.S. District Court. (As for the first floor tenant, see this week's Ear to the Ground column.) They are expecting to move in between July and September, upon completion of a $5.5 million renovation of the building now underway. In the name of historic preservation, the city contributed $500,000 toward the exterior's renovation cost.

According to Wade, the present state court block was appraised last year at $4 million, but Ashe says he is reluctant to discuss the city's acquisition cost. In addition to land, the city will likely have to spend more for infrastructure—and perhaps inducements—to attract a new hotel.

The city's hotel consultant, Annapolis-based Donald Hunter, has placed the cost of building a new 400-room hotel at $53 million. In his financial analysis of such a hotel's feasibility, Hunter has assumed the city would bear the land cost plus the cost of a garage that might be on the order of $10 million.

Jan. 15 was the due date for prospective hotel developers to respond to a Request for Expressions of Interest that Hunter issued in November. As of Metro Pulse's deadline he didn't want to talk about the names and numbers of respondents other than to say, "We're confident we'll get some." After screening them, Hunter says he will submit a short list to the city from which formal Requests for Proposal would be solicited by the end of March "with selection of a preferred development team shortly thereafter."

Regarding the timetable for getting a new hotel built and open, Hunter says, "If we can get a team on board and the project launched this year, then a hotel usually takes 18 months to two years to build." That would place completion in the latter part of 2005.

Ashe is clear he wants to preside over the hotel launch before he leaves office later this year.

—Joe Sullivan

A.B. "Frosty" Luttrell
1920-2003

So long to our friend Frosty. He was better known to some as A.B. Luttrell, but most of us got acquainted with him as Marshall Andy's sidekick on WSJK/WKOP's Saturday morning cowboy-movie-revival show, "Riders of the Silver Screen." He died over this past weekend, after a brief illness, at the age of 82. He was one of the good guys.

Growing up in Vestal, son of a doctor reputed to have dug a bullet out of the outlaw Kid Curry, he came to admire the cowboy movie stars while watching Saturday matinees in downtown Knoxville cinemas in the '20s and '30s. Last summer, when we did our story about the old Union Avenue vaudeville/burlesque house known as the Roxy Theatre, Mr. Luttrell was an invaluable source.

He told the story more than once that when he was a young kid, he thought he'd try his hand at making westerns. He saved up some money, went to the bus station, and caught a bus for Hollywood. Halfway to Hollywood, Florida, he realized he'd made a mistake. He got off the bus in Georgia and caught a ride back home.

He traveled farther a few years later, when he served as a combat medic in World War II, including one long and famous day on the beaches of Normandy.

A.B. Luttrell was never a movie star, but, bearing a conspicuous resemblance to Errol Flynn or Lloyd Bridges, maybe he could have been. He traveled to that other Hollywood after the war, but never got past the studio guards. Back in Knoxville, he worked in a Cumberland Avenue filling station, and later managed UT's Golf Range apartments for many years.

He had to wait until he was close to 60 for his first acting job, as an extra in the cable-TV comedy, "I-40 Paradise." In 1985, he became acquainted with "Marshal" Andy Smalls, who gave him his nickname inspired by his expressive white eyebrows.

He got a berth on the show, a rare honor. Part of the appeal was his encyclopedic knowledge of cowboy stars and movie-studio politics. "He was very, very personable; people could read that on the screen," Smalls says. "You could tell from the expression on his face that he was doing what he wanted to do, being on TV." He made some TV commercials in his later years.

Smalls will mention Luttrell's death on this Saturday's show (on WSJK/WKOP, channels 2 and 15, at 10 a.m.); the following show, on the 25th, will feature a tribute to Frosty.

We were privileged to get to chat with Mr. Luttrell some on the set, and found that he was the same happy, neighborly soul when the cameras were pointed at him as he was when they weren't. His smile didn't fade when the director said "cut." He was never out of character, because the character was his own.

—Jack Neely