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Seven Days

Wednesday, April 23
Mixed metaphor of the month award goes to the News Sentinel editor who wrote the headline: "Windmills clear hurdle." Great image.

Thursday, April 24
County Exec Mike Ragsdale goes to the hospital with a bellyache. His flack, Mike Cohen, insists, over and over, that it's not serious and had nothing whatever to do with Victor Ashe and the City County Building parking garage's closing.

Friday, April 25
A Sessions Court judge dismisses the most serious of a string of charges against a fisherman who disregarded warnings and sped his bass boat through a law enforcement blockade set up around last year's railroad acid spill along Fort Loudoun Lake. It was a tournament! Priorities are priorities.

Saturday, April 26
No UT Vols are picked in the first round of the annual NFL draft extravaganza. If this surprises fans, they must have been ill and in quarantine and missed the entire 2002-03 season.

Monday, April 28
An evangelist conducting a revival in Union County is asked about a student who was abused by her classmates because she hasn't submitted to religious preaching on school time. "It didn't happen," he says. Was this guy a finalist for Iraqi minister of information under Saddam?

Tuesday, April 29
It's revealed that a new study of vehicle traffic in Knoxville will use cameras and cell-phone monitors to track drivers around here. The study is purportedly being conducted to see about cutting exhaust emissions for air quality purposes. U.S. Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft declines comment.

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:

We're hurt; hurt, confused, and angry, we tell you. Was it so hard? Was it that difficult? Or was it too easy? Are you just getting lazy?
We're referring, of course, to your responses to last week's Knoxville Found. Rather, your lack of responses. We got zero, zilch, none, nada. Not even a guess, not even a wrong guess. (Well, technically, we got one wrong guess. But it was way late.) It's sooooo disappointing.
So we're miffed. Irked, even. Yes, irked we are. So irked, in fact, we're not even going to reveal the identity of last week's photo. That'll show you.
Now, we're just going take our camera and go home. *sniff* *sniff*

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

KNOXVILLE UTILITIES BOARD
Thursday, May 1
8 a.m.
KUB Conference Room
Middlebrook Pike
Five-year plan meeting.

MPC NORTHWEST COUNTY SECTOR PLAN MEETINGS
Thursday, May 1
7 p.m.
Karns Community Club Center
7708 Oak Ridge Highway
Latest updates on the plan.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Thursday, May 8
1:30 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

A Stroll in the Park
World's Fair site gets a needed sprucing up

The World's Fair Park, site of the 1982 exposition, has been closed for the last couple of years, its grassy areas torn up, its ponds drained, several of its odd old concrete structures jackhammered away. Over the next few weeks, we'll get it back. And if it works the way everyone seems confident it will, we may be spending more time down there than we have since 1982.

After a $10 million renovation—funded by the city as the last part of the convention-center project—we'll recognize the old place only in patches. It will host many of the events it has for years—festivals, concerts, cookoffs, powwows—but most of it looks like a new place. There's not as much concrete and asphalt as there used to be, and much more marble, local stone from Friendsville quarries. There's also more greenery, plantings of indigenous trees: willow oaks, magnolias, maples. The new park will incorporate two large open spaces for open-air events, with lots of talented H2O spouting and splashing in entertaining ways in between.

The northern open space, between the Knoxville Museum of Art and the L&N, is called the Festival Lawn. It's all dirt now, but will go suddenly green when it's sodded next week. Missing from current plans is the formally Georgian double-row of large trees, which appeared in some early concepts, but the plan does call for some significant trees on the fringes. It'll rent all day for $750; the PBA's Lisa Williams is currently entertaining queries.

"We would have been finished by May 1," admits project manager Jeff Galyon. "But we had 35 rain days, at least. Now, we expect to be substantially complete by the end of May." Galyon works for the Public Building Authority, which is permanently in charge of the new park.

Adjacent to the Festival Lawn, at the site of the old Court of Flags, will be a 32-spout interactive fountain. Similar to the more modest six-spouter at Volunteer Landing, it will invite willing pedestrians to get soaked. The fountain will serve as the centerpiece of a new Court of Flags, which doesn't feature nearly as many tons of concrete as the old one. It will, however, hoist the flags of the 22 nations that participated in the 1982 World's Fair, arranged around circular lawns on either side of the fountain. "The Court of Flags is restored not in form, but in function, and in meaning," says David Craig of Ross/Fowler, the firm charged with the design. "It's still a gathering place, still a celebration space." Renderings feature happy families cavorting in the space; it looks like images of a World's Fair. Tall lamps with flying-saucerish disks suggest a '30s-style vision of the future, but Craig says any suggestion of a mid-century world's fair is coincidental.

The other, larger space at Cumberland Avenue and 11th Street—known for the last several years as the South Lawn—is now dubbed the Performance Lawn. At 120,000 square feet, about twice the size of the Festival Lawn, it will accommodate large concerts. Some early plans called for a permanent concert-stage structure to be built on the site, perhaps with terraced seating, but Craig says they finally opted to go with a more minimal open space; he says cost was one of several factors in the decision. Now surrounded by a six-foot fence, it will be more easily ticketable for paid-admission events. Galyon admits there's a minor problem. "We had entertainment people here the other day, saying, 'Oh, my goodness, wouldn't that be a great seat.'" He's pointing to the tall new UT parking garage on 11th Street. "UT may have another source of revenue," says Galyon, perhaps not kidding.

They're seeding it, not sodding it, so it will take a little longer, but Galyon expects the Performance Lawn to be ready by July 1.

Parts of the Fair's trademark cement pond, the Waters of the World—they just call it "the Lake" now—are recognizable. But the northern part of it is gone beneath the new lawn. The southern half is snazzed up with a geyser and a couple of cascade/waterfalls, and is extended down near Cumberland Avenue, where part of it, a convincing stream, is already finished and visible.

"It's supposed to be emblematic of a TVA lake and dam, with a stream beneath," says Craig. (For the record, TVA was not involved in the planning or funding of the park.) Beyond the TVA lake idea, he says, they didn't work with models or overall concepts. "We're just trying to do a first-class urban park with a lot of green," Craig says. He's especially happy with the bridge over the "dam," the scene from here looks something like a cross between a traditional Japanese garden and an American theme park.

There's a little sleight-of-hand going on here, though; the lake and the spillway of the "dam" are divided beneath the footbridge. Separate systems, Galyon says, help them control the water flow.

One thing that makes it unlike any TVA lake is the addition of a powerful geyser, about where the old phony wind turbine used to rotate during the fair. (They thought of everything; a nearby wind meter will regulate the height of the geyser to keep it from spraying pedestrians on windy days.)

What Galyon calls the Lake Cascade pumps 8,000 gallons of water a minute. It promises to be the loudest spot in the park. (When they gave it a shakedown, Galyon says, the volume was a shade too high, and water splashed out of its marble bounds.) It serves not only as an impressive spectacle, but controls algae growth.

Of course, it's all built on top of the real Second Creek, which has been buried in culverts since 1980. Though the Urban Land Institute recommended disinterring the authentic stream, local planners concluded that it was so deep it would give the park a ravine-like character.

The renovation involved one new building. A combination security office and public-restroom facility (a pair of 12-holers) is already completed, just north of Clinch Avenue near the Candy Factory. (Existing public restrooms underneath the viaduct have been thoroughly renovated.) In addition to one Knoxville cop who will have the park as his beat, PBA will have its own security, patrolling the park by bicycle.

It sounds like they already need it. "One of our biggest problems so far is the skateboarders," says Galyon, observing some marble retaining walls at the southwest corner of the convention center, a part of the park few have yet had the opportunity to see. "They haven't even had much of a chance, and look," says Galyon. The sloping walls are, unfortunately, ideal for skateboard stunts. The marble, waxed for speed, is already chipped and scraped. "We try to catch them, but they're pretty fast."

Near the new security building will be an elevator/stairway tower up to the Clinch viaduct, now under construction. It will be finished sometime in the summer.

Two new parking lots, one near the KMA and one across the pedestrian bridge on Poplar Street, will add 340 parking spaces to the area. The northern lot will be free, an astonishing exception in this part of town; the Poplar lot will charge $5 a day.

Some planners were originally not crazy about the idea of keeping the World's Fair-vintage Tennessee Amphitheatre. It had been slated for demolition about six months ago. However, the aging but architecturally innovative covered performance space that was built for the fair appears to be staying put. Architect Doug McCarty originally worked on the project with German engineer Horst Berger, who has since gone on to some worldwide renown as a designer of major airports and stadiums, some of which employ similar modernist styles. Bruce McCarty, the architect's father, is leading an effort to get the structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places, despite its

relative youth, and to replace its corroding metal supports.

Near the South, or "Performance," Lawn is the recently bronzed 12-foot statue of Sergei Rachmaninoff. A gift of the sculptor, Viktor Bokarev, the statue honors the Russian composer/pianist who gave his final performance in 1943 around the corner on the UT campus at the old Alumni Gym. Though several of the project's sponsors have seen and enthusiastically approved it, it's currently wrapped in blue tarp, apparently awaiting an official unveiling.

With several entrances and no gates, the place will be open to the public most of the time beginning, Galyon expects, sometime in the middle of June; a grand opening will follow, probably to coincide with the city's traditional Fourth of July celebration on the site.

—Jack Neely

'Underground Knoxville'
Condos, shops planned for Jackson Avenue building

Developer David Dewhirst has purchased the Underground building—home of the nightclub Fiction and of Lord Lindsey catering—and will convert it to condominiums in the next two years.

The club has about a year left on its lease, but might close before then, Dewhirst says. Lord Lindsey will remain in business but will relocate to another building. Along with the expected move of the Volunteer Ministry Center from Gay Street and Jackson Avenue, the Underground sale would solidify South Gay Street as a residential urban enclave.

Dewhirst hopes to begin working on the building right after the catering business moves and have the building ready for occupancy eight months later.

Dewhirst is currently renovating the Emporium Building next door, as well as several other properties on Gay Street. "The nightclub Fiction and the [after-hours club] Boiler Room are really incompatible uses with the Emporium," he says.

With about 65,000 square feet of space, the building would be converted to about 35 condos. At 1,200 to 3,000 square feet, the units will be larger than most of the apartments that have recently been renovated downtown. "I think the market is totally ready for that," he says.

The recent rental projects have utilized historic tax credits, which are more difficult to use on owner-occupied projects. Dewhirst estimated the condos would sell for between $150,000 and $300,000.

The bottom floor of the building may be used as parking.

The first floor, which faces the alley between the Underground and Emporium buildings, might be converted into upscale boutiques and fit into Dewhirst's plans for "Underground Knoxville." Gay Street was once a steep hill, but was filled in in 1919 when the viaduct was built. As a result, the buildings on the street go several stories below ground. In the basements of some of the buildings you can still see the old Gay Street sidewalk. The idea is to reconnect the sidewalk, which would pass by a number of shops, cafes, and boutiques.

The alley behind the Emporium building would be a natural tie-in, Dewhirst says. "It can have such a wonderful feel to it if it's done right. It's not going to be nightclubs down there. Well, I don't know what it's going to be," he says. "If you can find it on Kingston Pike or at the mall or in Wal-Mart, I don't want it."

Fiction, which was formerly called the Underground, and the Boiler Room have been mainstays of the Old City for more than a decade. Aside from the smaller Lord Lindsey club on Hill Avenue, the building houses the only real dance club downtown.

In its heyday, the Underground attracted a lot of people to the Old City, especially the 18- to 21-year-old crowd. But the nearby residents have often been at odds with the club's patrons.

Dewhirst says there's still a place for a large dance club in the Old City, but it needs to be farther east, away from the residents.

"Sometimes you have a lot of competing aspects between the night time people and the people trying to sleep," he says. "The Old City, which will be much more active, will be very close but far away from [the residents on South Gay Street]."

—Joe Tarr