by Joe Sullivan
Along with his new title, County Mayor Mike Ragsdale is forging a new, enlarged role for Knox County within the city of Knoxville.
Among the most striking dimensions of the budget he presented last week is the number of projects within the city that go beyond the county's traditional role. Those include a $1 million commitment over two years for Five Points redevelopment, a $1,250,000 allocation over five years for new facilities for the Beck Cultural Center, and a partnership with the city for renovation of the Jacob Building at Chilhowee Park. All of those are in addition to a $1.5 million pledge toward renovation of the Tennessee Theatre, which represents a more traditional form of county backing of cultural facilities and comes atop a previous $2 million pledge.
What's even more striking is an array of yet more transcendent county undertakings right in the heart of the city that are still in the discussion or planning stages. An emboldened county government under Ragsdale is addressing:
 Expedited construction of a $6 million cineplex on the 500 block of Gay Street that is a sine qua non of the Kinsey Probasco plan for revitalization of Market Street. The city has been trying to fold the cinema into a prospective federally funded transit facility, but the timetable for getting the federal funding has pushed the projected completion date to 2006, and it remains fraught with uncertainties. If the county builds the cineplex on property it already owns, the city would have to commit cinema sales-tax revenues toward its funding. The transit facility would be relocated to another Gay Street site.
Partnering with UT on a new downtown baseball stadium for the Vols that could double as a venue for concerts and special events. Ragsdale says three or four potential sites are being explored. A prime one is understood to be the old Lay Packing Co. property on Jackson Avenue slightly east of the Old City. A stadium there would bring both more people and more parking to the Old City area.
Trumping all the rest, planning continues for development of the two-block site on State Street that's lain vacant since plans for a new downtown jail were kiboshed. By a year from now, Ragsdale plans to make recommendations to County Commission and, with its approval, begin construction in the next fiscal year. He mentions retail, a new downtown library and a new discovery center as three non-mutually exclusive uses of the site. The County Mayor waxes rhapsodic about Nashville's new downtown library, which he recently toured with Metro Mayor Bill Purcell. Looking beyond the site itself, he adds that the county is also concerned about its environs. "The Nine Counties/ One Vision process has made it clear we have to look at improving the streetscape of State Street. We're going to put attractive facilities there, so it can't remain just an ugly alley," Ragsdale says.
So what's prompting Knox County to take the initiative on so many downtown fronts that have heretofore been viewed as the city's province? How can it justify doing so at a time when core county functions—schools in particular—remain strapped for funds? And where's the funding going to come from for all of the above, especially given Ragsdale's aversion to raising taxes?
"Anyone who thinks the city is not part of Knox County, they're going down the wrong path," the county mayor proclaims. As for contentions that he's impinging on school funding, Ragsdale responds, "No, we're not. If you only look at your mission as being one area, then you're going to fail, because you have to grow your economy to support your schools. If we don't do that, we can't tax enough to catch up."
Economic growth has, of course, been Ragsdale's mantra since he took office last September—indeed, ever since he started campaigning for it a year before. He views the county's center city initiatives as just an extension of its overall economic development mission—a mission on which he's placed more emphasis than any other through such steps as combining the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership and the Knox County Development Corp. under Mike Edwards and then creating a new Knoxville Tourism and SportsCorp under Gloria Ray. "We're so excited about what Gloria Ray is doing and what Mike Edwards has accomplished," he almost gushes with enthusiasm. "We're going to support them, and I'm confident it will have a payback for us."
Payback is a key word because it's implausible to believe that economic growth alone can generate enough additional county revenue to fund everything Ragsdale is envisioning on the front end. He's also clear that the county isn't planning to go it alone with its center-city investments.
"We need to have partnerships with the city, but they don't have to be 50/50. Sometimes we may take the lead, and sometimes they may take the lead," he says. He sees development of the State Street site tying into "a plan that we would work with the city on that's probably more comprehensive than just a single project. I think we would roll out a plan that might have four or five different projects on it."
Ragsdale won't acknowledge that a tax increase may be needed to fund it all. "We've got to get further down the road. We've got to keep growing our economy," he says. But his finance director, John Werner, chimes in that "when we do decide these are the things we want to do, the county mayor is going to be able to project that vision, and the people will be able to respond up or down." Sounds like a referendum.
This columnist's vote on all of the initiatives that Ragsdale has taken to date is a resounding "yes".
May 22, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 21
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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