by Joe Sullivan
The urban design framework that's emerged from the recently concluded planning process sponsored by Nine Counties. One Vision. provides a commendable vision for future downtown development. While some of the specific recommendations of 9C1V's consultants, Crandall Arambula, appear unrealistic, the underlying principles are sound and need to be adopted.
The next step toward adopting them is development of a set of urban design guidelines governing everything from streetscapes, sidewalks and setbacks to the design of both public and private buildings. Connectivity, pedestrian-friendliness and avoidance of blank walls at street level are just a few of the criteria that need to be embraced.
As envisioned by Crandall Arambula, formulation and administration of the guidelines would be under the auspices of a Design Commission whose decisions could be appealed to City Council. Staff support would come from the Metropolitan Planning Commission, whose just departed executive director Norm Whitaker has already recommended proceeding with design-review guidelines.
In a March 25 letter to Mayor Victor Ashe, Whitaker said an additional staff position and an urban-design consultant would be needed for their development. Citing budgetary constraints, Ashe held the undertaking in abeyance. So it may take a new city administration to get it moving.
Mayoral candidate Madeline Rogero is clear that design-review guidelines are needed. "I think they will add value to the development that is already there by making sure that as new development occurs that the quality and aesthetics of the built environment will be complementary," Rogero says. Her principal opponent, Bill Haslam is more guardedly supportive. "In general, the things Norm has been talking about have a lot to recommend them. While the devil is in the detail, I think they need to be addressed," he says.
Nine Counties. One Vision. is also seeking to raise more money to support Crandall Arambula's further involvement, atop the $300,000 that's been spent on the firm's work to date. "Our goal is $175,000, and in an ideal world, we'd have it raised by fall," says 9C1V's Lynn Fugate. But she acknowledges it may take longer.
To counter concerns that design guidelines could constrict development, Whitaker has stressed that "the design guidelines should be flexible and adaptable to changing conditions...[and] should permit and encourage a wide range of architectural styles, materials and building configurations."
One of Crandall Arambula's prime tenets is that garages should be imbedded unobtrusively in mixed-use buildings, or at least have a commercial wrap around their ground floors. Yet in the absence of design guidelines, the city itself is pointing toward building a garage just west of Market Square that seems likely to violate these tenets. As originally proposed by Market Square developer Kinsey Probasco, a 350-space garage on this site would have been topped by some 40 residential units and bounded by retail. But under pressure from downtown business interests spearheaded by the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership's president, Mike Edwards, the planned garage has grown to more than 800 spaces. To keep it from protruding out of scale with the adjacent buildings on the square, most of its residential and commercial components are likely to be sacrificed.
To be sure, lots more parking is vital to keeping and attracting more businesses downtown, as well as to supporting Market Square's revitalization. But putting all of the $14 million that the city has committed to meeting this need into a single garage isn't the only way to satisfy it.
Along with the emphasis on design, Crandall Arambula's recommendations for downtown contain many other laudable features. Proposed conversion of State Street from a near alley to a festive promenade should enhance its development potential. Making the bridges that connect downtown with its environs more pedestrian- and bike-friendly should enhance connectivity.
Where Crandall goes astray, in my opinion, is in proposing uses for specific sites. A recommended public square on the block to the west of Gay Street that's now just surface parking except for the Pryor Brown garage is only one of many potential uses for that prime block, including uses that could be financed with private dollars.
What seems totally beyond the pale is the notion that the four-block stretch of Gay Street between Summit Hill and Church Avenue should be targeted for a downtown retail renaissance. For retail to flourish along that expanse, continuous storefronts are needed in order to hold shoppers' attention. Yet two of the blocks are bounded primarily by pure office buildings, not to mention the extension of Krutch Park to Gay Street that's part of the Market Square redevelopment plan.
This extension is to link the square to the proposed cinema on Gay Street that is a sine qua non of Kinsey Probasco's effort to revitalize the square. The city has already invested $8.8 million in refurbishing the square itself, yet the cinema has been hung up by complications arising from its incorporation into a proposed transit center for which the city hopes to get federal funding. An emphasis on Gay Street retail at this point could further divert the city's focus from finishing what it's started, at high cost, on Market Square.
Taken as a whole, though, the Nine Counties. One Vision. process has served to focus public attention on downtown redevelopment and will hopefully continue to do so.
June 12, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 24
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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