Metro Pulse/Urban Renewal

2003 Parkridge Home Tour
Sat. Oct. 4, 11a.m.-3 p.m.
Sun. Oct. 5, 1-5p.m.
10 houses, $10
Tour Starts at Caswell Park
670 Winona St.
For info: 521-6233

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by Matt Edens

"So, when are you going to live downtown?" The question didn't come as too much of a surprise. It was early on a summer evening at the Preservation Pub during introductions to a thirty-something professional who'd recently moved into the Sterchi Building. Someone else mentioned where I lived. And after I had explained to her just where Parkridge was, she asked the question.

At the time I just shrugged, in no mood to quibble with her. There's no greater zealot than the newly converted. Why not let her enjoy it?

But what I really wanted to point out was that, the way I look at it, I've lived "downtown" for nearly a decade (longer, actually, if you consider stints in Maplehurst and Fourth and Gill). And it's in the interest of downtown's boosters (whether new converts or not) to figure that out—for a very simple reason. As I pointed a few weeks ago, downtown and its immediately surrounding neighborhoods contain just a few hundred folks shy of 30,000 people. Of that total, however, less than 1,500 actually live within the confines of the central business district. Certainly, by converting more buildings into lofts and building new residential units, we could double or triple that number in the next decade. I hope we do. But that's still less than 5,000 people—not exactly a cosmopolitan metropolis. Nor, as downtown doomsayers are wont to say, can we count on the county—folks in Farragut and elsewhere have plenty of options for dinner and a movie.

Which brings us back to those 28,000 or so people living in places like Parkridge, Fourth and Gill, Old North Knoxville, Mechanicsville, Fort Sanders, campus, Old Sevier and Morningside: it's impossible to separate downtown revitalization from the revitalization of these neighborhoods a scant five- or 10-minute bus or bike ride from downtown. They're the market that downtown has to tap into if it is going to succeed.

Luckily, many of these neighborhoods haven't waited to follow downtown's lead. Hope VI project has doubled the number of homeowners in Mechanicsville, and private investors interested in historic preservation have wrought a remarkable transformation in Fourth and Gill and Old North Knoxville and are making inroads elsewhere. Yet there's still tremendous room for growth. There are enough vacant lots and abandoned, boarded-up houses in Parkridge alone to add—in sheer number of units—the equivalent of two Sterchi Buildings into the center-city housing mix. And most of the other neighborhoods have similar potential. Viewed in that light, rather than doubling or tripling 1,500, what we ought to be thinking about is how to turn that 30,000 living in the city's core into 50,000.

It may sound far-fetched. But it's already happening: one house or one vacant lot at a time. Come see it up close this Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 4 and 5 at the Parkridge Community Organization's 2003 Historic Home Tour. Ten houses—ranging from rambling George Barber-designed Victorians to cute and cozy bungalows—plus one church. And it wasn't too long ago that four of them were condemned hulks, waiting for Codes Enforcement to come along and push 'em over with a bulldozer (go ahead, try and figure which ones, you'll be amazed...). Oh, and did I mention that three of the 10 houses could be yours—after a customized rehab by Knox Heritage or Knox Housing Partnership? So if you're one of those folks who says they're interested in "downtown revitalization," come see where the rubber meets the road.