Metro Pulse/Urban Renewal

The Emporium Lofts
1, 2 & 3 bdrm apartments
from 750 to 1,800 sq. ft.
$675 to $1,595 a month
Contact: Dewhirst Properties
971-3137
www.emporiumlofts.com

by Matt Edens

The Halls Shopper is a guilty pleasure of mine. A paper devoted primarily to community news of the suburb of the same name it would be of scarce interest if it weren't for editor Sandra Clark's weekly offering of political dirt for those who follow the fish fry and rotary club circuit of Knox County politics. I don't, typically, but the anecdotes are always amusing—written with an air that hints at an insider's knowledge.

That is, until I read last week's editorial. In part, it said:

"Scratch a preservationist and you'll find a trust fund, a fancy college degree or somebody with not much to do. Examine a developer, road builder or the guy on top of a house nailing shingles. You'll find somebody who gets up early and works hard..."

Sandra, I think, needs to get out of Halls more often. I'd say trust funds are mighty scarce in inner-city neighborhoods like Parkridge, Mechanicsville and Lincoln Park. I do, however, know plenty of preservationists who've spent hours on top of their house nailing shingles or tearing out tons of old plaster and hauling it to the dump (and one who gave himself a hernia lugging buckets of concrete into his cellar—me).

Are they the afraid-to-get-their-hands-dirty busybodies in the editorial? And when she goes on to talk about the risk takers in commercial construction and homebuilding who "drive our economy" does she mean preservationists I know from 4th and Gill, Old North and Mechanicsville, who earn their living as contractors and carpenters? And who knows more about risk taking than someone who sinks a hundred-grand or more into restoring a condemned house in East Knoxville?

Then there are the tens of millions of dollars worth of homebuilding and commercial construction projects currently underway downtown, the work of risk taking developers who, besides getting up early and working hard, are also preservationists: Leigh Burch, Wayne Blasius, and Sam Furrow to name three.

Or David Dewhirst, who's currently finishing up work on this building: the Emporium Lofts. A multi-million dollar mixed-use redevelopment project on Gay Street, the Emporium is another big step towards erasing Knoxville's self-loathing self image as a scruffy little city where nothing ever happens.

Because forget about Nashville, Asheville or Chattanooga. You'd have to go farther than that to find a building that as effortlessly mixes a sophisticated sense of history with so much contemporary cool. It holds 30,000 square feet of art galleries and offices (including a multi-media design firm), plus 40 high-ceilinged loft units with hardwood floors of maple, cherry, or oak, as well as bare brick, exposed beams and maple and cherry architectural veneers. Add in kitchens full of gleaming stainless steel appliances around a stainless steel-topped island and you've got spaces that even folks in SoHo wouldn't scoff at. And those are just the basics. Several top floor units feature huge, loft-length skylights and/or immaculate views of Immaculate Conception's church spire rising over the 100 Block. Three units even come complete with art-gallery-worthy sculptural pieces overhead: the exposed gearboxes and pulley systems of the buildings' old freight elevators. Those aren't the only artifacts Dewhirst has incorporated in the project. Several of the "Canyon" units front on a landscaped courtyard tucked behind the Gay Street façade of the old WNOX studios—once home to the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round and one of the cradles of country music.

Luxury loft living and impeccable urban style in a setting that's rich in authenticity and history—needless to say, Halls doesn't have it.