Metro Pulse/Guest Column/The Sincerest Form of Flattery

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by Matt Edens

First it was supposed to be a "power center." Now it's adding a "lifestyle center." Turkey Creek, apparently, desperately wants to be the center of something. John Turley, developer of the, uh, sprawling complex (come on? How else can you describe its 400 acres?) certainly makes no bones about it. Announcing the addition of the $80-million-dollar lifestyle center last week, Turley said Turkey Creek is fast becoming a place for Knoxvillians "to live, work and play" and that it's "going to be the hub of Knoxville for 15 to 20 years to come."

Seems like a tall order for a place I've been through mostly while test-driving cars. You know the loop: a right turn out of the dealership onto Parkside, right on Campbell Station, right to I-40, right on Cedar Bluff and right back to Parkside for one last right turn into the dealership. No left turns and a new car smell? It's as close to heaven as a West Knoxville driver gets.

Still, as a downtown guy, it seemed like there was a challenge buried in that "hub of Knoxville" nonsense. And that "live, work and play" bit—why, that's downtown's thing. It was as if he was actually throwing down the gauntlet: "A few new lofts and a ribbon cutting on Market Square, eh? We'll show them a thing or two. And hey, our movie theater can beat up your movie theater..." Does that mean downtown and Turkey Creek are going to mix it up in a cage match to determine which one becomes Knoxville's place to "live, work and play?"

I doubt it. It's unrealistic to assume that the tens of thousand of people who live in the northern, eastern and southern parts of the city and county will regularly drive 15 miles or more to Turkey Creek. And I offer myself as an example: other than the aforementioned drive-bys via the friendly folks at Toyota of Knoxville, I've actually set foot on Turkey Creek's premises exactly once, for a visit to the Super Target that was, well, underwhelming (Miracle of miracles! It's a Target and a grocery store!).

Which, of course, is precisely why Turley and Co. are upping the ante with this new "lifestyle center." The hottest trend in suburban retail is they mix "New Urbanist" mixed-use ideas with modern chain store commerce to produce developments which, while they aren't traditional "downtowns" aren't quite traditional shopping centers either (some even have residential "lofts" over the stores—although not, evidently, the one planned for Turkey Creek).

Now as much as the urban snob in me wants to jeer at these "cartoon downtowns," I can't. For 50 years commercial and retail development in this country has meant suburban malls and shopping centers. So when the industry suddenly reinvents itself and starts building denser and more "urban," something is going on. It's the "lifestyle" consumer trend of the '90s taken to its logical conclusion. As shoppers have grown to reward good design, character and a social conscious with their dollars, it's only a matter of time before we demand the same of where the transaction takes place. You can already see it in the growth of "third place" locales: bookstores and coffee shop chains who encourage their patrons to linger.

And now that trend has arrived in Knoxville. But rather than see Turkey Creek's metamorphosis as competition, I see it as an affirmation. If the Knoxville market for shopping and entertainment in an "urban" setting is prime enough that even the conservative, conventional West Knoxville development community is flirting with the concept, I figure that's all good as far as downtown is concerned. Plus, if deep west Knoxville gets its own quasi-urban shopping and entertainment district, perhaps our civic leaders will relinquish the stubbornly held belief that the success of downtown proper somehow hinges on catering to the West Knoxville market. After all, it's as unrealistic to expect folks in Farragut to come downtown for shopping, eating and entertainment as it is to expect folks from Fourth and Gill to turn up in Turkey Creek every Saturday night.

And as we go about capitalizing on and increasing those numbers, we should take a few more lessons of Turkey Creek to heart as well. One is that private money almost always works faster than public. Despite the initial controversy surrounding the project's only publicly funded component—the extension of Parkside Drive—subsequent news from Turkey Creek has been a seamless succession of groundbreakings and grand-openings culminating in this most recent announcement - all developed with private dollars. Why the finance and regulatory environment makes it relative easy for a developer to assemble an $80 million project at Turkey Creek but so doggedly difficult downtown, I believe, warrants consideration—it seems plausible that Turkey Creek's Cineplex will screen its first movie before the one long envisioned for downtown ever breaks ground.

The other lesson, oddly enough, is one of urban design. For, while suburban West Knoxville is betting its future on becoming more like downtown, parts of the center city seem inexplicably determined to become more like the suburbs. Hard on the heels of the Turkey Creek announcement came word of the new development slated for Five Points. It was an odd juxtaposition: suburban West Knoxville getting denser and more urban while inner city East Knoxville gets a one-story strip shopping center little different from the dozens that line Kingston Pike.