Metro Pulse/Cover/Living Downtown

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Me and My Town
by Jack Mauro

The ins and outs of settling in the city's center

by Barry Henderson

Downtown living in Knoxville is a growing phenomenon, in keeping with a broadening trend for residential relocation into the centers of cities that were nearly abandoned in the middle years of the 20th century.

In the last decade or two, more and more people have grown to love the downtown lifestyle. The feeling of being in the center of things is all but ubiquitous among those "new urbanites," whose aim is often to stay out of vehicular traffic as much as possible, walking to and from the providers of their necessities and amenities or driving the shortest possible distances to meet their needs and desires. It is a satisfying feeling, even if the new urbanites seem never satisfied. And why should they be content here? There is no downtown grocery of any size and selection, no pharmacy, no mass of varying retail outlets, no fully developed system of mass transit to take them all over town with minimal delays.

Still, Knoxville's city center is slowly, but surely, becoming a booming place, with retail and restaurants following residential resurgence, or vice versa. It's a chicken-and-egg sort of thing, but it's happening either way.

True, there have been downtown dwellers all along, diehard denizens of a time when the choicest places to live were in the cores of cities around the world, those halcyon times before the private automobile arrived in droves and suburban living became an easy and appealing option. But their numbers were relatively few in more recent years, as were the residential options. Ten years ago, there were barely 100 dwelling units within a stone's throw of the center of what we think of, almost nostalgically, as the business district.

In the last two years, another 150-160 units have been occupied, with 60-to-75 units expected to come on line in the next 12 months. They represent a gentrification factor, as well, in which the cost of renovation of historic or architecturally significant structures dictates that the price or rent per square-foot will be higher, on average, than in most new construction, downtown or elsewhere.

It's safe to say that there are more middle-class professional people living downtown today than there have been in 50 or more years. They can afford to pay those pass-along rehabilitation costs, while low- and lower middle-income people are effectively priced out of the market.

Leigh Burch, who pioneered the downtown rehab movement in a big way with the 100-unit Sterchi Lofts in what had been a long-vacant furniture building in the 100 block of Gay Street, says there "appears to be a pent-up demand for condos now, as the market begins to mature."

His apartment units are locked into a rental program by virtue of the federal tax credits he earned in the renovation. The tax credits are hinged on rentals. He can't sell the units for five years from the date of occupancy without incurring a tax penalty, and the same is true for other redevelopers who took advantage of the federal tax-credit, very effectively limiting the number of condominiums available in what amounts to the first round of meaningful residential redevelopment downtown.

Burch, however, has 12 units under development at the corner of Gay and Wall Avenue, in the old Butler Shoes/Lerner Shop buildings that he says he may sell when they are complete. He applied for the tax credit, but he says he may withdraw his application because the rehab cost is indicating that rents would have to be too high to assure a quick, easy leasing curve like the one he enjoyed at the Sterchi. Units there ranged in size from a few hundred square feet to about 2,000 square feet, with a rent schedule of from $500 to $1,900 monthly. The smaller units rented quickly, the larger, more expensive units more slowly. Though they all rented, Birch says if he had it to do over, he would concentrate his design more heavily on smaller 1- and 2-bedroom units that rented for under $1,000 a month. The demand was there, and he says it still is, though few downtown buildings lend themselves to bunches of small units.

There are studios, lofts, townhouses, traditional flats and what seem little more than basement cubbyholes for rent or sale downtown. Rents roughly parallel the Sterchi schedule, although some luxury units larger than 2,000 square feet could command more. The price range for rehabbed units has run from about $100,000 for a studio to somewhere up there in the multi-hundreds of thousands for the large, penthouse variety. The buildings that have been brought into the residential market are unique, if nothing else. They often have great beauty within or without, but there are drawbacks, structurally, to their easy conversion to residences, especially to less expensive units with fewer square feet. "Finding windows is difficult," he says, explaining that each small unit must have windows if it's to be widely marketable, but in multi-room units, a room or two without windows can be acceptable.

Are windows that important? Well, yes, but there are many important considerations involving living spaces and locations. Interviews with a dozen downtown residents, old and young, established and new, produced a much longer list of priorities.

Leading that list in almost every case was the stated need for a neighborhood full-service grocery. A pharmacy, a movie theater, more retail—including a department store or clothier, more parking and more green space were other wants and needs most often mentioned.

Parking was a particular problem for some of those polled. "The problem is at a crisis level," said Judy McCarthy, an attorney whose office/apartment is in the 100 block of Gay Street, where she and her husband, Dennis, moved their law practice and residence last year, after seven years in the old Friedman Building in the 300 block of Gay. They owned the Friedman property, but sold it and are renting now. McCarthy said she's especially concerned when the only available parking spots in the area, the 60 spaces along the Gay Street Viaduct, are taken out of the equation this summer to rebuild the viaduct.

The county's property along State Street is set to open to provide some parking relief, and the garage that's about to built behind the old Watson's store along Walnut Street will also enhance parking opportunities downtown, but it is months away from completion.

The best thing about living downtown, McCarthy said, is the sense of "community," a sentiment echoed by several others.

In McCarthy's case, she said, "I've never lived in a 'community' before. I know my neighbors, I care about them, and they care about me."

As an illustration of that care, she recounted a recent experience. "I have an immune disease and do not drive. When my husband went on a rafting trip on the Colorado River last fall, the whole neighborhood took care of me," she said. "My friends divided up who would take me to court, who would take me to the grocery, and who would be on general standby if I needed anything.... A veterinarian friend living on my block walked my beagle, Freddie, every morning and evening while Dennis was gone. I was inundated with invitations to dinner."

Dennis McCarthy says simply, "It's the best neighborhood I've ever lived in." He says the gathering of friends that takes place every Saturday morning at Harold's Deli just down the block is one of the most entertaining and fulfilling aspects of the place, along with what he calls the "Wednesday night prayer meeting" at the Downtown Grill & Brewery a couple of blocks up the street.

Judy Loest, a writer whose husband, Robert, is CEO of IPS Advisory, Inc., an investments firm, has lived downtown for several years and the couple just moved into a new apartment in David Dewhirst's Emporium Building redevelopment at Gay and Jackson Avenue. She says the community is driven by "an intellectual and creative vitality." That's an observation nearly echoed by Carolyn Seelbinder, a pharmaceuticals saleswoman who recently moved into the Phoenix, Wayne Blasius' office/residential project that redeveloped the old Fowler's Building in the 400 block of Gay. "There is so much potential and excitement surrounding all the projects and ideas that there is nowhere else I'd rather be than in the heart of an explosion of creativity. It feels young and vibrant," Seelbinder said.

Laurens Tullock, the executive director of Knoxville's Cornerstone Foundation and a former director of development for the city, preceded the new wave of downtown dwellers when he lived in one of the Kendrick Place rowhouses off of Locust Street in the '80s. "I have never been more involved in a neighborhood," he said. "The ability to walk everywhere meant that you were constantly interacting with your neighbors. It was socially energizing and the most fun and creative place we ever lived," Tullock said.

"There was very little that did not appeal, but the reason we ultimately moved was that we had a baby, and when he started to walk, it made sense to have a yard he could play in." The Tullocks moved to Westmoreland Estates, several miles west of the center and now live in Sequoyah Hills, where he said, "The closeness to downtown and UT makes it almost as much fun as when we lived downtown."

The university and its location has made the downtown attractive to students—at least those who can afford rents that are steeper than, say, the Fort Sanders area. Several students were among the early inhabitants of the Sterchi. Gregg White and April Chitwood share one of the Phoenix apartments, where they moved from another downtown location last summer.

"The Phoenix is an awesome place to live," said White, a restaurant manager and who, like Chitwood, is a UT student. Both have good jobs in the restaurant industry locally, and White said the advantages of being downtown, for them, include proximity to the restaurants and the free downtown area trolleys that take them back and forth to home, class, and work.

They get into a car often, White said, to shop or to eat at restaurants all over town—all over the region, actually. Eating out and going to movies are their hobbies, their entertainment, and a source of learning about the industry in which they work.

Buzz Goss, who has lived in several downtown locations, is an architect who has participated in the redesign of several buildings, including the Sterchi and the Emporium. He and his wife Cherie form an architecture and design team that is keyed in to the desires of those seeking to adopt the downtown style. The couple is finishing up renovations of their own three-story residence in the Hutson Annex, a 1930s building and former boarding house on Clinch that most recently housed Bill's Comfort Shoes. The GossPiercyGoss architecture office is on Gay, a short walk away, and Buzz said the proximity gives lends more time, more productivity, in his work, cuts his transportation costs and is convenient for him in most other ways.

As an architect, he has an appreciation of what he calls a "unique, visually rich environment," filled with architectural detail from nearly all post-Revolutionary War periods in America. He suggests that ignoring the downtown has fostered a "culture of amnesia."

The result is that "for too long, Knoxville's culture and heritage has been out of sight and out of mind." He's pleased as he can be with what he sees of the downtown's cultural comeback.

If you've been wondering just where these downtown residents do their shopping, relax. We asked. There are downtown convenience stores, places to get snacks or a few staples, probably enough to please some bachelors. But those don't serve family needs well, and many downtowners are gourmets, as well. The larger grocery orders can't be filled downtown, as those interviewed were quick to point out. Several of them said that, despite the lack of a grocery in walking distance, they go to stores including the Kroger on Chapman Highway, the Fellini Kroger on Broadway, the Kroger in Knox Plaza on Kingston Pike, and the Fresh Market on Kingston Pike in Western Plaza that are really no farther away from them than are similar supermarkets or specialty food outlets from most of the suburban subdivision homes around the city. Pharmacies, including Walgreen's and CVS, are a similar distance and near the groceries, so they try to combine trips for food and drugs and the like.

Some of those we talked with are increasingly reliant on the Internet or catalogs for retail shopping, with goods delivered directly to them. Remote shopping avoids the need for a road trip. And, until a movie theater locates downtown, many of the residents there are renting videos or DVDs to watch on their own screens, but virtually all of them are waiting with high hopes for the promised theater.

Again, cost is the overriding factor. The cinema group Carmike has shown interest in establishing a cineplex downtown, if the city or county will build it for them to occupy and will guarantee parking. That project is tied up for the moment with plans to incorporate it into a transit center, so as to gain a substantial federal grant, but those wheels move slowly.

Dan Hugh, an Alcoa executive, has been waiting for a cinema since 1990, when he and his wife, Nancy, moved into a Kendrick Place townhouse on relocating to Knoxville from a Pittsburgh suburb. The Hughs said they like having more than a dozen restaurants, the YMCA and YWCA, their bank, the courthouse, city hall, the art museum, the history museum, the library, the waterfront, and the World's Fair Park all within easy walking distance of their front door.

A movie theater and more shopping would be nice for them, and they are hoping, but, as Dan Hugh, who is 67, said, "The thing that appeals to me most about downtown living is that the age demographic is more diverse than in most neighborhoods in the suburbs, and particularly communities like Tellico Village [a development along Tellico Lake that appeals to retirement-age folk]. I like being able to socialize with young people as well as people my own age.... The conversations are a little more stimulating than constantly conversing about aches, pains and major health problems."

Hugo Arceo and Autumn Whelan are a young couple who live downtown and work in the suburbs, a sort of reverse of the situation that is still prevalent here. Arceo said the downtown setting "allows more freedom and flexibility for unique and individual lifestyles." The greatest appeal, he said, "is in its spontaneity and choice. Whether we decide on a whim to not cook and enjoy dinner at one of the many restaurants...or have a nightcap after work, the options are there and available."

Every single person interviewed, all of whom were asked whether they would pick downtown living if they moved elsewhere, said yes, usually emphatically. Arceo also said yes but with the caveat, "not if we lived in New York or California."

That's not a caveat of Robert Loest. He is a confirmed downtowner no matter where he lives, including Manhattan. He and Judy have a getaway home in Florida, an old Victorian house in downtown St. Augustine.

The way Loest sees it, it's natural. "There is a sense of community that simply doesn't exist in the culturally atomized and demographically sanitized and segregated environment of the 'burbs," he said. So, tell us how you really feel, Robert.

"People are herd animals, like dogs, horses, birds, or bees. They need other people. Urban environments are the expression of that need," he said, "and the soul of a community.... What I like most about the downtown is the kinds of people who decide to live there."

It's Loest's kind of herd, and he's not alone in picking it. The trend that's settling in gives every indication that the herd will be growing as long as there are redevelopable, gentrifiable buildings downtown that lend themselves to expanding that urban "soul."