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Seven Days

Wednesday, February 11
• The leader of the search committee hoping to find a new president for UT goes to the Legislature to ask advice on how to conduct the search. We had no idea the UT trustees were that desperate.

Thursday, February 11
• Nurses and pediatricians line up with nutritionists to support legislation that would curb sales of junk food and soft drinks in public schools in Tennessee. It's a great idea. If the kids don't see that stuff in schools, how could they manage to find it elsewhere.

Friday, February 13

• The News Sentinel publishes TVA plans to cut back, perhaps drastically, on its 13,000-member work force this year. Metro Pulse predicted same weeks ago, when nobody would talk about the possibility.

Saturday, February 14
• The Associated Press reports that the Environmental Protection Agency has asked the Supreme Court for the right to make TVA reduce pollution from its coal-burning steam plants. Silly EPA. TVA is above the law and always has been.

Sunday, February 15

• Big News Sentinel headline: "New Urbanism" Comes to West Knox. We know that's not a contradiction in terms, but it still sounds like one to anyone who's ever actually been to West Knox.

Monday, February 16
• HGTV, the Scripps Networks cash cow with headquarters in Knoxville, donates $20,000 toward a plan to spruce up gardens at the World's Fair Park. Gee whiz. Could the Scrippsers afford such a generous gift?

Tuesday, February 17
• The news breaks that the Tennessee lottery is joining 25 other states in the mega-jackpot sweeps program known as "Powerball." If it starts off anything like "Buzzball," we could be in for a bit of a disappointment.

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
The ornamental design pictured adorns the recently renovated Phoenix building on Gay Street located adjacent to the Downtown Grill and Brewery, and received merely one response. Congratulations to Wayne Blasius for correctly identifying the marker on his own building. In recognition of your keen powers of observation, we are pleased to award you an advance copy of the Necro Tonz inspirational release Welcome to Cocktail Hell featuring the soon-to-be smash hit "Ghoul from Ipanema." Congratulations, we think.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

ZONING APPEALS BOARD
Thursday, February 19
4 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Small Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

KNOX COUNTY BEER BOARD
Monday, February 23
1 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

KNOXVILLE CITY COUNCIL
Thursday, February 26
5 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Convening for a briefing by the Metropolitan Planning Commission.

Universe Sevierville
It’s like Yogi’s ‘deja vu all over again’

Observers hereabouts may have experienced a moment of deja vu during last week’s announcement of an ambitious new development plan in Sevierville, as city officials unveiled a project that will include, among other things, a convention center and accompanying new hotel space, and a planetarium spearheaded by developer Earl Worsham.

Those elements were all key components of Knoxville’s own downtown plans before the Sevier County-based Worsham’s Universe Knoxville proposal bit the dust in 2002.

“We needed a lot of things to fall into place in order to do what we’re doing,” says Sevierville Mayor Bryan Atchley. “Everyone had to throw in their cards and say ‘yes’ at the same time. So far, that’s what’s happened.”

State officials granted Central Business Improvement District status to Sevierville in January, designating the entirety of the Highway 66 corridor from Interstate 40 exit 407 to the downtown area at the juncture of 66 and Main Street. The designation allows the municipality to recapture almost all of newly generated sales tax revenue created within the CBID zone.

Once city officials got word that their CBID request had been approved, a number of speculative public and private efforts received the green light, including a convention center project, new hotels and a planetarium (perhaps dubbed “Universe the Experience”) all of which would be constructed adjacent to or near the Eagles Landing Golf Course off Highway 66.

Atchley said the convention center as well as road improvements and other public works projects within the CBID would be financed by a series of bond issues totaling $205 million over the next 15 years. Key to recouping those funds will be the sales taxes collected by new private projects such as the planetarium and a massive new Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World retail store.

Long in discussion, the Bass outlet plan was also unveiled last week. It had having been kept under wraps until the CBID was a certainty. The proposed shopping monolith will encompass 130,000 square feet and employ around 300, offering a broad range of outdoor sporting goods including hunting/fishing gear, camping equipment and boating products.

Atchley explains that Bass’s participation was one of the key elements in the larger CBID/convention center development plan. “We needed a ‘big box,’ a really big retail outlet to anchor the whole thing,” he says. “It’s like we asked mom and dad to give us everything for Christmas, and we just about got it.”

Atchley says a new convention center of roughly 250,000 square feet, about half the size of Knoxville’s, would likely break ground in late spring or early summer, with the Bass project to follow suit shortly thereafter. Officials estimate that CBID sales tax recapture from the new Bass outlet alone should pay most of the first-year debt service on an initial bond issue of about $60 million, enabling the city to carry out its ambitious plan without a local tax increase.

Municipalities currently recoup $1.25 in sales tax for every $100 in sales within city limits. Inside a Central Business Improvement District Zone, cities recoup $8.50 for every $100 above a predetermined baseline.

Unlike Knoxville, where local leaders are still discussing the possibility of a new large headquarters hotel next to the city’s downtown convention center, Sevierville will probably see as many as three new small- to mid-sized hotels adjacent to its convention facility.

Atchley said that consultants advised that offering several variously-priced options were preferable to having a single 400-room four-star hotel.

Though not a linchpin of the development, the planetarium would be similar to the one Worsham proposed in Knoxville, including a 400-seat virtual reality theater. Worsham wouldn’t elaborate when contacted by a Metro Pulse reporter. “I don’t know much about that,” he said.

—Mike Gibson