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Old North and Fourth and Gill seem invisible, but...

by Matt Edens

When it comes to downtown redevelopment, “momentum”—according to what Nine Counties. One Vision planning consultant George Crandall told City Council last week—“is everything.”

He’s right, of course. Momentum is crucial. Seems like common sense. And that’s oddly similar to a lot of what I’ve heard for years from assorted local downtown advocates and pioneers. But that’s what consultants are often for, aren’t they? Not so much to make, uh, momentous pronouncements, but to make the client—be it a city or company—feel more comfortable as they do what, deep down, they already knew needed to be done. And if the powers that be need someone to hold one hand while they reach for the checkbook with the other, I’m not going to argue with it.

I will, however, offer one critique. And it has to do with momentum. You see, while downtown has made tremendous strides in the last several years, there’s one area of the center city that has shown, if not remarkable, then at least steady momentum over the last decade or more. Only it’s not “downtown” in the traditional sense of the word. It’s about half a mile to the north, in the historic neighborhoods of Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill.

A few statistics: in 1990, the two census tracts that encompass both neighborhoods, along with Emory Place, contained not a single household with an income of more than $100,000. In 2000 there were 64 households earning in the six-figure range (compared with 14 for downtown). Likewise, the number of households earning between $50,000 and $100,000 had nearly doubled: from 75 to 134. Real estate values have shown even greater improvement.

In 1990 there were a total of 23 owner-occupied homes in the area valued at more than $100,000. In 2000, there were 142 (downtown, by comparison, had 41). And, since I’m pretty familiar with the Fourth and Gill real estate market over the last decade, I can assure you that in 1990 the handful of homes appraised in the six-figure range had just barely broken that threshold.

Oh, and those of you who get worked up over gentrification should consider that more than half the area’s owner-occupied houses are still valued at less than $100,000—a truly “mixed income” claim few Knoxville neighborhoods with $200,000 homes can make. Including downtown. According to the 2000 census there were no owner-occupied homes downtown valued at less than six-figures.

Other than a brief hiccup that coincided with the collapse of Whittle Communications, Fourth and Gill and Old North have seen sustained momentum, starting from the early ’80s to the present. What makes the accomplishment even more impressive is that it was achieved with little direct involvement or funding from the city and an almost non-existent promotion from Knoxville’s real estate industry. As Knoxville has wrung its hands over, and spent enormous sums on, projects to spur downtown revitalization, a few blocks north a tremendous amount of revitalization has largely gone unnoticed in the larger community.

Fourth and Gill’s invisibility, particularly to the “movers and shakers” whose funding made the Nine Counties. One Vision downtown proposals, may explain why the plan drawn up by Crandall Arambulla does absolutely nothing to capitalize on this momentum. Looking at the elaborate maps and renderings on display at the KMA awhile back you’d never know that center-city Knoxville north of Interstate 40 even existed. The connection westward to UT and Fort Sanders received considerable attention in the redevelopment proposal, the south a good bit due to the waterfront’s natural draw, and the east even received a few links to the urban real estate that has largely sat fallow since it was “Renewed” to death in the 1960’s.

Not that the connections the plans propose aren’t good things. UT’s student population is a vital market that downtown simply must tap. Knoxville’s riverfront is a vastly underutilized asset. And the area around the Civic Coliseum and Townview Terrace is in dire need of economic development and opportunity —literally, it’s still the single poorest census tract in the city (so much for “Urban Renewal”). But one would think that, in the midst of all this proposed redevelopment, the one part of the center-city that has seen the longest sustained period of private residential investment and is home to the largest number of middle and upper income households would play a role, wouldn’t you?

Not that there aren’t issues. I-40 does constitute a formidable barrier, in some ways more challenging than the river. But it can be done. One possibility emerged just a few weeks ago when yet another set of consultants with a Portland, Ore., connection made their own presentation: This time the topic was streetcars. The buzz going into and coming out of the meeting centered on the idea of a streetcar line down Gay Street connecting the riverfront with the Old City, which, ironically, coincides with Knoxville’s very first streetcar line, built in 1872.

Or at least it almost does. Because that original Gay Street streetcar didn’t stop at what’s now the Old City. It continued on just a few blocks north. Straight to 4th and Gill.