Metro Pulse/Insights/Crandall Arambula’s Perambulations

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by Joe Sullivan

It can never again be said that Knoxville lacks a sweeping set of plans for transforming its downtown. Under the auspices of Nine Counties. One Vision, consultants George Crandall and Don Arambula have seen to that with the conception of what they’ve labeled a “Civic Vision for Downtown Knoxville” that is almost transcendent in its grandeur.

The first question that arises is whether Crandall Arambula’s grand design is grounded in reality or floats on visionary grandiosity. An acid test in that regard is the soundness of what’s been singled out as a catalyst for all the rest: namely, bringing retail vitality to the four-block stretch of Gay Street that’s identified as downtown’s primary shopping district.

What’s envisioned for this district, extending from Church Avenue to Summit Hill Drive, includes an anchor department store and several categories of specialty retailers. These are in addition to the cinema that’s already in the works. Analysis performed for Crandall Arambula by another consulting firm, Economic Research Associates, purports to show the potential for at least 250,000 square feet of retail provided certain preconditions are met, and those preconditions bear a lot of scrutiny.

One of them is that a continuous strip of windowed retail storefronts is needed to engage shoppers’ attention and keep them traversing the street. But the Gay Street blocks in question just don’t pass this test. The Tennessee Theatre and new East Tennessee Historical Center take up a good part of one of them, and the rest of that block is comprised of office buildings that afford few vistas for retail showcasing.

To the North, the 500 block of Gay Street is bounded on its west side by the Charter Federal and the AmSouth buildings, neither of whose ground floors are adaptable to retail use. In between is the extension of Krutch Park to Gay Street, which the city recently completed at a cost of over $1 million, to provide connectivity between Market Square and the cinema that’s planned for the east side of the 500 block. Crandall would infill this park with quarters for a Borders bookstore, though he has no idea who would build it or whether Borders has any interest in locating there.

The Miller’s building occupies much of the west side of the 400 block farther north. Since its renovation for office use, the building’s ground floor has been clad with opaque gray glass. That’s the way its owner, KUB, wants it as does its ground floor tenant, Image Point, whom KUB and the city induced to locate its corporate headquarters there last year. But Crandall insists the opaque glass could be removed and the ground floor converted to retail use. He also says that the ground floor of the marble-clad Charter Federal building and the AmSouth building can be retrofitted for retail. All of that is pure malarkey.

So is Crandall’s contention that the heart of downtown is the corner of Gay and Church. Anyone with a sense of Knoxville’s heritage perceives that Market Square lies at its heart. And the city has just spent $8 million renovating its public space as a gathering place and staging area for events also aimed at spurring commercial activity around the square. Yet Crandall wants the city to spend many millions more converting the block bounded by Gay and Church into another public plaza. Crandall dismisses Market Square as a “funky place for nightlife.”

Another ERA precondition for retail success on Gay Street is subsidization of initial tenants starting with an anchor department store. An ERA report points to several other larger cities that have managed to attract a Nordstrom’s to their downtown by shelling out on the order of $30 million. The report states that, “Experience has shown that storefront specialty retailers are likely to consider an area only after anchor tenants/destinations have been established.” Yet even then, “it is often necessary to offer incentives (i.e. subsidize capital investment, operating costs, tenant fix-up costs, or direct rent subsidies to the first few rental pioneers willing to test the market.” Therefore, the report recommends that the city and/or Knox County establish a $5 million Knoxville Downtown Development Incentives Fund.

Over and above all of that, there’s a need to provide parking at little or no cost to shoppers to make downtown retail competitive with suburban shopping centers. A rule of thumb in the ERA report is that five parking spaces are needed per 1,000 square feet of store space. So 250,000 square feet of retail would dictate dedication of 1,250 spaces in nearby garages that might cost as much as $20 million to build.

Along with being heedless of Gay Street property constraints, the Crandall Arambula/ERA conception is also out of touch with the city’s fiscal realities. Mayor Bill Haslam is faced with not only an operating budget bind but also the fact that his predecessor used up nearly all of the city’s borrowing capacity with a mammoth $162 million bet on a new convention center.

The Haslam administration’s priority needs to be finishing what’s been started by way of a Market Square redevelopment plan. The unfinished business includes a $13 million, 675-space garage just to the west of the square and the Gay Street cinema whose cost has yet to be determined. Beyond that, there are parking needs to support downtown’s encouraging residential growth and the prospect of landing a major tenant to fill TVA’s vacant tower with office workers. Getting more people living and working downtown is a much better inducement to its revitalization than dubious subsidies aimed at attracting retailers.

All of this is not to say that Crandall Arambula’s grand design is devoid of merit. Space constraints don’t permit mentioning, let alone assessing, any of hundreds of other downtown accoutrements the consultants have recommended. In some longer run, many of them may well contribute to the city’s betterment. But a grandiose shopping expedition is a non-starter in the here and now.