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A few overlooked details concerning the Sprankle Building dilemma

by Jack Neely

Home Federal has been using the daily to advertise its quest to tear down the Sprankle Building, a five-story turn-of-the-century brick building currently under historic-zoning protection, for the purpose of building a new headquarters. Otherwise, they say, they may be forced to leave downtown.

I'm obliged to point out a few things about the issue which have been overlooked in the daily's recent article about the subject.

1 — Though Home Federal evicted its business tenants from the Sprankle about two years ago with the announced intention of building a new headquarters, the bank has not, at this writing, released any plans or architectural drawings of what sort of headquarters building they want to build, or any timetable of how soon it could happen if things go their way.

2 — The city's historic-zoning overlay on the Sprankle is not Home Federal's only obstacle. Equally daunting, one would think, is the fact that key portions of the block are owned by other parties. Standing like sentries between the bank and the Sprankle property are: the 1906 Arnstein, occupied, renovated, and, most relevantly, owned by a party which has no intention of selling it to Home Federal; and a parking lot owned by a rival bank.

Given those facts, Home Federal's preoccupation with the Sprankle puzzles many. Between the Arnstein and the rival bank's parking lot is a narrow passage to the Sprankle corner. If Home Federal did demolish the Sprankle, the only sort of building they could put on property they own would be diagonally sited and very narrow in the middle, shaped like a bow tie.

3 — Home Federal's line is that they've sacrificed 12 years methodically planning its building, only to have all that hard work yanked away by an aberrant mayor's mean-spirited rezoning initiative. Home Federal kept its long-range plans close to its corporate vest all that time. To some extent, of course, it continues to.

The bank bought the Sprankle and adjacent buildings in 1992 cheaply and very quietly, soon after owner Charlie Sprankle's sudden death. One long-term tenant had repeatedly tried to buy the place to renovate it; he told me he would have paid much more than the bank did—if he'd ever known the building was for sale.

While Home Federal collected rents totaling easily in the six figures, the bank was notoriously thrifty about repairs to the Sprankle. (Actually, thrifty is not the word some former tenants use.) In spite of Home Federal's neglect of the building, the revival of downtown and the new interest in preservation has raised its value. The Sprankle now appraises for significantly more than the bank paid for it. Home Federal would make a big profit by selling it to a responsible developer.

Knox Heritage has gotten repeated queries from interested buyers. Though the Sprankle Building needs considerable work, people in real estate tell me it could bring Home Federal nearly half a million as is.

4 — Home Federal did undergo some hardships during the unexpectedly lengthy redevelopment of the Krutch Park area last year. For all I know, they may deserve some sort of compensation. They hint that their hardships earn them the right to deprive the community of a historic building. That logic may make more sense to bankers than it does to me.

5 — Historic buildings aside, from any urban-planning standpoint, the 500 block of Market Street would be a bum place for a big bank headquarters. I don't know whether that site seems especially good for the bank or not—they've been complaining about it for years—but the last thing the Market Square area needs is a large office building that, like all banks, is closed most of the week. In 1999, the Urban Land Institute identified the historic buildings of the Market Square area as critical to making the convention center work. This block is also key to attracting people leaving the anticipated Gay Street cinema multiplex to restaurants and shops, and to bringing back downtown's round-the-clock vitality.

Stand in front of any of the other of downtown's freestanding bank buildings, say, at 8 o'clock on a Thursday night, or 3 o'clock on any sunny weekend afternoon. Some tombs are livelier.

6 — Still, it would be good to keep Home Federal downtown. Several other plots are potentially available and would seem suitable for building a large bank headquarters, without damaging historic property. There's the old News-Sentinel site, which may or may not be designated the site of the new library. Also in Knoxville's equivalent of a financial district is the large (better than half a square block) surface parking lot on Gay between Cumberland and Church; it has the added bonus of being the unheralded birthplace of the state of Tennessee. Several other centrally located sites would seem as good or better for a bank headquarters. Develop on any of them, and you won't hear a peep from the pesky preservationists. But what Home Federal wants to do is tear down the Sprankle.

7 — Though the Sprankle is remembered best by men of a certain age as a whorehouse—and perhaps they want to abolish that memory by removing the physical evidence—the Sprankle did not serve that purpose for most of its history. The building has lots of interesting historical connections: it was once a residence for several prominent Knoxvillians; it contains one of the oldest authentic restaurant spaces in Knoxville.

However, the building may be more important for its potential: to be restored and redeveloped to meet the rising demand for downtown residences. Despite its poor paint job and boarded-up windows, architects tell me it's solid, and you don't need much imagination to picture how it could look. It's the classic five-story urban brick building, retail on the bottom, residences upstairs, the style and shape of building that, after all these years, still dominates Manhattan. Just across Walnut, the Pembroke (once known as the New Sprankle) has been occupied with upscale residences for more than 20 years. Residences in old brick buildings on nearby Market Square are snapped up the moment they appear on the market. There are more upscale residences nearby, new townhouses a stone's throw away on Clinch, the condominiums at fully occupied Kendrick Place a block away on Locust. It's getting to be like a neighborhood as, a century ago, it was.

The demand for downtown residences, still growing, has not been met. Demand is highest for residences in traditional old brick buildings. A lot of the demand is coming from UT students and faculty; the Sprankle is closer to campus than most available residential properties downtown.

There aren't many idle historic buildings left for residential development. As we develop office buildings and warehouses and stores into upscale residential space, the Sprankle is a rare example of a potentially available building that was originally upscale residential.

For now, the best we can hope for is that Home Federal is using the Sprankle for leverage, using the threat to demolish it, and the threat to leave downtown, as feints in a grueling chess game with the city. That scenario at least leaves open the possibility that the bank will one day do right by the city of Knoxville and let it go.

April 8, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 15 © 2004 Metro Pulse