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City Council approves stadium, Tennessee Smokies are coming back to Knoxville

"The City Council approved an agreement Tuesday night that ties together the city, Knox County and the Knoxville Knox County Sports Authority to bring to life a $74.5 million multi-use stadium in the Old City near downtown Knoxville."

"Lease and development agreements still have to be approved — likely sometime in January — by the Sports Authority, but the commission and council do not have a say in them. Officials would like the votes to be completed in time for construction on the project to begin in January. The team would like to open the season downtown in spring 2024."

More behind the paywall on Knox News: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/politics/2021/11/16/after-council-stadium-approval-smokies-coming-back-knoxville/8589705002/

More on Inside of Knoxville: https://insideofknoxville.com/2021/11/stadium-plans-take-a-huge-leap-forward/

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A 5 story, 127 room SpringHill Suites by Marriott is being proposed on a parking/gravel lot at 210 E Jackson Ave in the Old City next to Barley's Tap Room. The developer, Nick Patel, stated the project was contingent upon the stadium's approval. Now that the stadium has been approved, this project seems to be in the clear. The new hotel is estimated to cost $22 million and will have a design that compliments both the stadium and the surrounding historic buildings of the Old City. Patel states that the hotel could break ground next spring and would take 16 months to complete. The hotel will not have onsite parking, but Patel has purchased the lot across the street to serve that purpose. Hopefully it can be redeveloped in the future, as it is a prime spot for more than just parking…

More on Inside of Knoxville: https://insideofknoxville.com/2021/09/new-hotel-possible-for-the-old-city/

More behind the paywall on Knox News: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2021/09/14/old-city-marriott-hotel-proposed-if-baseball-stadium-approved-knoxville/8323758002/

Image courtesy of Elevate Architecture Studios:

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Station South, a 20 townhouse development by Urban Engineering, Inc., was approved for the southeast corner of Island Home Avenue and McCormick Street in the South Waterfront area of South Knoxville.

More on the Knoxville-Knox County Planning Websitehttps://agenda.knoxplanning.org/2021/november/11-SB-21-C.pdf

More on the Board of Zoning Appeals: https://p1cdn4static.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_109478/File/Boards/zoningappeals/packets/2021/5S21VA.pdf

Images courtesy of the Knoxville-Knox County Planning commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals:

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Way behind on this, but I was in Oak Ridge back in late March for a conference and decided to stay in a hotel in west Knoxville so I could spend more time in my old stomping grounds. Been meaning to write up some of my observations ever since then, but kept getting sidetracked.

  • Stayed out off of Papermill Road. West Knoxville has a lot to offer...if you have a car. Walking anywhere is a total non-starter. Even trying to get from my hotel to the restaurants next door was a challenge (and danger) because of a total lack of sidewalks or pedestrian infrastructure. Going any farther was just out of the question. Where there were sidewalks, like along parts of Papermill, Weisgarber, and Northshore, they just randomly end.
  • Knoxville is blessed by some awesome public spaces and parks, even if there aren't a lot of them. Went for a run in Sequoyah Park and along Cherokee Blvd., and I had forgotten just how great of a place it is to do just that.
  • Cumberland Ave. has undergone a CRAZY change (for the better). I wouldn't have recognized it if it weren't for a couple of old businesses still in their original locations.
  • Downtown continues to be such a huge asset for the city, and I'm glad to see it's becoming more of a lived-in space. Even at 6:00 on a Tuesday afternoon it was lively enough to not feel abandoned. I was able to pop in to Preservation Pub and have a beer on the patio on Market Square and read a book. Tons of families out just enjoying the day that looked like locals and not tourists. It has a feel much more akin to the central square of a European capital, not a medium sized city in Appalachia. 
  • The brewing scene is really blowing up and I'm here for it. Met an old friend who took me around to a few of the new locations, and let me tell you, while there is of course mediocrity (as in every brewery-swamped city in America), there are some real gems. 
  • I never would have thought Sevier Ave. would be a go-to place to just park the car and wander up and down, hitting breweries and grabbing dinner, but it now is. 
  • I was somehow totally unaware that the Smokies were moving downtown. It looks like this has really started to spur some development of the brownfields and warehouses near Old City. Unfortunately, James White Parkway and the interstates are putting some pretty hard boundaries on density... would love to see more of James White covered near Church, with some dense development near the Coliseum. 
  • Downtown, for all its awesomeness, still has SO MUCH parking.
  • Met my dad for a couple of days in the Smokies before returning home. The park wasn't overly crowded, but good Lord...Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg were just a disaster. I let my curiosity get the better of me and drove through and it was just nuts. Traffic was crazy, so many people driving from all over in Pigeon Forge...thousands and thousands of people just completely packing the too-narrow sidewalks in Gatlinburg. Redneck tourist Mecca. I am letting my experience living in Europe shade this, but it'd be so much better if, say, there was a train that went from Knoxville, and connected to the airport, to the tourist spots. And then busses that ran regular routes into the park to the trail heads. This isn't impossible, it's done all over Scotland and Wales, it just requires some investment and planning. And it'll never happen in East Tennessee.
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On 6/27/2022 at 3:46 PM, Nathan_in_DC said:

Way behind on this, but I was in Oak Ridge back in late March for a conference and decided to stay in a hotel in west Knoxville so I could spend more time in my old stomping grounds. Been meaning to write up some of my observations ever since then, but kept getting sidetracked.

  • Stayed out off of Papermill Road. West Knoxville has a lot to offer...if you have a car. Walking anywhere is a total non-starter. Even trying to get from my hotel to the restaurants next door was a challenge (and danger) because of a total lack of sidewalks or pedestrian infrastructure. Going any farther was just out of the question. Where there were sidewalks, like along parts of Papermill, Weisgarber, and Northshore, they just randomly end.
  • Knoxville is blessed by some awesome public spaces and parks, even if there aren't a lot of them. Went for a run in Sequoyah Park and along Cherokee Blvd., and I had forgotten just how great of a place it is to do just that.
  • Cumberland Ave. has undergone a CRAZY change (for the better). I wouldn't have recognized it if it weren't for a couple of old businesses still in their original locations.
  • Downtown continues to be such a huge asset for the city, and I'm glad to see it's becoming more of a lived-in space. Even at 6:00 on a Tuesday afternoon it was lively enough to not feel abandoned. I was able to pop in to Preservation Pub and have a beer on the patio on Market Square and read a book. Tons of families out just enjoying the day that looked like locals and not tourists. It has a feel much more akin to the central square of a European capital, not a medium sized city in Appalachia. 
  • The brewing scene is really blowing up and I'm here for it. Met an old friend who took me around to a few of the new locations, and let me tell you, while there is of course mediocrity (as in every brewery-swamped city in America), there are some real gems. 
  • I never would have thought Sevier Ave. would be a go-to place to just park the car and wander up and down, hitting breweries and grabbing dinner, but it now is. 
  • I was somehow totally unaware that the Smokies were moving downtown. It looks like this has really started to spur some development of the brownfields and warehouses near Old City. Unfortunately, James White Parkway and the interstates are putting some pretty hard boundaries on density... would love to see more of James White covered near Church, with some dense development near the Coliseum. 
  • Downtown, for all its awesomeness, still has SO MUCH parking.
  • Met my dad for a couple of days in the Smokies before returning home. The park wasn't overly crowded, but good Lord...Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg were just a disaster. I let my curiosity get the better of me and drove through and it was just nuts. Traffic was crazy, so many people driving from all over in Pigeon Forge...thousands and thousands of people just completely packing the too-narrow sidewalks in Gatlinburg. Redneck tourist Mecca. I am letting my experience living in Europe shade this, but it'd be so much better if, say, there was a train that went from Knoxville, and connected to the airport, to the tourist spots. And then busses that ran regular routes into the park to the trail heads. This isn't impossible, it's done all over Scotland and Wales, it just requires some investment and planning. And it'll never happen in East Tennessee.

Nice of you to stop by :) 

Definitely agree with you that highways have definitely created unwanted boundaries here, but as the city develops out more with the stadium to the east, the redevelopment and infill of the north downtown central/broadway area, and the continued densification of Cumberland, those boundaries are luckily going to be blurred more! 

My parents and I both agree there should definitely be some sort of rail transit from downtown and the airport to Sevierville/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. While yes, I don't think it will ever happen here, that area  definitely has the funds to do it with all the tourist revenue they pull in! They do have the 2nd largest rural mass transit system in the country and just recently completed a new transit center though. The Parkway has shoulders that are as wide as a lane and they could definitely retrofit those into bus lanes if they really wanted to…

Cumberland Ave. and Sevier Ave. have definitely grown a lot and for the better. I plan to post a few updates regarding those areas after this post. A lot more TALL apartment complexes (in terms of the Cumberland Ave. area at least) are coming to the surrounding avenues as Cumberland gets increasing more infilled, and UT plans on adding 2 more dorms with 1000 new rooms in total. They hope to grow to the south waterfront with a planned pedestrian bridge. The continued growth of the south waterfront area and Sevier Ave. have started to spill over onto Chapman Hwy. with the redevelopment of the old Kern's bakery building into a food hall with apartments and a future hotel, and new apartments/townhomes planned. South Knox is gonna become even more of a cool destination when some of these developments finish and come to fruition. A lot of mixed housing coming ranging from apartments to townhomes so that's a good sign!

Again, glad you got to stop by for a bit!

Edited by UrbanWes03
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The Dominion Group's $60 million, 230 unit South Banks development has made some progress as seen from Suttree Landing Park! Additionally, the 2 future road connections back up to Sevier Ave. have progressed as well. Once complete, the urban waterfront feeling this area will have is gonna be very nice, especially with the park fronting retail spaces.

Looking down Waterfront Dr.

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Looking down the intersection of Waterfront Dr. and Dixie St. 

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Looking down Waterfront Dr. at the future street connections and apartments.

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Looking up the future Claude St. extension from Waterfront Dr.

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Looking up the future Barber St. extension from Waterfront Dr.

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Looking down from the end of Waterfront Dr. at the entire site.

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Looking down Waterfront Dr. 

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Looking from the new Empire St. extension off of Waterfront Dr. at the backside of the current progress of the development.

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Looking up Langford Ave. from the Empire St. intersection at the back of the development where the start of the Langford Ave. fronting buildings are beginning to take shape.

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Looking down from the Langford Ave. and Dixie St. intersection where the future street extensions and apartment buildings will begin to rise and take shape in the near future.

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A 4-5 story 205 unit student housing apartment building is being proposed at 200 E. Blount Ave. and 2000 Chapman Hwy, as the building will be split into two lots. The complex will be replacing vacant land, an abandoned parking garage, and the final vacant office building that remained from the old Baptist Hospital site. Each building will have commercial/retail space on the ground floor. Building 1 (2000 Chapman) will have parking underneath, but building 2 (200 E. Blount Ave.) will have a 6 story garage attached to it from the side.

On April 1st, Riverwalk Investors sold the site to Knoxville Student Property LLC for $4.75 million, "which is $1.5 million less than what One Riverwalk paid for the property in December 2013. City documents show Knoxville Student Property LLC is associated with Murfreesboro-based Front Street Partners."

Demolition has been completed on the site and clean up is ongoing. No official start date has been announced, but demolition and clearing of the site already happening is a positive sign.

The Board of Zoning Appeals Packet: https://cdn5-hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_109478/File/Boards/zoningappeals/packets/2022/5E22VA.pdf

More behind the paywall on Knox News: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2022/06/27/downtown-knoxville-mailbag-university-tennessee-system-student-housing-music-venue/7692321001/

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These demolition images are over a month old and the building pictured is already completely demolished.

Images courtesy of Knox News:

Looking from E. Blount Ave.

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Looking down E. Blount Ave.

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The intersection of E. Blount Ave. and Kay St.

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The vacant land that's a part of the rest of the site:

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My first time to visit the South Bank was just in March and I didn't realize so much of the old Baptist Hospital site had been redeveloped.  Plus, the brew pubs and restaurants in Old Sevier are the start of a really cool area of town.  Old City has come a long way. And the new ballpark and apartments around it will tie it in to the rest of the activity on Gay Street.  Knox is hopping! 

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On 7/12/2022 at 4:31 PM, MLBrumby said:

My first time to visit the South Bank was just in March and I didn't realize so much of the old Baptist Hospital site had been redeveloped.  Plus, the brew pubs and restaurants in Old Sevier are the start of a really cool area of town.  Old City has come a long way. And the new ballpark and apartments around it will tie it in to the rest of the activity on Gay Street.  Knox is hopping! 

And there’s a bunch more coming! I’m gonna try and post all of the proposals that have come out in the past few months. It’s baffled me even! I gotta say though I appreciate that Chattanooga has focused a lot of their growth downtown and in an urban fashion, and it shows compared to Knoxville. Our growth has definitely been spread more between the burbs and the urban core. Which does have its benefits, but as an avid urbanite, I wish we were following a more urban development trend like Chattanooga IMO. Hopefully that will happen more with the stadium, but we shall see!

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4 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

This company seems to do projects of this type around the nation.

 

Off Campus Student Housing | Hub On Campus

Yep! After looking over what they’ve done around the country and what they’ve planned here, they seem to do a really quality job. Design, materials, even placing vehicular entrances on the side streets and in the alleys, rather than the main pedestrian thoroughfares are all really nice touches.

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Developer Buzz Goss, along with McCarty Holsaple McCarty and Smee + Busby architects, are planning Vintage Cal, an estimated $45 million multi-use development proposed between Marble Alley Lofts and State Street Garage. It will be 6 stories and include 170 units ranging from studio to two-bedroom units and will include ground-level commercial space and below-ground parking for residents.  It is also planned to have an "indoor-outdoor rooftop lounge on the corner of State Street and Union Avenue [and] two "sky courts" on the third level, one with a downtown view and one with a mountain view.  Goss said one could include a cocktail pool and trees." It's projected to be completed between late 2024 and mid-2025, around the same time the multi-use stadium will be completed.

More behind the paywall on Knox Newshttps://www.knoxnews.com/story/money/2022/11/14/downtown-knoxville-apartments-built-on-state-street-near-marble-alley/69637684007/

MHM Architect's Instagram post regarding the project: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck_NZ0NuSyL/

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The proposed development will be at the corner of State St. and Union Ave., where SP+ Parking currently is.

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Knoxville is getting several apartment blocks like that in the core. I've seen two planned for the new ballpark (just a bit north of this one) and four more along Cumberland at the UT campus.  Plus there are at least two going up across the river. Have you heard anything about The T?  I'd guess it's dead at this point. 

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19 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

Knoxville is getting several apartment blocks like that in the core. I've seen two planned for the new ballpark (just a bit north of this one) and four more along Cumberland at the UT campus.  Plus there are at least two going up across the river. Have you heard anything about The T?  I'd guess it's dead at this point. 

Yes I’ve heard it’s dead but that a sale is pending for something else to still go there. That’s all I’ve heard though. There’s not much information about any of it unfortunately :(

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Ok very behind on this but…Caldonia Pass will be a $26.5 million multi-use development by Hatcher-Hill Properties at the corner of Gay St. and Summit Hill Dr. that will redevelop the entire 200 block of Gay St, replacing the current surface lot there presently. It will be 2 buildings, the rear one at 7 stories and the front one at 3 stories and include 49 condos and 4 work-force apartments, along with 22,000 square feet of commercial space divided amongst the two buildings on multiple floors. There will be an internal plaza between the 2 buildings that intends to emulate Market Square. The 7 story building will include ground level retail that faces into the plaza, and the 3 story building will have ground level retail facing Gay St. as well as 2nd floor retail that faces the plaza, with residential units on the 3rd floor. The units will include a mix of studio, one bedroom, and two-bedroom units. There will also be two three-bedroom units. They are projected to be between $200,000 and $800,000. Parking for residents will be offered via an agreement with Crowne Plaza behind the development, offering 50 spaces. Construction was projected to begin October or November, but no movement has been seen onsite as of yet.

More on Inside of Knoxville: https://insideofknoxville.com/2022/04/major-new-project-will-reconnect-the-fabric-of-downtown/

More behind the paywall on Knox News: https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2022/04/14/gay-street-development-caldonia-pass-could-transform-downtown-knoxville/7289468001/

Looking from the Summit Hill Dr. and Gay St. intersection.

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Looking from the Gay St. and Vine Ave. intersection.

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Looking from the Summit Hill Dr. and Gay St. intersection.

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Looking from the Gay St. and Vine Ave. intersection.

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Looking from Gay St.

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Looking from Summit Hill Dr. next to Crowne Plaza.

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Looking from the top of Vine Ave.

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The internal plaza looking toward the 100 block of Gay St.

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The internal plaza looking toward the 300 block of Gay St. and Market Square.

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Aerial Plan

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The parking lot it's replacing.

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/12/2023 at 9:27 PM, MLBrumby said:

Looks like a cool project, and one that will help tie together the Gay Street/Market Square action with the Old City establishments.  The ballpark will help too! 

Yes that’s what people are most excited about, including me! There are more developments that have been announced along Summit Hill Dr. toward the stadium that will also help tying the areas together with the stadium. Progress is moving along on the stadium and I’ll try to post more about it soon, but they plan to begin ground up constructing around March. It’s really exciting to see how the stadium is tying together areas in East Knox as well! Developments should hopefully pop up around that area with this project

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