Downtown mailbag: Is Old City stadium work starting? Is Gay Street getting a new sculpture? – Knoxville News Sentinel

June 9, 2022 News Editor

This week, readers asked questions about roads closed near the Old City stadium site, gates installed beneath James White Parkway, the future of Cradle of Country Music Park, a movie filmed in Knoxville and a development group making moves downtown.

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Roads are closed near the Old City stadium site. Does that mean stadium construction is finally starting?

Sort of. It’s not like we will be seeing a baseball diamond installed any time soon, and the current work is not the most exciting. But work is happening

Roads have been closed around the site of the forthcoming multiuse stadium in the Old City as water and sewer lines are relocated. The stadium is expected to cost close to $80 million, with an anticipated $142 million in private money allocated to build 630,000 square feet of restaurants, retail shops and residences around the stadium.

The roads currently closed – Jackson Avenue between Patton and Florida streets, Willow Avenue between Patton and Kentucky streets and Georgia Street south of Willow Avenue – have been shut down to relocate water and sewer lines.

This started started May 2 when contractors were scheduled to begin site work. This is the first step to bring the roughly $80 million multiuse stadium to life.

“The streets will remain closed throughout the summer,” city spokesperson Eric Vreeland told Knox News via email.

Baseball:Why ‘Knoxville’ will be in the team name when Smokies moves downtown

Old City development:Condos with stadium views, Harlem Renaissance namesake

The Smokies expect to begin playing Old City baseball in 2025, but the stadium could be ready in 2024 for other types of events.

Team owner Randy Boyd has promised to bring $142 million in private development around the stadium, including the $45 million condo building with home-plate views announced in January.

What is the purpose of the gates installed beneath James White Parkway?

Along Willow Avenue in the Old City, the James White Parkway bridge comes to an end, with rocks and a sliver of space beneath the bridge just big enough for a person to take shelter.

Barricades, like the fencing displayed here along Willow Avenue and beneath James White Parkway in the Old City, has been installed to prevent people from setting up "illegal encampments," city spokesperson Eric Vreeland told Knox News. The rocks beneath the bridge can be hazardous for city employees cleaning up litter and performing welfare checks, he said.

Fencing has been installed to block access to these crevices “within the past several years as a health and safety measure,” Vreeland said.

These areas are “often used for illegal encampments,” he said, and the riprap rock beneath can be hazardous for city employees attempting to access the areas for cleanups and welfare checks.

Downtown Focus:Panhandling grew downtown during COVID, but the city has a plan

Is Cradle of Country Music Park still getting renovations and a sculpture?

Slowly, but surely.

First, a little background. In 2018, Knoxville City Council approved a roughly $500,000 sculpture for the park located in the 200 block of Gay Street at the intersection of Summit Hill Drive. COVID-19 has delayed the project, said David Brace, the city’s chief operating officer and deputy to the mayor.

The Cradle of Country Music Park in the 200 block of Gay Street is not much to look at now, but it will receive a massive transformation through a $1.25 million project that will add fresh landscaping and a major sculpture centerpiece. This renovation, along with mixed use buildings planned across the street, could act as a bridge to connect the core of Gay Street with the 100 block and the Old City.

“That being said, we are moving along at a good pace rate now, and I am excited to see us move into construction,” he said in an email.

Brace said individual sections of the “Pier 865” sculpture are being built at the Brooklyn studio of artist Marc Fornes, and the design for the base has been finalized. The massive sculpture will be the new centerpiece of the park.

Brace said prequalified contractors will be able to bid on the concrete base portion of the project in June or July. Eventually, the sculpture pieces will be assembled on site in Knoxville.

Liza Zenni, executive director of the Arts & Culture Alliance, said she hopes to see everything in place by the end of the year.

In addition to the $500,000 funded by the city’s Public Arts Committee, which was saved over the years for a signature project like this one, an additional $500,000 of city money has been allocated from the downtown improvement fund and the parks and recreation department.

The state and Visit Knoxville would contribute $167,000, while the Downtown Knoxville Alliance would fund $83,000. This would bring the total to $1.25 million, which includes costs like landscaping, according to a document provided by Brace.

This years-old rendering of the "Pier 865" sculpture planned for Cradle of Country Music Park in the 200 block of Gay Street has changed some as the project moves along, according to Arts & Culture Alliance Executive Director Liza Zenni. But Zenni said the piece should still remind viewers of a tree, with details reminiscent of East Tennessee's mountain and river lines, and "the sense of movement that people wanted."

While some concerns have been raised about the planned removal of five trees, including a dying elm, the project calls for planting nine indigenous trees, Zenni said.

Stakeholders hope the massive sculpture – previously reported as 18 feet tall, 20 feet wide and at least 45 feet long – can help bridge the core of Gay Street to the 100 block and the Old City, while serving as a gathering place for residents and visitors.

A proposed $26 million project from Hatcher-Hill Properties also would help bridge that gap. The company plans to construct two mixed-use buildings with a shared pedestrian plaza and retail corridor across the street from the park.

Public art:Does Knoxville spend too much, or is it just ‘budget dust’?

I saw a film crew on Island Home Avenue the other day. Is a movie being made?

It’s hard to tell. People often are surprised to find out just how much TV production takes place in Knoxville. Jupiter Entertainment, which specializes in true crime TV, is based in the Scruffy City. The flagship United States office for Discovery also is here.

All that to say, it’s not uncommon to see cameras around town.

I can tell you, however, that a feature film recently wrapped in Knoxville. The Visit Knoxville Film Office announced Storyboard Entertainment finished recording an untitled “family adventure film” in May.

“The film follows California surfer kid Leah Weaver who is forced to relocate to Carterville where she bands together a trio of fellow misfits to track down the town’s mythic treasure which is rumored to be haunted by a Halloween curse,” according to a news release.

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Moonshine, shotguns, buried cash:Bruce Campbell on ‘The Evil Dead’ in East TN

While on this topic, I looked into movies that have been filmed in Knoxville, at least in part. The following movies are among those with “Knoxville, Tennessee” tagged as a filming location in the Internet Movie Database, or IMDb:

The Evil Dead
Road Trip
October Sky
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
Walking Tall
The Last Movie Star
Purity Falls
Road Less Traveled
Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier
Box of Moonlight

What is the Ephant Group that keeps buying downtown property?

So, you’ve noticed. It seems like Ephant Group is buying up half of downtown, most recently with the $4.75 million purchase of the property occupied by Vine Avenue Furniture and Brown Insurance Agency at 122 W. Summit Hill Drive, according to county property records.

Led by HD Patel, Ephant Group is behind several downtown developments. The group is transforming the Hope Brothers Building on Gay Street into a boutique hotel, with a food and drink concept by Aaron Thompson and Jessica King, the people behind previous occupant, Sapphire.

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Ephant Group also purchased a recently redeveloped building in the 300 block of Gay Street and an adjacent empty lot. The 308 S. Gay. St. lot is one of the most valuable pieces of undeveloped property in the city’s core and is on the same block as “the notch,” another empty space that’s primed for an upscale hotel.