Downtown Knoxville’s come a long way in the past five years.
The number of residents has nearly doubled to 2,000 and new businesses are opening almost every week.
But it still has a long way to go before it’s the vibrant community, the Central Business Improvement District (CBID) wants it to be.
“Can we have a 24 hour ‘live, work, play’ environment where you don’t have to use your car?” asks Patrick Hunt. He thinks we can.
Hunt is the chair of CBID, the non-profit organization behind the revitalization of downtown.
CBID has just drawn up a strategic draft plan for taking Knoxville to the next level.
The key is retail. “Retail that helps make your daily life easier, whether that is picking up dry cleaning or picking up a new cell phone battery,” Hunt says.
The plan calls for actively recruiting 25 new non-restaurant retailers by the end of 2012.
Those retailers will be a healthy mix of shops with names you’ll recognize and others you won’t.
“I think that mix has to include unique boutique types of stores that are unique to Knoxville and are locally grown and locally owned,” Hunts says. “But at the same time, we need credit tenants that have the depth of financial resources to be there for the long haul.”
Downtown will also have lifestyle stores that make things more convenient so you never have to get in your car to get what you need.
That may include a downtown grocery store.
“There is a model we want to be proactive in identifying and attracting, a model that is a hybrid market, cafe, and provision store that might include a lot of prepared foods,” Hunt says.
Until now, CBID’s been reactive in its approach letting new businesses come to it. Now it’s going to be proactive doing research to recruit the right retail.
The goal is for the retail to fit the so-called sweet spot appealing to those who live, work and play in downtown Knoxville.
Developer David Dewhirst, of Dewhirst Properties, says hitting this spot is crucial to a project’s success downtown.
“Because these are mixed use spaces, we have to have retail, residential and commercial together at the same time. Figuring out that puzzle can be difficult and I think CBID can be very helpful,” Dewhirst says.
So far, the organization’s plan seems to be on the right track with downtowners.
“It would be convenient if there was a grocery store downtown or a pharmacy where I could do not expensive grocery shopping, just pick up those extra items that I didn’t have time to get,” says downtown employee Loring Strickland.
“As a person who is on these streets almost every day, I would things like more retail maybe. We got great retails shops here, great restaurants but we could use more,” says another downtown employee, Travis Venable.
CBID is also aiming to pinpoint catalyst projects like the Mast General Store on Gay Street that will spark continuous growth.
Plus, part of CBID’s plan is recruiting businesses to fill its office space and more residents.
The organization also wants to create a downtown business incubator to provide small affordable commercial space and support services for emerging businesses.
CBID hopes to approve the plan in the next two months and begin putting money behind it in January.
Downtown’s unique, historic buildings are costly and time-consuming to renovate which makes it tough to attract new businesses. CBID hopes its proactive recruiting of tenants, will encourage developers to start renovation projects.
Some of downtown’s strengths are also its weaknesses.
The growth has caused property values to rise 22 percent in the past year, which makes it tougher to attract new businesses, especially in the weak economy.
Source: WATE
