Behind the planning stages are the American Institute of Architects East Tennessee and Knoxville’s Metropolitan Planning Commission. After an initial introduction about the history of the area spanning from Downtown North east to Burlington, organizers left the discussion open-ended for community members to contribute ideas.

AIAET’s David Collins says the agencies will incorporate the public’s suggestions from the meeting into proposals they will present during a formal meeting on the area’s renewal May 10. The time and location of that meeting are still to be announced.

“In [the residents’] opinion, things might be great and don’t need change,” Collins says. “We want to hear ideas of what works and what doesn’t work.”

The agencies presented a draft vision statement, which is also available on the MPC Web site www.knoxmpc.org, detailing what they hope will result from the redevelopment. The document emphasized the planners’ desire to create a mixed-use district: “The vacant land and underutilized buildings just north of Depot Street [will be] used for residential, office and commercial purposes. Downtown workers [will] live there above shops and restaurants and walk to work.”

Currently, the Magnolia Avenue corridor has 126 vacant residential units, 67 vacant commercial units and 54 vacant parcels, says Mike Carberry of MPC.

The discussions for Magnolia’s future come on the heels of what seems a complete overhaul of urban redevelopment for the city. Other blighted areas experiencing revitalization are the South Knoxville waterfront and I-275 corridor districts. Along with the onset of developer interest, city council and county commissioners have aided the process by passing tax incentives and form-based codes.

Though MPC was first created under Mayor Victor Ashe’s incumbency, the initiatives have only gained momentum in the last couple of years. Carberry feels this may be due to the recent incentive resolutions.

“City council has been very supportive of these issues,” he says.

On the cover of the 2007 released book “Images of America: Park City,” a sepia-toned photograph shows what Chilhowee Park once looked like — a Victorian-style Liberal Arts Building at the present site of the Jacobs Building, overlooking a vast 14-acre lake. This park, for which the area earned its name “Park City,” was built in 1910 for the first Appalachian Exposition. Though the original buildings no longer exist because of fires that occurred many years ago, one structure that remains from that period — a marble gazebo-like bandstand — dates back to the 1910 expo and is still used for musical performances in Chilhowee Park today.

Co-author Becky French Brewer, who attended the April 19 meeting, has strong sentiments about historical sites like the bandstand and says she hopes they will become highlights of the area in its redevelopment rather than casualties of demolition. 

In the acknowledgements of the book, she writes: “I think of [Park City] as a faded Southern lady who simply needs to powder her cheeks and put on a lovely new dress, and she would be beautiful once again.”