“The commercial spine of Sevier has faded to a pale copy of its past character.” – 2006 South Waterfront Vision Plan
Twenty-ish years ago, a baby-faced, ambitious city mayor named Bill Haslam invited the city to dream big about what a neglected slice of riverfront – over THERE, see that JFG sign? – could be. Both stakeholders and nosy folks with no real skin in the game, like me, aired our opinions via public forums, captivated by the possibilities for this underutilized stretch of prime real estate – a ghost town with a killer view of downtown – that is so close and yet so far away.
An abundance of ideas emerged, from the pragmatic to the poetic, but the piece everyone could agree on was that the South Waterfront had to become a place where people could:
- Live
- Work
- Gather
- Shop & eat
- Play
Haslam paddled on to deeper waters while Knoxville kept chipping away at the concept he dared us to imagine. Revisiting the 2006 Vision Plan today really puts the progress into perspective. The corridor it described as “faded,” Sevier Avenue, is now bustling with restaurants, breweries, shops, an elementary school, residential developments, at least one monarch waystation, and more, fueled by investments from people who believed in the dream…