The Reinvention of Downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, 1990-2020: The Development of a Public-Private-Nonprofit Management Team

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The period of 1999 through 2020 remains a special time in Knoxville’s history in which extraordinary methods of management team organization using a public-private amalgamation of skills and authority were used to revive a long neglected, empty, and deteriorating downtown. By the late 1970s historic preservation through the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 and the Tax Reform Act of 1976 offered a kit of tools to cities and towns that presented opportunities for urban revitalization locally controlled by city and state governments. The tools derived from the NHPA led to the necessity to form management teams that understand and use the new tools. This broad methodology includes financial incentives for rehabilitation and reuse of historic buildings. Specific tools include identification of significant historic buildings and districts, Federal tax credits, and grants through historic preservation guidelines along with more traditional development tools in the form of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT). Together, the two financing streams are joined so that financing packages can be formed for specific projects through a central clearing facility controlled by the municipality under state and local regulations. In Knoxville’s case a combination of local political and urban redevelopment opportunities arose which enabled a sustained plan for downtown rehabilitation to emerge. On May 14, 2000, the Mayor’s Steering Committee completed a comprehensive outline plan for the use of historic preservation as the basis and theme for regeneration of downtown, accomplished within approximately eight months from inception to completion. In the process Knoxville created a three-pronged management team of City Government, third party NGO, and developers. Through pragmatic problem solving in early 2000, Knoxville created what today can be called a public-private partnership plus third sector. The three-pronged management system required that each prong go through a transformative adjustment in order to absorb the new processes. This thesis examines the progression which enabled a rehabilitated and reinvented downtown Knoxville, Tennessee to emerge by 2020.