O. P. Jenkins Parking Lot area

Since the parking lot has now been restriped and the extra meters have been installed for the additional parking spaces created during our Streetscapes project on the 100 Block, we will once again begin enforcing parking violations here beginning Monday, August 2, 2010. Please help us get the word out to those interested. Thanks

Construction Update - July 22, 2010

Thanks to all who attended the ribbon cutting on the 100 Block Monday. The Block Party committee is continuing to make plans for the larger event now tentatively planned for September 10, 2010. Please contact the City Office of Special Events if you have ideas or want to be included in our celebration.

This week the Contractor is working on correcting the issues we have with the concrete surface and that has included having to use the concrete saw to remove some of the sections of pavement. This is a noisy and dusty process as you all know but we hope to get this completed by the end of the week and pour new concrete shortly thereafter. Then we will need a least a couple of weeks for the concrete to cure so we are thinking now that the road will probably reopen a little after the first of August.

There are still many items to finish on our punch list and we will continue to work on those issues after the road is opened. Certainly caulking all of the areas will take some time.

Many of you have asked about bike racks and we have those ready to be installed. Sometime soon we will begin installing the street signs and that will involve drilling holes in the sidewalk so we plan to drill the holes and install the bike racks at the same time. We were very happy to have the planter boxes with greenery by the ribbon cutting but even more plants will be going in as well. The trees may be delivered late next month and we will wait for the optimum time to plant those. Those are 20-25 foot elms as I understand it.

The sod for the Cradle of Country Music Park should also arrive finally next month so we can begin to finish that bit of work.

We are beginning to have issues with folks parking on the 100 Block, particularly at night. We have instructed KPD to keep a close watch on this and if you park there you will be cited and/or towed. We have placed no parking signs there, but folk are removing the barricades and entering the work zone. We all want this project to finish and have the road reopened as soon as possible and this is the type of situation that could cause real delays.

We have finally reopened Jackson Avenue for traffic a few days later than we had planned. We replaced the asphalt that was there before we began our work a couple of weeks ago. This asphalt does cover up a small portion of the brickwork but this is the way it has been for many years and is a result of the elevation of the Gay Street Viaduct. This issue will likely get revisited in the next couple of years when the Jackson Avenue Ramps undergo reconstruction.

The Contractor is beginning to remove his construction materials from the Jackson Avenue parking lot in anticipation of the lot reconstruction in August. The picture above is of a camper moved onto the lot a week or so ago. The Contractor came in early one night this week to discover the occupant here had "borrowed" an extension cord to hook into the Construction trailer for power. Obviously our parking lot is not a campground so we had this removed.

Last, congratulations to our friend Stanton Webster of Nama on the birth of his daughter, Sophia Estelle Webster.

Thanks for your interest

Construction Update - July 15, 2010

Please don't forget the ribbon cutting now scheduled for July 19, 2010 at 11:00 am. Most of the work on the block is expected to be completed by then but the actual final opening of the road through the 100 Block has now become problematic. We always have had a final deadline of August 15 but had optimistically scheduled the ribbon cutting based on our projections three weeks ago. Some recent issues that have been discovered as we begin our final engineering inspections have forced us to delay the time to have the road completely opened, however. We had hoped to be able to open the road and keep at least one lane open but some extra work is required in both lanes so we felt it was best just to complete all of the work at once. The effect of this is that we will not be able to open the road permanently on July 19 as we had hoped.

We all want it to be right when we are finished here so spending a little extra time now seems to make a lot of sense.

Thanks to all of you for attending the 100 Block meeting this week. We discussed parking issues including signage on the Gay Street Viaduct and City Engineering is investigating those issues for me. Commercial loading zones and possible 15 minute parking spaces also had discussion. This is an issue that exists all over downtown and we are in the process of determining a solution that works for everyone.

A Committee is forming to plan the Block party planned for late August or September and this will be coordinated through our Office of Special Events. Contact them if you wish to be included.

Lastly, we were glad to hear that plans are being made to reconstitute the 100 Block Neighbourhood Association. I am sure you will be hearing more about that in the near future. Sean Christman of Slamdot will be heading up this organization.

As most of you know, we have only a little sidewalk work in front of the former VMC building left to finalize and we will finish this up this week. Other than caulking, this will finish up all of the sidewalk work for the project.

We are hoping to have our planter boxes completed but we continue to have delays with our vendors due to Nashville flooding. We plan to install the trees in September and these will be 20' to 30' Elms so the effect should be quite dramatic.

Jackson Avenue will be reopened sometime next week after some paving required to tie back the new construction to the Jackson Avenue ramp (see picture below)


Overall though, I think the block is looking great. The 200 Block has been completed for some time, the street lights are in and are functioning, the street furniture is in place, O.P. Jenkins Parking Lot area has been completely refurbished, Fire Street Alley has been completely rebuilt, and the Cradle of Country Music Park has been expanded. All of the new utilities are in place and are on line, and the underground areas have new pavement.

The picture above was sent to me by a friend and was taken from a book he received recently.

The book, "Knoxville - A Pictorial History", has this photograph and the accompanying text:

"In 1869, S.T. Post and Son started making wagons and carriages. In 1978, Post and Company is still in business, but they make truck bodies nowadays. This photo, taken from Summitt Hill in 1872, shows Post's original location. Gay Street goes from left to right in the foreground. Peabody School is the large cupolaed building just below the left horizon. East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad trains - now the site of the Southern railroad yards - are below the Peabody. The circus was held just above the pond near the center of the picture. Central Avenue (originally Crozier Street) can just be seen halfway up on the right behind the white house."

Thanks again to all of the folks on the bock for their patience and understanding throughout this complicated project.

As always, thanks for your interest.

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Construction Update - July 8, 2010

Construction crews are continuing their work in the intersection of Jackson Avenue and Gay Street and are finishing up with the colored concrete section in front of the Emporium.

The picture below is of one of the two seating areas on the widened sidewalk in front of the Emporium.

Thanks to Scott Williams and Donald Jenkins of City Engineering for helping me understand the following two pictures. The first is of the reconstruction of Gay Street around 1917 and shows the first columns to support the new sidewalk being constructed on the west side in front of the former VMC building on Gay Street.

The picture below is of the intersection of Jackson and Gay Street probably in the late 1890's. It is interesting to note that this was before the Emporium was built. The lower right corner of the photo shows the depression in which the Emporium Building was finally constructed. Note the wooden fence along Jackson to keep folks from falling in the steep depression.

Also it is interesting to note the two railroad buildings that no longer exist just below Jackson Avenue.

Please don't forget the 100 Block meeting planned for 5:30pm on July 13 at the Emporium.

Topics of discussion will include the Block Party, 100 Block Association, and any construction issues.

Thanks for your interest.

Construction Update - July 1, 2010

We are happy to finally announce that the ribbon cutting for the Streetscapes Project along the 100 and 200 blocks of S. Gay Street will be held on the morning of July 19, 2010. We had previously announced the date as July 20 but have now moved it up one day (a revised press release will be going out soon with the time). I will announce more about this as the day draws closer.

We will most certainly still have occasional lane closures for at least another month along the block but we are hopeful that at least one lane can remain open from here on out.

We will not plant the trees until the fall, probably in November and given their size, we will have to have some lane closures then as well.

The sod we had ordered for the Cradle of Country Music Park was to come from Nashville but because of the flooding there, this has been delayed so we still will have that bit of work to do.

Of course First Friday is July 2 and we hope to have much of the colored concrete poured on the eastern sidewalk by then. We must wait, however, until we begin our work on the final section of sidewalk in front of the Emporium so we can make sure the colors all are uniform with the concrete on Jackson Avenue.

The Jackson intersection will receive the same colored concrete treatments as the intersection of Vine Avenue and Gay Street. This will necessitate one remaining two week closure of this intersection beginning July 5, 2010 at 7:00 am.



For more information on First Friday events and on some fine organizations, please follow these links:

http://knoxvillefirstfriday.com/wp/
http://www.knoxalliance.com/
http://knoxvillemarketsquare.com/

Below are pictures of the Emporium building shortly after the road was reopened in 1919 and the next picture is of some of the business that went on there.




Since we have been able to move more quickly on this final bit of work, we will not have the parking kiosks in place by the ribbon cutting so we will simply stripe off the parking stalls and allow free parking until we can get these units installed.

Also, we apologize for all of the confusion over the misaligned parking meters on the O. P. Jenkins parking lot. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we can get that situation rectified but I am happy that KPD will not be enforcing parking meter violations here until we are able to restripe that lot. This work is now tentatively scheduled for July 11th. If all goes according to plan, we will post signs about this on Friday July 9, 2010 and clean the lot on the evening of July 10, 2010.

I am planning another 100 Block neighborhood meeting to be held at 5:30pm on Tuesday July 13 at the Emporium. I really hope many of you can attend to help us plan for the opening celebration and also to begin discussion about an 100 Block Neighborhood organization. Of course we will also review our progress on the project and the next steps until completion.

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable 4th of July Holiday. I know many excellent events are planned downtown .

Thanks for your interest

Construction Update - June 17, 2010

As promised, the Contractor has now poured most of the concrete for the roadway and is beginning to pour some of the colored concrete at the intersection of Jackson Avenue at Gay Street.

Probably beginning next week we will start with the colored concrete topcoat, beginning on the eastern sidewalk where we ended a few weeks ago. Again, this work must be done at night beginning around 7:30pm. The roadway itself will be available for travel with entrances created into the effected doorways.

On July 6 we plan to shut down the Jackson Avenue intersection once again to finish up this bit of work. This intersection will receive the same colored concrete treatments as the other intersections.

As many of you have noticed, the street lights on both sides of the street are now in place and are energized. We are still working to get all of the bulbs functioning correctly however.

Below is a another picture of the 1919 construction efforts here.

I am in continued discussion with the Contractor about start times and noise so hopefully we can do better in that regard. I really believe that in another month we will be substantially finished with the major construction so please hang in there with us just a little longer.

Our friends at Slamdot wanted me to remind you of the following event tonight: Slamdot will be hosting a Farragut/West Knox Chamber of Commerce networking event on Thursday, June 17th, from 5 pm to 7 pm at the Slamdot Store downtown, located at 108 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Everyone is welcome!

I am planning to set up another neighborhood meeting around the middle of July to discuss progress as well as to get ideas on plans for the Streetscapes opening Block party and ribbon cutting. I hope many of you can be there because we need your input. We are also discussing the possibility of banners being placed on the street light poles as we have done in other parts of the City.

I will be on hiatus next week but will also check on progress and if anything major occurs I will post a brief message here.

Thanks for your interest.

Construction Update - June 10, 2010

As complicated and challenging as this Streetscapes Project has been, the original construction must have been equally as daunting as evidenced by the following picture pre 1919.

Of course below is a picture of the completed look after 1919 completion.

We have now reopened Jackson Avenue upon completion of utility work. Unfortunately we must close Jackson Avenue one more time for approximately two weeks, probably beginning on the Monday after First Friday in July, to finish repaving this area.


We have also finished the last section of sidewalk on the western side of S. Gay Street (see next two pictures).

Street lights have been installed on both sides of the street and the lights are energized on the eastern section.We hope to have all of the street lights turned on by the end of next week.

The road work is now coming along at a rapid pace and by the end of next week we are hoping to have all of the concrete poured for the roadway.

Sometime around the week of June 21 we will begin finishing the sidewalk sections with the colored concrete. This work will be done primarily at night beginning around 7:30pm as the concrete is temperature sensitive. This pour of concrete should be set up by the next morning. After we get a few sections poured we will have a real good idea of timing for the remaining sections. While this work is being done, the street itself will be used for pedestrian traffic. We are aware of the noise issues and are not planning to use any equipment except for the concrete trucks and the crews themselves with wheelbarrows. Access will be provided for all of the entrances as we go.

We are getting to a point in construction where we can all see the finish line. Hallelujah!

Thanks for your interest.