How will the city reconnect East Knoxville? A walkable James White Parkway, for starters

Knoxville has a rare opportunity to improve how East Knoxville residents get to downtown and neighborhoods across the river – including reimagining James White Parkway – with a $42.6 million federal grant.

The project would create more paths for East Knoxville residents to walk or bike to jobs, activities and recreational amenities that have been difficult to access since urban removal, which flattened entire blocks of mostly Black homes, churches and businesses in the 1960s and '70s.

Through eminent domain, the city acquired this property for urban removal ? touted as urban renewal at the time ? for the construction of the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum. Urban removal policies also led to the creation of new routes like James White Parkway and Interstate 40 at the expense of Black neighborhoods.

The new seven-phase project seeks to help reconnect East Knoxville with downtown, which would then be connected to South Knoxville's Urban Wilderness.

The South Knoxville connection would run through Morningside Park and involves retrofitting James White Parkway, one of the most notable barriers built by urban removal, to create barricaded walkways and bike paths along the bridge crossing the Tennessee River.

Holograms could bring Knoxville's African-American history to life

Plans also include creating a "cultural corridor" greenway connecting Summit Hill Drive, Dandridge Avenue, Hill Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue that would include markers and monuments honoring African-American history in Knoxville.

"As we stand here today, I think about the ancestors and those who came before us ... and I'm sure that they're smiling today to see that now there is reinvestment that's being done to right those wrongs of the past," Gwen McKenzie, Knoxville City Councilwoman for the sixth district, said at Morningside Park. "Today, we still only have one Black business that is still thriving out of urban renewal, and that happens to be Jarnigan & Son Mortuary."

The corridor would include 10 historical sites along the greenway, including the ancestral home of Knoxville natives and world-renowned Black artists Beauford and Joseph Delaney. With guidance from the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, which was born out of urban removal, the corridor would also include opportunities for "digital storytelling."

"The markers, paired with digital assets such as virtual images, holograms, voices and sound, will allow visitors to 'Take a walk around the Bottom' or experience the former E. Vine Street, bustling with patrons frequenting dozens of African American businesses," according to a project plan. "The buildings have been lost, but the experiences and the history can be reclaimed for future generations."

When it comes to creating the digital assets, preference would be given to students in the University of Tennessee at Knoxville's Project Excellence program and graduates of Austin-East Magnet High School, which is within the project's footprint.

The life of Robert Booker: From 'The Bottom' to Knoxville’s revered Black historian

Above and below James White Parkway, paths could connect Knoxville

It's not just the surface of James White Parkway that would be improved.

Note: This map is an approximation of where new multi-modal paths would connect East Knoxville, South Knoxville and the Old City.

The city is proposing a new Jackson Avenue Park replace a parking lot beneath the parkway in the Old City, just steps away from the baseball stadium project site.

The park would connect to the proposed multi-modal pathways designed to bridge East Knoxville to retail and restaurants in the Old City.

The multi-modal pathway would start at the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum, and it would continue west through East Knoxville neighborhoods before reaching Harriet Tubman Park and Vine Middle Magnet School.

A map of the project area indicates this part of the pathway is already funded.

From there, federal funding would help build pathways connecting to affordable housing community First Creek at Austin, which would then connect to the baseball stadium site in one direction and the proposed $100 million Knoxville science museum in another.

The science museum, planned at the former Knoxville Police Department headquarters, is located just across East Hill Avenue from Morningside Park. The park's existing paths would connect to a reimagined James White Parkway extending across the river.

Knoxville successful on second try to win federal grant

The federal grant funds nearly half of the project costs across the seven phases. The other half would be covered by money the city has already set aside.

The city expects work to begin next year on what's described as "nearly 10 miles of connectivity improvements," according to a news release.

Knox News was first to report the grant had been secured following a March 13 announcement from the Biden-Harris Administration that $3.3 billion had been awarded to reconnect communities across the country.

Knoxville applied for this grant one year ago but was unsuccessful. The federal government accepted this new application, despite the request having a larger scope and seeking more money.

"We didn't just say: 'OK, well, we're defeated. We're not going to try again,'" Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon said. "And so, we expanded our horizons. We had a bigger dream for our city, and the federal government said 'OK.' And they gave us every single thing we asked for."

Knoxville received exponentially more federal money than its Tennessee counterparts in Chattanooga and Memphis, which each received between $2 million and $3 million as part of this latest round of federal grants through the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Rebekah Jane Justice, the city's chief of urban design and development, told Knox News the city has not decided how much ? if any ? of the federal grant will be considered in the city's pledge to make meaningful amends to urban removal through $100 million over seven years.

When this urban removal resolution passed in December 2020, the city said the $100 million would be paid largely through grants.

Ryan Wilusz is a downtown growth and development reporter. Phone 865-317-5138. Email [email protected]. Instagram @knoxscruff. 

Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Federal grant connecting East Knoxville, Urban Wilderness and downtown