The first part of a $10 million streetscape overhaul of Sevier Avenue in South Knoxville is expected to get underway this summer, when snarls of unsightly overhead utility lines begin to be relocated beneath the street and sidewalks.
The second, bigger phase of the streetscape project adds bike lanes, improved sidewalks, street lighting, on-street parking and a new roundabout at the Sevier Avenue, Island Home Avenue and Foggy Bottom Street intersection. Anticipate that phase beginning in early 2022.
Separately, the City is soliciting bids for improvements to sections of Waterfront Drive, Langford Avenue, Dixie Street and Empire Street – drainage, curb, sidewalk and streetlight upgrades.
It’s a major public investment. But if you haven’t been down Sevier Avenue lately, take a short walk across the Gay Street Bridge. The robust private investment – new homes, new businesses – is impossible to miss.
Check out this drone video, which shows much of the investment that’s being made between the Gay Street Bridge and Suttree Landing Park:
Sevier Avenue has always been viewed as the commercial corridor of the South Waterfront, and it’s really started living up to its billing in the last few years.
City South, a mixed-use development with 117 apartments and 3,500 square feet of ground-level retail space, is anchored near the center of the corridor. But on either side, there are restaurants, breweries, a coffeehouse, a bridal boutique, a computer repair and IT services company, a veterinary clinic, and more – even a mushroom cultivation resources business.
The City on this South Waterfront blog is publishing a week-long series of vignettes, featuring several of the builders, visionaries and entrepreneurs who have made Sevier Avenue their new home.
The series also will address parking issues, including a residential parking pilot program introduced in January at the request of residents along Phillips Avenue.