Mayor Bill Haslam has announced that Anne Wallace has accepted the position of Cumberland Avenue Project Manager and will lead the City of Knoxville's efforts to revitalize that area. Haslam made the announcement at the Knoxville City Council meeting on Tuesday. Wallace is currently a planner for the Metropolitan Planning Commission where she was key player in the creation and implementation of the Downtown Design guidelines and the principal planner for several public projects. She will begin work in the newly created position February 1. Haslam said he and other city officials got to know Wallace during the process of developing the downtown design guidelines and enjoyed working with her."We are very excited to have Anne here," Haslam told council members.The mayor said the new position is a vital one."A thriving and well-designed Cumberland Avenue is important to the City of Knoxville," Haslam said. "It's a corridor linking downtown to not only the University of Tennessee but also to Fort Sanders as well as other neighborhoods to the west and north. "But, we want it to be more than just a corridor that people travel through," he added. "We want Cumberland Avenue and the area around it to be a place that people want to live, work, and shop - a place where they want to spend some time - and Anne is going to help us reach that goal."Wallace, 27, is a graduate of Auburn University where she earned a bachelor's degree in Environmental Design in 2002 and a master's degree in Landscape Architecture in 2004.

"Anne brings proven experience in developing consensus on complex projects and a strong background in urban design principals," said Bob Whetsel, the city's Director of Redevelopment. "She will make a great team leader in our efforts to redevelop Cumberland Avenue."The effort to remake Cumberland and the surrounding area is a cooperative one involving the City, the University of Tennessee, Cumberland Avenue business owners, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, neighborhood associations and others with an interest in the area.Covenant Health, the parent company for Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, and UT, for example are each contributing $25,000 to the city's Cumberland Avenue Project.Last winter a consulting firm completed the Cumberland Avenue Corridor Study, paid for by the city and TDOT with input provided by the interested groups, which lays out potential plans for redeveloping the corridor.Those include everything from changing traffic patterns on Cumberland to developing new buildings containing retail and condominium space along the roadway to lining the avenue with trees and implementing new building codes.It will be Wallace's job to help turn the best of those ideas into realities.