On Wednesday, Nov. 16, Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero, members of City Council and South Knoxville residents and business owners cut a ribbon and officially opened Suttree Landing Park and Waterfront Drive on the South Waterfront – a combined $6.6 million public investment.

Suttree Landing Park, the City’s first new park to open in 12 years, is an 8¼ -acre linear park within Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness that hugs the Tennessee River shoreline and boasts festival lawns, a children’s playground, a put-in for kayakers, accessible river overlooks with picnic tables, and a public riverwalk.

Complementing the park is Waterfront Drive, a new 2,988-foot-long two-lane streetscape. Waterfront Drive includes sidewalks, trees and landscaping, and LED road and pedestrian lighting. Specially-designed engineering features – like bioswales and pervious concrete pavement – make sure the runoff that reaches the Tennessee River is clean water.

“The park is a wonderful amenity,” Mayor Rogero said. “It will be a favorite gathering spot for families and outdoor recreation enthusiasts for decades to come. It’s stunningly beautiful.

“Today’s grand opening also reminds us of how far the South Waterfront has come in just a little over a decade, since the South Waterfront Vision Plan was adopted.

“In addition to this park and supporting infrastructure, more than $160 million in private investment has been committed to the South Waterfront commercial corridor along Blount, Sevier and Island Home avenues. And within a year, a mile of the South Waterfront riverwalk will be completed.”

Mayor Rogero complimented the expertise and creativity of City Redevelopment, Parks and Recreation and Engineering staff and the City’s contractors as they conceived, designed and built the cutting-edge details for Suttree Landing Park and Waterfront Drive. Poet Laureate R.B. Morris concluded today’s ribbon-cutting by reading a passage from Cormac McCarthy’s 1979 classic novel “Suttree.” Click here to watch and listen as R.B. Morris reads the passage.