Metro Pulse

On a gray, dreary Monday afternoon in Kingston, two men are standing in a gas station talking about huge amounts of money. “They’re saying it’s gonna get up to over $100 million,” says one. “Wow,” says the other, simply, “Wow” being the only appropriate response anyone can ever think of to “over $100 million.” Full story »

“Breakfast with Bill” was breakfast only in a symbolic sense. Attendance at Pete’s Cafe on Union Avenue seemed sparser than usual on a Tuesday morning; staffers speculated their regulars were spooked by the TV crews, which had showed up before dawn. Standing near the cash register, the affable Haslam, a youthful 50 years old, announced to the assembled crowd that he was running for governor of Tennessee. Full story »

A new bookstore is in the works for Gay Street. David Ewan, the New Zealand-born certified public accountant who’s a partner in Downtown Wine & Spirits, is enough encouraged by its success to open more stores nearby in the 411 Building, which he owns. If all goes well, by next summer, Gay Street will have a bookstore, for the first time in 20 years, and a music store. Full story »

Most of us no longer consider it remarkable that downtown Knoxville’s eastern skyline is rounded out by the world’s largest basketball. After all, it’s been a full decade since a crane lowered the 10-ton crown jewel of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame atop its throne of steel-and-glass netting. Even a unicorn tethered to a hitching post on Gay Street would lose its novelty after that long. Full story »

So former Oakland Raiders head coach and Southern Cal offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin was announced as the University of Tennessee’s new head football coach on Nov. 30, to the great surprise of many and the expectation of none save perhaps a few insiders at the UT athletic department. If nothing else, Kiffin’s hiring has made for some of the most lively and interesting debate regarding a coaching change hereabouts in recent memory. Full story »

January will be a big month for skateboarders in Knox County. It should see the city issue construction bids for the planned Fountain City Skate Park, the second of at least four planned “satellite” parks supplementing the larger, centrally located Knoxville Skatepark in Tyson Park. Meanwhile, the main park will undergo a scheduled one-year evaluation. Full story »

A new anchor tenant has been announced for the soon-to-be restored S&W Cafeteria building, one that promises to bring a new restaurant to downtown that reflects on the history of the S&W. Full story »

Cherries Internet Café, the Market Square business that opened with much media fanfare in late September, has already closed, with its owners tangled up in recriminations and lawsuits. Full story »

The Farragut Building downtown was sold last month to a California company, which has sent eviction notices to current tenants—including the recently opened French Market. Full story »

Knox County Health Department’s Women-Infant-Children (WIC) clinic is experiencing increasing demand for its nutritional counseling and food voucher program. Full story »

In June, the state of Tennessee passed legislation allowing Appalachian Trail supporters to test the popularity and feasibility of a specialty license plate touting the AT. Supporters—primarily the Appalachian Trail Conference, which has a regional office in Asheville, N.C., and a national office in Harper’s Ferry, W.Va., along with a solar system of satellite volunteer groups—have until the end of June 2009 to muster 1,000 applicants for the new plate.
“We already have 246 applicants,” says Mark Shipley of Farragut, who sits on an ATC subcommittee in charge of promoting the plate. “I know that at least 30 of those are from Knox County. We’re having a little trouble selling it in West Tennessee, as you can imagine.” Full story »

Property owner Gary Bayless is certainly one person whose fortunes are closely and personally tied to the massive redevelopment of Knoxville’s South Waterfront, though he’s not quite as voluble a cheerleader for it as some developers are. Bayless owns a small three-bedroom home on Sevier Avenue, right at the complicated and hazardous-looking intersection of Island Home and Lincoln Street. It’s right on top of where the city is going to build a roundabout—part of a project announced in 2007 to extend Lincoln out to the river, where it will intersect the proposed riverwalk and boat launch. As of right now, it looks like Bayless is going to have to plan on relinquishing the house.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Bayless says. He’s owned the home since 1994, when he bought it for $68,000 for his daughters, who’ve since moved. He now rents the house out, and he’d like to continue to do that. Full story »

Whether it’s because of the recent surge in gas prices or Lance Armstrong’s popularity, there are more bicycles and bicyclists on Knoxville’s streets than in years past. The trend is difficult to quantify, because they’re not registered, and many of these vehicles have been returned to service from basements and garages, rather than being trackable by new sales. Regardless, motorists and cyclists of all sorts using the streets and roads must interact with each other, whether it’s at intersections or in passing. Recent clashes and crashes are motivating local planners, police, and organizations to take steps to make that interaction safer. Full story »

Tuesday night the Democratic Party threw a party in the Knoxville Convention Center where, in another year, George W. Bush himself appeared for a high-dollar fund-raiser and Democrats were shooed off of the sidewalk.
To a cold observer, it might have seemed an ambiguous occasion for celebration. At 8:01, moments after the polls closed in Knoxville, Katie Couric announced Tennessee as one of the nation’s first sure states for McCain: “so red it denied native son Al Gore the election in 2000,” she said, not mentioning that in the two previous presidential races, Tennessee had been, technically, a blue state. But nobody talked about red states and blue states in the ’90s.
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When this year’s early voting began, U.S. Assistant Attorney Helen Smith took on a few weeks’ worth of additional responsibility, over and above her typical monthly roster of prosecuting gun runners and sex offenders. Luckily for Smith, her station in East Tennessee meant her extra duties didn’t yield much additional grief.
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