Downtown Knoxville is the

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

area of

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, United States. It contains the city's

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

and primary city and county municipal offices. It is also home to several retail establishments, residential buildings, and the city's convention center, and

World's Fair Park World's Fair Park is a public park in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The park sits on the former fairgrounds of the 1982 World's Fair hosted in Knoxville. Today, the park is home to the Sunsphere and the Tennessee Amphitheater, the two remaining ...

. The downtown area contains the oldest parts of Knoxville, and is home to the city's oldest buildings. Knoxville's downtown area is traditionally bounded by First Creek on the east, Second Creek on the west, the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, ...

on the south, and the Southern Railroad tracks on the north. In recent decades, however, the definition of "downtown" has expanded to include the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

campus and Fort Sanders neighborhood west of Second Creek, the Emory Place district and parts of Broadway and Central north of the Southern tracks ("Downtown North"), and parts of the Morningside area east of First Creek. Important sections of Downtown Knoxville include Gay Street,

Market Square The market square (or sometimes, the market place) is a Town square, square meant for trading, in which a market is held. It is an important feature of many towns and cities around the world.Old City, the World's Fair Park, and

Volunteer Landing Volunteer Landing is a public park and riverwalk along the Tennessee River in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is below the Gay Street Bridge. History The location of the park is the site of the Treaty of Holston. In 1988, a 50-member waterfront tas ...

on the riverfront. The downtown area is home to several large office buildings, including the Plaza Tower and Riverview Tower (the city's two tallest buildings), the TVA Towers, the

General Building The General Building, also called the Tennessee General Building or the First Bank Building, is an office high-rise located in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Constructed in 1925, the 14-story building is the only high-rise designed ...

, the Medical Arts Building, the Bank of America Building, and the City-County Building and the

Andrew Johnson Building The Andrew Johnson Building is a high-rise building in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1929 as the Andrew Johnson Hotel, at , it was Knoxville's tallest building for nearly a half-century.Ronald Childress, National Regi ...

, the latter two of which house municipal offices for Knoxville and Knox County. The Knox County Courthouse and Howard Baker Jr. Federal Courthouse are located on Main Street. Notable historical buildings include

Blount Mansion The Blount Mansion, also known as William Blount Mansion, located at 200 West Hill Avenue in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, was the home of the only territorial governor of the Southwest Territory, William Blount (1749–1800). Blount, a Fou ...

, the reconstructed James White Fort, the Bijou Theatre,

Tennessee Theatre The Tennessee Theatre is a movie palace in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The theater was built in 1928 in the 1908 Burwell Building, considered Knoxville's first skyscraper. The theater and Burwell Building were added to the National Register ...

, Old City Hall, and the L&N Station. World's Fair Park is home to the Knoxville Convention Center, the

Knoxville Museum of Art The Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA), is an art museum in Knoxville, Tennessee. It specializes in historical and contemporary art pieces from the East Tennessee region. According to its mission statement, the museum "celebrates the art and artists o ...

, and the city's most iconic structure, the

Sunsphere The Sunsphere located in World’s Fair Park in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, is a high hexagonal steel truss structure, topped with a gold-colored glass sphere that served as the symbol of the 1982 World's Fair. Design Designed by the Knox ...

. Throughout much of the 20th century, city leaders struggled to revive the downtown area, which was once the primary retail center of Knoxville. Most revitalization initiatives failed, however, due in large part to a highly-factionalized city government.Bruce Wheeler, ''Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), pp. 63, 106-118, 143-153, e.g. In recent years, the city has had some success with mixed residential-commercial areas, namely in the Old City and along Gay Street. This effort has been aided in large part by developers such as Kristopher Kendrick and David Dewhirst, who have renovated aging office and warehouse buildings such as the Holston, Sterchi Lofts, and the JFG Building for use as condominiums and residential flats.

References

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External links

Downtown Knoxville Central Business Improvement DistrictMarket Square District AssociationDowntown Knoxville Retail Development Strategy

Neighborhoods in Knoxville, Tennessee

See also

References

External links