July 30th Update

Ft. Sanders Stakeholder Update:
Thanks to everyone who attended yesterday's special called stakeholder meeting. Minutes from this meeting will be compiled and posted sometime next week for anyone who was unable to attend.

A few follow up items came out of the discussion: 1) The Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting in which Ft. Sanders Regional Hospital will be requesting several variances will be held on August 19th at 4:00pm in the City County Building, for more information please visit: http://www.cityofknoxville.org/boards/zoning.asp; and 2) The Ft. Sanders Long Range Plan will be postponed from the August MPC agenda to September in order to allow stakeholders time to discuss additional points of concern and interest.

City Resurfacing Program:
The city of Knoxville's resurfacing program will be working in the Ft. Sanders neighborhood starting immediately and lasting for a few weeks. The streets that will be milled and re-surfaced are listed below:
Twenty First - from Cumberland to Forest
Twenty Second - From Cumberland to Forest
Twenty Third - From Clinch to Forest
Laurel - From Twenty Second to the west
Clinch - From Nineteenth to the west
White - From Twenty Second to the west
For questions or concerns regarding this work, please contact the city's Traffic Engineering Department at 865.215.6100.

KUB Updates:
The Knoxville Utility Board has announced several projects that will impact the Ft. Sanders area, please see the information listed below.

KUB Community Relations (Contact No. 594-7988)

Traffic Advisory – Road and lane closures for utility construction (weather permitting)

Seventeenth Street Road Closure (Aug. 2) – KUB crews completing sewer system upgrades will close all lanes on a section of Seventeenth Street between the Cumberland Avenue and Clinch Avenue intersections from 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Monday, August 2. Traffic will be detoured around the construction zone via Sixteenth Street to Clinch Avenue during this period.

Neyland Drive Lane Closures (Aug. 3 – 6) – KUB’s contractor will implement temporary lane closures on a section of Neyland Drive between Lake Loudoun Boulevard and Leinard Lane nightly from 7 p.m. – 7 a.m. and daily from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. starting on Tuesday evening, August 3, and lasting through Friday afternoon, August 6, to facilitate the installation of a water line
and roadway resurfacing. One eastbound and both westbound lanes of Neyland Drive will remain open at all times during these periods. All lanes on this section of Neyland Drive will be reopened each morning from 7 – 9 a.m. to accommodate morning commuter traffic.

PACE 10 Work - Beginning in early August 2010 and lasting through May 2011 (weather permitting), KUB and its contractors will make wastewater collection system improvements in your area as part of the PACE 10 program. PACE 10 is KUB’s accelerated 10-year wastewater
improvement program to aggressively attack the problem of sewer overflows and to provide a wastewater system that can better serve current and future customers.

Construction will take place along sections of Lake Avenue, Terrace Avenue, Caledonia Avenue, Twentieth Street, Nineteenth Street, Mountcastle Street, Twenty First Street, Twenty Second Street, Twentieth Street, and along a portion of the alleyway running between Cumberland Avenue and Lake Avenue (from Nineteenth Street and Twenty Second Street). Limited work may also be required on weekends to facilitate timely completion of this project.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this project, please call Reno Hall with KUB Customer Support at (865) 558-2117 (office) or 705-2817 (mobile) from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you have questions after hours, contact KUB at 524-2911.

Knox Heritage Update:
Knox Heritage announced a "Green House Open House" for Saturday August 21, 2010. The public is invited to attend a free open house to tour the building and grounds, ask questions of the designers, contractors and KH staff, and see sustainable design and construction methods in practice. The house located in Fort Sanders at 1011 Victorian Way (formerly 1011 Laurel Avenue), near the intersection of Laurel and 11th and near Fort Kid. No need to RSVP, just show up from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. For more information please visit: http://www.knoxheritage.org/

Thanks again for your continued interest in all things that impact Cumberland Avenue and the surrounding area. Have a great weekend!

June 11th Update

It has been a busy week here! On Monday, City staff met with our consultants on the Cumberland Ave. Streetscape Project and officially kicked off our detailed design process. One of the first steps to this process will be a utility coordination meeting that will help the City understand the options and costs associated with removing the overhead utility lines from Cumberland Ave. This meeting will occur before the end of the month and we'll keep you posted as details emerge.

As promised last week, the meeting minutes from the Ft. Sanders Stakeholder Quarterly Meeting are now posted under the links section on the right hand side of this page. Feel free to contact me at awallace@cityofknoxville.org if you have any questions or corrections.

On Thursday, the final draft of the Ft. Sanders Neighborhood District Long Range Planning Implementation Strategy was scheduled to be heard at the regular monthly meeting of the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC). However, we were contacted Thursday morning by some property owners in the area who had questions about the plan and its impact to their property. In the interest of continuing and increasing communications with these stakeholders, the City requested that MPC postpone its hearing of this document for 30 days in order to allow time for the City and MPC to meet with these property owners. The plan is now scheduled to be heard at the July 8th meeting at 1:30 pm in the Large Assembly Room of the City County Building.

Finally, a possible item of interest:
Knox Heritage is holding an "architectural salvage sale" all day Friday, June 11, and from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 12, at their offices at 1300 North Broadway - in the carriage house of the WATE-TV property. For more information visit: http://www.knoxheritage.org/.

Multiple Updates

Fort Sanders Long Range Plan Update:
The full stakeholder committee met on Thursday, August 6th at the Baker Center to continue the discussion. The major focus for this meeting was threefold: 1) Update the full committee regarding the Physical Land Use and Quality of Life subcommittee meetings held July 2nd; 2) Discuss interim steps and actions (applications for funding and google site); and 3) Review the 2000 Implementaion Strategies and prioritize for the future.

Notes from the meeting will be available on the blog in the next few days. Please see the link to the Knoxville News Sentinel Article on this event:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/16/panel-to-focus-on-fort-sanders-future/

Traffic Circulation Study Update:
Part of the Cumberland Avenue Streetscape Plan calls for a traffic circulation study to be completed by the city's consultants Gresham Smith and Partners to understand the impacts of the proposed changes and to mitigate any negative factors. The third phase of this study is currently under staff review and we hope to share it with the public soon.

Stakeholder Updates:
1) Knox Heritage hosts: Art & Architecture Tour of Historic Fort Sanders
Led by Jack Neely and Randall De Ford on Friday, September 4 - 6 p.m.
Begins with reception at the Knoxville Museum of Art.
Tickets are $60.
Visit http://www.knoxheritage.org/specialevents
Or call 523-8008.

2) Rohm and Haas Seek proposals for $30,000 Grant
Awarded to a non-profit or community organization to make land improvements.
Deadline is 5 pm, Friday, September 18th.
For more information contact Ms. Kara Cleveland, at the Shelton Group
934-1774

If you have items of interest for the areas connected to Cumberland Ave., please send them to me at awallace@cityofknoxville.org and I will be happy to consider them for this blog.