Knoxville's Sunsphere was constructed for the 1982 World's Fair. The Sunsphere's observation deck on the fourth floor reopened to the public on May 5, 2014. This iconic beacon and the Tennessee Amphitheater are the only structures remaining from the fair in the aptly named World's Fair Park. The Urban Land Institute report recommends the city "activate the edge of World's Fair Park," plus redevelop the area around the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum into a mixed-residential neighborhood.
Photo: Jeffrey Paul Prickett www.ineighborhood.info via Wikimedia Commons

The city of Knoxville, Tenn., has spent $125,000 for a 36-page Urban Land Institute report on the future of downtown Knoxville. The study involved a weeklong visit by a panel of urban planners, architects and developers. Public input on the report is up next.

City officials directed the ULI to study five areas of the city. The two major recommendations in the report is for the city to "walk away from the aging Civic Coliseum," which loses around $1 million each year and has a growing list of maintenance needs, and direct money instead toward redevelop the Mountain View neighborhood around the coliseum into a mixed-residential neighborhood.

The second significant recommendation is to "activate the edge of World's Fair Park," which the report considers an important community asset, by redesigning or rebuilding the Knoxville Convention and Exhibition Center, and including room for a cultural attraction, i.e., a theatre or museum. The Knoxville Museum of Art lies just north of the park.