KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It's been around two-and-a-half years since a man burned down Knoxville's Planned Parenthood health center. The medical facility promised it would rebuild, and it offered a glimpse inside the new facility on Thursday.
"Immediately after the arson, we started planning to rebuild," said Ashley Coffield, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. "We are close to being finished. It may not look quite like that yet, but we're actually very close. Just a few weeks away from being completed and opening back up for patient care."
Coffield said she hopes to have the new facility up and running by September 2024. Until then, patients can continue getting care at Planned Parenthood's mobile health unit.
Coffield said it took around $3.5 million in total to build the new facility.
"I feel like it's a metaphor for Planned Parenthood — that we are very resilient, that we rise up from the ashes, that we provide care no matter what. That we are going to get through any kind of barrier people put in front of us," said Coffield. "A lot of people said to me that the building makes them feel hopeful. And so, that's really ultimately what this is about."
Planned Parenthood leaders said they wanted to emphasize making the new facility welcoming and inclusive for all patients.
"Definitely overwhelming. My 16-year-old daughter can come here for care. So, it's going to be great," said one supporter.
While Tennessee has effectively banned abortion treatments, Planned Parenthood offers a variety of other kinds of services like gender-affirming care, reproductive health care, HIV services, men's health care and family planning services. After the fire, Planned Parenthood opened a mobile clinic located off Kingston Pike, near Messiah Lutheran Church, to continue treating patients.
In 2023, Planned Parenthood also saw the return of federal Title X funds. With those funds, the healthcare provider can effectively treat low-income patients for free. Coffield said patients just need to provide verbal information about their income and family size to receive services.
"The building stands for hope. It stands for care. It stands for a non-judgmental approach to reproductive services. It stands for quality education that is age-appropriate and accurate," said Coffield. "That will be an amazing day — when the very first patient that gets care at this health center is probably going to be a little bit overwhelmed by how excited we are to see them."
In this legislative session, an "abortion trafficking" law was also passed in Tennessee. Planned Parenthood leaders previously said they believed they could also continue helping people find abortion care and comply with the law. Coffield said under the organization's First Amendment rights, they could still help people navigate abortion restrictions in other states.
Background on the arson
Authorities said on the last day of 2021, Mark Reno, then 64 years old, set fire to the Cherry Street location. By the time crews with the Knoxville Fire Department arrived, flames had breached through the roof — a sign that the fire burned for some time before authorities were alerted.
Reno previously "engaged in a series of violent acts of property destruction" against the health clinic. On Jan. 22, 2021, authorities said he shot an "incendiary projectile" from a shotgun into the entrance of the clinic, on the 48th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. That incident was around a year before he set fire to the building.
Reno told a plain-clothed KFD investigator that he was part of a group called the "Church Militant Resistance," saying the group resists actions that oppose Catholic Orthodoxy, including abortion treatments. In April 2022, they said they secretly recorded a conversation with Reno where he laid out his plan to burn the center again when reconstruction began.
According to an affidavit, Reno claimed he also conducted surveillance on another center, the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, claiming he had developed a plan to burn that clinic as well as destroy other infrastructure targets, including federal buildings.
Reno died in jail in August 2022, according to authorities.
The landscape of women's healthcare has also changed since the arson. The Roe v. Wade decision was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022, leading to new restrictions across the state for abortion treatments. In Tennessee, it's now a felony to provide abortion treatments, except in some narrow cases like ectopic or molar pregnancies. Providers need to satisfactorily justify their decision to give abortion care or else risk criminal charges.