Knoxville — After years of sitting as an empty building with a surface lot, the former state Supreme Court site in downtown Knoxville is nearing the beginning of a more than $80 million redevelopment project.
Last year city leaders selected Dover Development Corporation to redevelop the site. On Tuesday, Knoxville city council will vote on a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter a development agreement with Dover and extend the deadline for closing by 90 days.
"Technical factors like rights of way, boundary lines, replat of subdivisions of downtown, things like access for parking garages... We're doing a traffic study right now, environmental impact, geotechnical work - these things just take a long time and they're taking a little bit longer than we had hoped," developer Rick Dover said.
The conceptual plans call for restoring the courthouse building, adding a hotel extension, building a parking garage and a mixed use space with residential and retail amenities.
Dover says the hotel will be different than anything currently available in Knoxville.
"What we're planning to do is a very boutique experience on the hotel side. It will not have a major brand, the building will just be its own identity and will likely be operated through Airbnb," Dover said. "We're excited about bringing that concept to Knoxville. Nobody's every done it. It's in some major urban areas but it's not been in ours."
Should the agreements with the city continue to be work smoothly, construction on the project would begin in 2019 and be completed in 2022.
Contractually, Dover is required to start construction within 12 months of closing. Dover says it won't take that long to get started.
"Financing is always a moving target on projects like this. We're in an increasing interest rate environment, we're in an increasing construction cost environment, but yes we feel like financing is in place, "Dover said. "We've got to solidify the development agreement, get the rest of the technical issues out of the way and get the final costing in, and if all these things work out, we'll start the project."