KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — St. Mary's Hospital closed its doors in 2018, and since then it has been mostly unused. It's also been vandalized.
Knoxville's Community Development Corporation proposed a plan to redevelop the area in 2019, opening it up for residential development. On Thursday's planning commission meeting, commissioners voted to approve rezoning the land from institutional use to multi-family residential.
Over the past 5 years, the area has been used to create the new Public Safety Complex, an educational tower for Lincoln Memorial University and a facility operated by the McNabb Center. KCDC has hosted several public comment meetings for residents to voice their concerns and ask questions about the proposed rezoning.
Ben Bently, the head of KCDC< said the surrounding community and the nonprofit want to find a way to preserve the historic site while redeveloping it. He said that while KCDC is not in the process of finding a developer, the community's input helps ensure that any redevelopment complements the area.
"We had a big community meeting at Fulton High School in 2023. We heard that housing was a priority — improving connectivity to Fulton High School, maybe some additional open space and a dog park. So those are the things we're trying to accomplish: working with the neighborhood, listening and then approaching developers that might be able to deliver on those goals and objectives," he said.
For Michelle Ivester, the Oakwood Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association President, those meetings helped correct any misinformation she and her neighbors had.
"KCDC was kind enough to come to our meeting Monday so that neighbors who had any concerns or questions could ask them at that time and have them resolved hopefully. We are very happy with the result. A lot of the neighbors left very relieved. We are very supportive of responsible development," she said.
Bentley said it would take a while before any construction would start. The next step is to have the rezoning plan approved by the Knoxville City Council before work to find a developer can start.