Blog: South Waterfront Blog

New Homes, Different Architectural Styles: Sevier Avenue ‘Feels Like a Second Downtown’

Joshua Henson isn’t your typical builder.

A few years ago, the University of Tennessee business management graduate was earning his livelihood selling specialty medical products.

But Henson loves old homes. He’d remodeled a couple of stately but dilapidated houses on Sevier Avenue – and he was hooked.

“It was totally taking them down to the studs and doing them the right way,” he says. “You take something that’s been neglected for 25 or 30 years, and bring it back – you want to let it stand out.”

So Henson is now a full-time small-scale small developer, building six townhouses at Dixie Street and Phillips Avenue.

Check out the natural wood siding, the interesting architectural details and the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Joshua Henson is building six townhouses at Dixie Street and Phillips Avenue.

Joshua Henson is building six townhouses at Dixie Street and Phillips Avenue.

“They have really big windows – lots of natural light,” says Henson, who likes his townhouses so much he’s moving into one of them as soon as it’s finished.

“I wanted these to blend in with the neighborhood,” he says. “When designing new construction, it’s important to look at the future but also remember the past.”

Investing in and moving to South Knoxville are no-brainers, he says.

“There’s something about this area that people are drawn to,” Henson says. “It’s next to the river, next to Suttree Landing Park. Sevier Avenue has a slower feel to it, but it’s an easy 10-minute walk to downtown.”

A few blocks away, at Foggy Bottom Road and Phillips Avenue, are the 14 modern contemporary Foggy Bottom Flats townhouses.

Foggy Bottom Flats at Foggy Bottom Road and Phillips Avenue - 14 modern contemporary townhouses

Foggy Bottom Flats at Foggy Bottom Road and Phillips Avenue - 14 modern contemporary townhouses

Like Henson, architect and Foggy Bottoms Flats co-owner Brett Honeycutt appreciates the uniqueness of the Old Sevier neighborhood and potential of Sevier Avenue.

“The area is up and coming – it feels like a second downtown,” Honeycutt says. “The South Waterfront Vision Plan is coming to fruition.”

Another view of Foggy Bottom Flats

While Honeycutt and Henson each have built about a dozen living units near Sevier Avenue, the big developer in the neighborhood is Dominion Group.

By the time it’s finished, Dominion will have invested $77 million and built more than 480 apartments plus 3,500 square feet of retail space in South Knoxville.

Dominion began with River’s Edge apartments and riverwalk near the Island Home neighborhood, just to the east. Currently, the City South mixed-use development on Sevier Avenue is nearing completion, and the South Banks apartment complex, off Waterfront Drive, is proposed to come next.

“South Knoxville is unique, a place everybody wants,” Dominion President Peter Hall says. “It’s close to downtown, you can walk and bike. … Sevier Avenue has all the fun stuff that people like to do.

“We see the beginnings. It definitely has momentum. It can be something really special.”

Here are two mid-February views of the City South development under construction... imagine how it will look once the utility lines and poles are relocated underground!

City South - February 2021

Posted by evreeland On 18 February, 2021 at 11:42 AM