The Riverwalk at the Bridges construction site, as seen from the Gay Street Bridge earlier this week
As you drive across the Gay Street Bridge, or take the boat out on the river past Volunteer Landing, you can't help but notice that the Riverwalk at the Bridges luxury apartments are going up on the former Baptist Hospital site.
And a complete renovation of a former medical office building is underway, gradually remaking it into the new world headquarters for Regal Entertainment Group.
So you may be wondering: What's the timetable for completion?
"The Regal headquarters is anticipated to open in September, and the Riverwalk at the Bridges residential units are expected be completed by early 2018," says Dawn Michelle Foster, the City’s Redevelopment Director.
Last year, the City of Knoxville’s Industrial Development Board (IDB) bought the nine-story empty office building at the foot of the Gay Street Bridge for $6 million from Southeastern Development Associates (SEDA).
Within a half a year, the 178,000-square-foot building – vacant since 2008 – will have completed an approximate $12 million transformation into a world-class corporate headquarters for one of the world’s largest movie theater operators. More than 400 Regal Entertainment Group employees will work in the building, creating a strong anchor linking the South Waterfront commercial corridor along Sevier Avenue with downtown proper, just across the river.
Meanwhile, right next door, SEDA's $60 million Riverwalk at the Bridges luxury apartments will house up to 600 residents and boast a 1,100-foot-long public riverwalk and a 37,500-square-foot public plaza at the Henley Bridge.
There's a third leg to the redevelopment stool. When University Housing Group finishes a $35 million Riverfront Station apartment complex to the west of Henley Bridge, by early 2019, the South Waterfront near the two bridges will be home to more than 1,000 new residents in what's now a blighted, vacant tract.
“It's exciting to see the Regal Entertainment Group headquarters getting closer to completion, at the same time that the Riverwalk at the Bridges apartments are going vertical," Foster says. "This area soon will be a really great place to live, work, and visit.”
- Communications intern Jarrod Nelson
