The Meaning of The Candy Factory (Page 1 of 2)

When the Knoxville Museum of Art was interviewing architects for its new building to be sited in World's Fair Park, I suggested to one of the selection committee members that they contact Frank Gehry. Having just completed the wildly innovative Weisman Museum in Minneapolis, Gehry's star was on the rise. A signature building of his in downtown Knoxville, literally in the shadow of the Sunsphere, would guarantee Knoxville's place on the architectural tourism map. My advice, however, was rejected and the committee chose Edward Larrabee Barnes, a modernist with considerable museum experience and a more conservative design approach.

Barnes began with a site plan that carefully reflected the physical and programmatic context of the site. The proposed museum had a footprint and massing similar to its historic neighbor, the 80-year-old publicly-owned Candy Factory, which housed Knoxville's visitor center, art galleries, art, theater and music workspaces, and meeting rooms freely available to a diversity of community groups. A landscaped courtyard between the two buildings was provided to accommodate outdoor events in a shaded, semiprivate setting. As one might expect of a good architect, Barnes envisioned the two buildings and outdoor space as part of a master plan to consolidate the art-related buildings on what was, in effect, the front lawn of the city.

In September 2004 the new city administration issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the redevelopment and/or adaptive reuse of the Candy Factory, seven Victorian Houses, Sunsphere and Tennessee Amphitheater. The process included a solicitation of comments from citizens about the potential reuse of these structures and a public meeting to review the suggestions. The comments revealed a near-consensus that the Candy Factory should remain functionally what it had been for over two decades: a center for the arts and a public gathering place.

At the conclusion of the RFP process, the city selected the proposal of Kinsey Probasco Hays and Associates (KPH) which supposedly offered the "most comprehensive and financially beneficial proposal" for all the park structures. The KPH development agreement for the Candy Factory, approved by city council, provided for a "restaurant/lounge and/or retail space, designated arts and art-related galleries, working studios, a residential component, and/or such other uses as the city approves in writing." The property would be sold to KPH at a favorable price.

To critics of the deal, there were three glaring problems: the public process itself, the low sale price of the properties, and the novel use of eminent domain to acquire public buildings and land for private development.

In what was called an open process, the city solicited public opinion but ignored the overwhelming sentiment, expressed verbally and in writing, to preserve public use of the Candy Factory. At an April 2005 meeting organized by an ad-hoc group that became known as Save the Candy Factory, the city informed over 60 concerned citizens that the project to redevelop the building was "a done deal" even before the agreement with the developer had been approved by city council or the KCDC redevelopment plan prepared. At the legally mandated KCDC public hearing where opposition to the plan was unanimously voiced, not a single KCDC commissioner was present to hear the evidence.

As a response to the considerable media attention that the proposed sale had attracted, the mayor and city council began to construct specious arguments about how much the ownership and operation of the building was costing taxpayers (in part due to deferred maintenance over the years). Save the Candy Factory presented its own estimates of the fiscal and social costs of divestment but its arguments fell, as expected, on deaf ears.

While negotiations had already begun to remove and relocate some of the tenants to leased properties around the city, no provision had been made to find alternate meeting space for the 170 community groups that had called the building home. In a conciliatory move to mitigate the damage, the developer agreed to provide two rooms (net 3,150 square feet) of new meeting space in the basement of the Emporium on Gay Street which the city would lease for $15,750 per year. (That space fell far short of the net 8,950 square feet previously available on the second, sixth and seventh floors of the Candy Factory.)