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

Following a heated city council discussion, an agreement was signed in August 2005 to sell the Candy Factory for $1,612,020. Deducting the tax-increment financing (TIF) provided for the project, the cost to the developer was $212,020 or $2.65 per square foot. (The Victorian Houses were sold, together with an adjacent empty lot, for $215,580 or $30,797 per house.)  The agreement, however, was originally drafted and approved without a formal appraisal of the properties. When this was pointed out by city council members, an appraisal was quickly prepared in which the Candy Factory was valued at $1.4 million, the precise amount of the TIF.

Then, in a novel use of eminent domain powers, council asked KCDC to prepare a Redevelopment and Urban Renewal Plan for the west side of World’s Fair Park, and declare the area blighted. After the plan was approved by city council, KCDC seized the Candy Factory and Victorian Houses from their owner — the City of Knoxville — and delivered them to the predetermined buyer, Kinsey Probasco Hays.

Imagine the federal government divesting itself of office buildings, post offices and parks to suit developers and increase its tax base, the state divesting itself of courthouses, regional offices and college classrooms to make room for student condos, or the county selling off its libraries, health clinics or jails for tax-generating big box shopping centers. That can now happen under the 2005 United States Supreme Court ruling (Kelo vs. The City of New London) which gives broad authorization to state and local governments to seize properties, not just for public use (roads, parks and public buildings), but for the so-called public good of private economic development. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated in her dissenting opinion, "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

The final touches are now being put on the residences that have replaced the shops, galleries, meeting rooms, assembly rooms, art studios and performance spaces that made the Candy Factory a convenient and joyful gathering place and provided the context for Ed Barnes' master plan. A few of the units, sold once in auction, are up for sale again even before they are finished — at prices of over $250 per square foot (nearly 100 times the sale price of the building). In the wake of this speculative windfall, Knoxville is now papered in redevelopment and urban renewal plans that declare blight in order to prepare the way for additional seizures of public and private properties, endangering neighborhoods that have nothing wrong with them except their affordability.

Led by a small cadre of engaged individuals, the noble, difficult, and ultimately failed campaign to save the building was one act in the long and contentious drama to hold elected officials accountable for their decisions. Trusting them to protect public use from predatory development has proven illusory, underscoring the limits of progressive organizing and the need for broader coalitions and more militant challenges to power.

Michael Kaplan is Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Winner of the American Institute of Architects Education Honors Award in 1991, he lectures and writes on cultural aspects of architecture and design.