There may be issues at Clarence Brown, but parking is not one. Patrons park free in the garage at Humanities Tower and walk across the plaza to CBT. -- s.

At this point keeping the WFP green space is preferable to me.

I was in Savannah for the first time a few weeks ago. The regular spacing of green parks in the historical district is outstanding.

Here my first move might be to regularly schedule things in the parks throughout Knoxville, and Knox County. Rotate something to each park. Starting in spring, almost on a weekly basis.

They do not have to be huge or elaborate or hours long events. Music performances using school (college and high school) performers and local artists, plays, older movies, a couple of Seinfeld, Andy Griffith, The Honeymooners, etc. episodes, . If you think it will have a small crowd, put in a small park. Match the event to the parks size as best you can initially. Monitor it closely for the first year to see what logistical tweaking needs to be done.

Use all the parks that have enough space for say 50 people or more. Once the event is full stop allowing entry the first year and use that information to move that event to a larger venue in the future.

Use all parks in the area and include WFP in that rotation.

A couple of things and some questions:

1) Everyone seems to like the idea of the amphitheater in WFP, but it is grossly underutilized, even in the temperate months. Is anyone pushing this venue or does it need to be re-thought?
2) Is the old convention and exhibition space (under and behind the Holiday Inn) currently in use? If so, by whom?
3) To look at it, Henley Street looks like any other urban divided street. Yet, it has become an impermeable barrier between Downtown and WFP and UT. I'm not sure I've ever seen another major urban street, anywhere, which has every building's back turned to the street as if it doesn't exist. Until the issue of "Henley Street barrier" is addressed in a major way, and in conjunction with WFP itself, the area cannot become truly usable.
4) Overall, a fresh look at how WFP figures into the Downtown space would be really valuable.
5) When people start throwing out terms like "cultural center," they've clearly got something in mind that isn't being stated. I'm all ears.

Here's the city's Monday press release about this:

TEAM TO EXPLORE CULTURAL CENTER AT WORLD’S FAIR PARK

Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero announced today that the City of Knoxville in cooperation with The University of Tennessee will explore possibilities to enhance World’s Fair Park as a center for cultural resources.

Mayor Rogero has appointed Bill Lyons, Deputy to the Mayor and Chief Policy Officer, to co-chair a working group with Jan Simek, Distinguished Professor of Science in the Anthropology Department at UT. The group, which will consist largely of World’s Fair Park stakeholders, will determine feasibility and support of the concept.

The meetings will be open to the public.

Working Group Members

Co-Chairs: Bill Lyons and Jan Simek
Christi Branscom, Senior Director of Public Works, City of Knoxville
Jenny Banner, Community and UT Arts Supporter
Nick Cazana, Holiday Inn at World’s Fair Park
David Butler, Knoxville Museum of Art
Scott Rabenold, University of Tennessee
Calvin MacLean, Clarence Brown Theatre
Becky Ashe, Knox County Schools
Mary Bogert, Knoxville Convention Center
Marianne Greene, The Foundry

Working Group Staff

Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC)
Jayne Burritt, ­Public Building Authority (PBA)
Joe Walsh, Knoxville Parks and Recreation Department
Chip Barry, City of Knoxville
Ashley Capps, AC Entertainment

I emailed to ask "what is a center for cultural resources?" The mayor's office replied:

The idea is to look for ways to capitalize on what’s already there – the museum, the park, the outdoor performance space – and see if there are other things that can be brought into the mix.

As long as it's free, events should do well. Free as in free events and free parking. Folks are flocking more and more to free events, have been for the last few years, but if you want any people other than the UT associated population to attend, think free.

City of Knoxville and World's Fair Park leaders will meet Tuesday evening to discuss the future of Knoxville's most iconic park.

The meeting is scheduled for today at 5:30PM. It will be held at Windows on the Park at the Holiday Inn World's Fair Park

and that is what is the most galling aspect of these puny press releases, if the city is already hooked to build or bond issue for a new theatre for the UT Theatre Department, then go ahead and announce that, there is no need to futz around under the disguise of public input (we can count the number of UT people, UT Benefactors on the list)and then end up where you started in the beginning.

The Tennessee Theatre is much more condusive to live performances than the Clarence Brown Theatre is and the theatre, as constructed, was not capable for expansion or wholesale modernization as technology and production systems changed. The CBT is a phenominal teaching theatre, however, for productions or any traveling broadway performances, it lags behind other available venues in Knoxville.

Look at the pending trainwreck in Nashville with the relatively young Symphony Centre.

The pooch of Fair Site Redevelopment has been screwed twice, Victory Ashe mucked it up when he had a chance to build a minor league baseball stadium downtown (much akin to what Memphis and Chattanooga did, Nashville did it twice with a football stadium and an arena (may do it again with a baseball stadium) and Doug Dickey screwed the big orange pooch when he had a chance to build Thompson Boling on the world's fair site, but he wanted it on campus, where there was literally no parking and the big box sat adjacent to the railroad, Neyland Drive, and the freeking river. Glad that doofus is hopefully gone for good.

Glad the city of Knoxville has all of this theatrical interest, money, and artistic creativity to throw around, they don't do much else anymore, some police, fire, steets, and parks, and that's about it.

UT could be asked to make a gesture of good faith before it is allowed to get involved in any sort of development on WFP.It could promise to leave the houses over on White alone.

If it did that, perhaps negotiations could begin in earnest, if they haven't already.

This is another condition I just thought of, and it's fabulous: UT should provide a rendering of every house it has torn down for its expansion in Ft. Sanders (and this includes the South side of Cumberland Ave, before it was Ft Sanders, per se), which means those on Circle Park and the surroundings, for an educational exposition on urban expansion.

The City ought to provide similar depictions of the neighborhoods demolished to give us the Coliseum, the Civic Auditorium and Historic Preservation Driveway to Hell.

Hey, for a museum experience, did anyone save at least one of the bricks from each of those homes and businesses? Because, if they did, that would be a fabulous tactile exercise to put on WFP: "Hey, kids, Here's everything we gutted to get where we are now."

on the working groups, largest group was the University related people and their benefactors,more government, non profit, university, city of Knoxville, Knox County Schools, probably a pretty logical explanation why there is nothing of any substance other that the Knoxville Museum of Art on the World's Fair Site 31 years after it closed.

Since the World's Fair Site was closed in 1982, Chattanooga has built not one but two aquariums downtown, a children's science center, a downtown minor league baseball stadium, fully restored their Tivoli Theatre (yes they have a Wurlitzer organ too),and restored a number of downtown venues, expanded their downtown museums,electrified their downtown bus service, built a usable, affordable, and fully utilized convention center, attached to an existing hotel, and somehow allowed EPB to stretch a public access high speed fiber optic network completely across Chattanooga and Hamilton County.

Much of that was accomplished by involving the private sector business people in Chattanooga, not the government heads or the public sector education heads and the not for profit survivalists.

Same thing happens in Memphis and Nashville, but in Knoxville, if you're not on the public, government, or the non profit payroll, you just don't fit in anymore.