A petition has been started to let the church know that the buildings have many supporters.

(link...)

MPC just voted to allow St. John's to demo the buildings.

If I understood correctly, there may be an appeal to City Council.

I don’t like seeing history reduced to rubble. That said, these efforts seem like they would be better started with the purchase of the property, than at a meeting about their demolition. How did the church acquire the property? Was it a purchase or donation to the church? When did the church take possession?

There probably have been people at work on this, but this is the first in a long time I’ve seen anything about it. And this from MP;

However, one apparent surprise to both sides was announced by MPC staffer Mike Reynolds, who got word from the state this morning that 710 Walnut, in particular, is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

For a local matter warranting the kind of attention it’s getting today, I’d think that would be information somebody would have known locally. Better yet, why is it historic?

It's definitely a neat building. I used to dream of turning the third floor into a condo and the lower floors into offices. :-)

And if it's a burden to St. Johns, it's because of their neglect.

If this guy is so important, how come I never heard of him?

a very large “pro-downtown” and very diversified congregation has vetted this issue and has made a decision

Really? The entire congregation has had input to this decison? Not what I've been hearing from folks I know who attend.

it is time for outsiders to stop whimpering about the buildings that most folks do not even notice or that the downtown developers had no interest in procuring themselves.

If St. John's put those buildings on the market, they'd be snapped up by "downtown developers" in a second.

Mr. Johns may be "one of the very few in the country that holds accredited graduate degrees in both business (MBA) and public administration (MPA)" but he seems to not have all his facts straight.

Rachel Craig, M.S., M.S.P. :)

P.S. Turns out I HAVE heard of him. Some googling tells me that he's the guy who first suggested that Farragut require guns in every home.

(link...)

Let 'em know what you think.

Thank God it wasn't the Catholic Church that tore them down. The outrage would be magnitude X100.

Btw, the above comment is snark. For the record: I hoped St. John's would preserve these buildings. They were cool, classic buildings that could have been turned into any of the things so many people have already dreamed of and talked about here and lots of other discussions. I am sorry they chose the course of action they did, and I wonder why they are so silent about it. What would be so hard about talking to your surrounding community and just saying, "Look, this is why we are doing/ have done this." No, they don't owe anybody an explanation, but if I am going to blow something up in my community, I would be an asshole not to try to communicate with the people who don't want me to blow it up.

But I gotta say, some of the reactions and comments to this thing are disproportionate to the loss. I mean, like, I'm reading stuff online that sounds totally crazy. Like, what God thinks, how God is angry now. The parishioners are terrible people who do no good in the world. The rain on Saturday was tears from Heaven. The 1961 near-atomic explosion over North Carolina (reported in KNS over the weekend) happened on Saturday to these two buildings at the behest of St. John's. I am paraphrasing some of that, but people have said all those things, and repeated the same themes over and over again.

One of my FB friends said she cried all day. WTF? If the Tennessee Theater burned down, I would be the first to dress in black and walk behind a funeral cortege and I would be crying like a baby. I understand how precious some of our buildings downtown are to us. And like I said, I really wish St. John's hadn't done this; they were pretty dickish about it. But this thing has caused a level of outrage that I just don't understand. I'm reading hate where hate isn't justified.

In my opinion, did you really expect any other result other than the church doing what the church wanted?

Seriously?

City of Knoxville had no problem letting the old buildings be torn down, they have no problem letting a major economic engine within the city move from Broadway over to Middlebrook, creating additional decay, abandonment, and disuse within the city limits (they collect property taxes there anyway,not like it used to be), let's see what they do with the food trucks downtown and if they elect to protect the guilded few who have invested money in downtown Knoxville.

only posts at knoxblab. I don't believe The City has made an appearance here so we really don't know what The City has problems with.