$10M Tennessee Community Center Proposed

Emerald Youth Foundation plans to build a $10 million recreation and community center on a 10-acre city block in Lonsdale, a neighborhood that has been shaken by gang violence in recent years.

The facility, which would be built on parcels owned by the city and the county near Sam E. Hill preschool, would include two turf sports fields and a community center with meeting rooms, a gymnasium, learning center, fitness center, cafe and chapel.

Emerald President Steve Diggs called the proposal an "answered prayer" for a community that has been asking for a facility like this for more than a decade and said the foundation is executing a vision that belongs to the residents.

"We know it's a reality that this community has had its share of real problems for children and they have been innocently affected for just way too long, with too many sprayed bullets," Diggs said. "We've got to turn that around, we have to change it. This kind of project is one that not only serves the children, but it needs to bring hope, bring transformation to the community.

"It's going to light up the neighborhood."

Diggs said the foundation has a commitment for "a majority" of the $8 million it plans to raise, including commitments from the foundation's board of directors.

The city, meanwhile, will donate $1million in land it has acquired between Minnesota and Texas avenues and Sherman and Stonewall streets. The two turf fields would be built on that city block.

Mayor Madeline Rogero said she will also include in her budget proposal next week $1million in infrastructure improvements, including lighting and sidewalks along Texas Avenue. The county, meanwhile, will donate the parcel it owns next to Sam E. Hill Elementary for the community center and gymnasium.

The city is also considering a proposal to shut down the block of Minnesota Avenue that runs between the two properties to make it safer for children and provide more parking.

There is no specific timeline for construction, but Diggs said he hopes that by "at least by late 2018, we're in the facility on the property, with kids playing and having a good time."

The Knoxville City Council, Knox County Commission and Knox County school board will all have to approve the proposal.

The city has been acquiring the property it's donating for years, and most recently had plans to build affordable single-family owner-occupied housing, following a model set out by the federally backed HOPE IV project in nearby Mechanicsville. But while the city and other nonprofits have been working on infill building, facade improvements and energy efficiency remodels, the market hasn't been right for new housing, Rogero said.

When she learned the Emerald Youth Foundation was looking to build a new facility similar to the Sansom Sports Complex on 17th Street, Rogero said she reached out to discuss the Lonsdale land the city owned.

"I immediately thought, 'Wow, we have land that's available that's right across from where so many people live,'" Rogero said. "I had just been out, walking Lonsdale Homes with some of the neighbors, who talked about the needs.

"It just seemed like it would meet some of the demands and the needs of the community that they said they needed for recreation and safe places for the kids to go."

The neighborhood, which includes a large public housing complex, has been rattled by gang violence in recent years, including the high-profile death of Zaevion Dobson, a 15-year-old Fulton High School football player killed by gunfire while shielding his friends on a porch where they had been gathered. The slaying garnered national attention, including a tearful mention by then-President Barack Obama and earned Dobson a posthumous Arthur Ashe Courage Award at ESPN's annual ESPY awards in 2016.

Most recently, another 15-year-old, Xavier Shell, was hit by gang-related gunfire in the home of friends he was visiting in the neighborhood in late March, police said. The bullet lodged near his heart, and doctors told him it was too dangerous to have it removed.

The corner of the block even includes a memorial to 5-year-old Brittany Daniels, who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in 1996 while she was playing on the sidewalk outside her house. She, too, was caught in the crossfire of a bloody gang war, Knoxville police said at the time. The red-brick memorial, on the corner of Minnesota Avenue and Sherman Street, has since become a tribute to the whole family. Her father also died of gun violence, her mother of cancer and her younger brother, the celebrated high school basketball star Phillip "Tookie" Stanford, to suicide in 2012.

Diggs said the foundation will build around the existing memorial.

Much like in 1996, the most recent spurt of violence has left the community on edge and calling for the city and police to do more.

City officials announced a partnership last year with Overcoming Believers Church to build the Knoxville Change Center that would serve the community's young people, giving them a place to hang out and learn job skills. They broke ground on the facility, located just east of downtown, earlier this month.

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