City gives go-ahead to Knox OnCore's golf investment
March 20, 2024, 4:26 p.m.

KNOXVILLE - Knoxville City Council has given its go-ahead to a nine-year tax incentive requested by Mayor Indya Kincannon. This will allow Knox OnCore to invest more than $30 million and transform an abandoned North Knoxville industrial site into a golf-themed family entertainment amenity.

The 40,000-square-foot ShotClub Social entertainment center will include about 60 golf driving bays, a 36-hole miniature golf course, a restaurant, an arcade and duckpin bowling.

The facility would be built over about 10 acres east of Interstate 275 and north of West Fifth Avenue, adjacent to Second Creek. The redevelopment project will include a cleanup of the contaminated and long-vacant PSC Metals site.

Reactivating the dormant site will create 200 to 250 full- and part-time jobs, the owners have said.

“There were some skeptics when the City invested $5.5 million to overhaul an underdeveloped commercial corridor here a few years back,” Mayor Kincannon said. “Much of the area improved through the I-275 Business Park Access Improvements Project was blighted, empty or inaccessible. People wondered: Would private investment follow the City’s lead?

“The answer is yes! This is a great example of what local government alone can do: We can strategically invest in key public infrastructure and set the table for collaborative public-private investment and job creation.”

Between summer 2020 and May 2022, contractor crews completely redesigned and modernized the I-275 Business Park corridor. The intent of the project, which was 80 percent federally funded, was to open up the roughly 60-acre corridor to encourage new business investment, which in turn would create jobs.

Crews with Jones Brothers Contractors built a 1,100-foot-long extension of Blackstock Avenue, connecting West Fifth Avenue and Bernard Avenue.

A 1,600-foot-long section of Marion Street between Bernard and Baxter avenues was improved, along with a 650-foot-long section of Baxter, between I-275 and the railroad tracks by Second Creek.

Marion was realigned from Dameron Avenue to Baxter Avenue, and the intersections of Fifth Avenue and Blackstock Avenue, Marion Street and Bernard Avenue, and Marion Street and Baxter Avenue were also upgraded.

The new Marion Street features two 11-foot-wide lanes, with stormwater infrastructure, 5-foot-wide sidewalks and a 10-foot multipurpose trail from West Fifth Avenue to Bernard Avenue.

Rebekah Jane Justice, the City’s Chief of Urban Design and Development, noted that the corridor is part of the larger North Central redevelopment area – and other notable investments have included the City’s $6 million Central Street Streetscapes improvements and numerous multi-million-dollar private office and commercial projects.

“We are collaborating with the developers, KCDC, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and the state Department of Environment and Conservation to bring this blighted property back to life,” Justice said.

“By addressing and fulfilling numerous key development priorities for the city with the project – activation of a blighted property, environmental remediation of a brownfield site, job creation, community-serving programming, and investment along a corridor – ShotClub Social is a win for this redevelopment area.”