re: Cumberland Avenue - Knoxville

horrible job you and I could have done a better design job

Yeah, I noticed they added sidewalks, some turning lanes and planted some trees but for 17 million I was kinda expecting more...but yeah, it does look better than before. Needs more good restaurants

I like it. Fayetteville is working out the details of a road-diet and revamping of College Avenue here.

College Ave isn't the "main drag" leading to the university campus, that's Dickson, and it's been gentrified for two decades, but College Ave is the old "main st" in Fayetteville. They've done a few sections with sidewalks, classic lighting, burying powerlines, etc, but they are gearing up to do the entire strip thru Fayetteville, maybe 8 miles worth.

Here's e recently done section:

Befo'



After

**I added a few photos of the Student Housing projects to my post above to give everyone more of a visual as to what's going on in the area**

I was really happy to see the Power lines go. They single handedly made that area look twice as bad it would have been without them. Most of the 17 million the city donated for the project was just for basic infrastructure needs/upgrades. That's how bad/neglected it had gotten.

The Powerlines were ran underground, they re-ran/upgraded the pipes/drainage running under Cumberland, repaved everything, tore out the old sidewalks and expanded them, added new light fixtures, added the brick stamped cross walks, added benches and true bus stop drop offs/pickups and finally introduced some more greenery. I wish they would have been given another 17 million for a few other items, but it's still a major improvement to what we had. It's still going to take a little bit of time to get all the vendors and entertainment venues back, but it's a start. For the first time in my life Cumberland adds to the downtown experienceboth aesthetically and with entertainment and poses as a nice gateway to our actual downtown just up the street. Could it be nicer? Sure, but I'm still excited with what they've done.

I see a lot of the same problems with above ground power lines, etc in some of your pictures, but I think Fayettville has done a great job at setting its downtown apart from a lot of the other areas in the conference based off what I've seen posted on here. I still haven't made it out there yet, but I'm excited to make the trip and drink some cold ones one day.

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College Avenue

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Damn those pictures of College Ave present-day. That level of traffic would have been gameday traffic 15 years ago, now its just average evening/daytime traffic. Too damn many people in this little city.

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This sort of reminds me of West Campus in Austin, on a smaller scale, with all the new student housing blocks. Fayetteville's never really coalesced around a particular street or area. There's a handful of those types of midrises all over the downtown area, though. Too many, in my humble opinion.

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I've never been to Austin, but looking at some of the images of West Campus on google there is a resemblance for what they've got built and what we're trying to do. Obviously on a smaller scale, but I see what you're saying. There's been a lot of excitement around downtown over the last few years on campus and in downtown proper with all of the growth. I think there's something like 6 different cranes spread out over the different areas of downtown right now working on new ground up construction. Exciting times for us up here.