Thanks to Jesse and Scott at Compass Knox for alerting us all to this. It seems ole Gannett wants to shed ownership of “the Big Metal Shed on the Hill” also known as the Knox News aka “the daily paper” building. When ole Civil Right Violator Victor Ashe was Mayor he cut a deal to move “the daily paper” from downtown to the hill out of Western Avenue. It was the last major employer to leave downtown and took a few hundred lunchtime consumers from downtown. Downtown would be a ghost town of such until Mayor Bill Haslam, Mayor Dan Brown and Mayor Madeline Rogero would begin the Downtown resurgence.
Moving “the daily paper” out to Western and Middlebrook was the last of the big urban sprawl moves. But, let us all remember that Ashe annexed from the the West Knox County line to the East Knox County line, scarfing up all the sales tax revenue he could, take for example the Northshore Town Center that sits near the Knox/Blount County line but it is in the City of Knoxville.
So, the City taxpayers provided a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) for this building, BUT now Gannett wants to sell it and do a 10 year lease back. So, could a reasonable man conclude that in ten years aka decade, there will be no “the daily paper” news operation. Anyway, if you have $7.5 million and want to be the landlord of the “the daily paper” for ten years. This deal may be for you.
But to all you city taxpayers, I guess that PILOT you gave them for all those jobs and additional revenue just never materialized, so on behalf of me, myself and I, I am sorry y’all got screwed.
