Ben Bentley runs the agency in charge of building the next stretch of South Knoxville's riverfront, and even he has called the current state of riverfront dining "a travesty." He said as much this spring while explaining why Knoxville's Community Development Corporation is chasing developers for the 15 acres just downriver from South Banks. His point was simple: for a city with three miles of Tennessee River shoreline on the south side, there is exactly one restaurant close to downtown where you can sit and eat with the water in view.
That admission matters more than it sounds, because it came the same season a second option finally opened a few hundred yards away. Earl's served its first breakfast burrito at 610 Waterfront Drive in January, in a building that had sat empty since 2023. Three years is a long time for a riverfront storefront to sit dark in a neighborhood everyone agrees is growing. The reason it took that long says more about how South Knoxville actually develops than any grand opening ever could, and it tells you something worth knowing before the next 15 acres go through the same process.
Three Years in a Gray Box
The space Earl's now occupies was never leased out to a chain looking for a river view. Peter Hall, a Knoxville native who runs Dominion Development, built the standalone storefront because South Waterfront zoning required ground-floor retail as part of the South Banks apartment project. He and his business partner Mark Taylor always pictured something like a restaurant or coffee shop going in eventually. For a while, though, the building was just a box built to satisfy a code requirement, sitting next to a mural of the Curtis Glover asphalt tower on one side and Suttree Landing Park on the other, waiting for someone with a concept.
That someone turned out to be Jimmy Loup, who had recently moved his family and his restaurant career to Knoxville after building and selling a 25-location chain in Texas. Loup and his partner Jim Saunders already run Raven Steakhouse and Bella in Maryville. Together with Dominion, they built Earl's as fast-casual with a bar, not a white-tablecloth destination. Chef James Mott came over from the Maryville operation to run the kitchen, and general manager Claudio Silva keeps the counter-service model moving. The beer taps pour Xül and Yee-Haw, the coffee comes from Vienna Coffee Roasters, and the buns come from Quality Bakers, all regional names rather than national distributors. Inside, designer Bridgette Cassell of Haute Home worked with muralist Jessica Ramsey on wall art that mirrors the greens and blues of the river just outside the window.
None of that happened because the market demanded a restaurant on that corner in 2023. It happened because a building already existed, sitting empty, until the right two people walked into it.
Why the Retail Always Comes Last
South Knoxville's waterfront has been under some form of city plan since 2006, when Mayor Bill Haslam's administration adopted the original South Waterfront Redevelopment and Vision Plan. The city's own accounting puts more than $61 million in public investment and $400 million in private investment into the district as of early 2022, spanning mayoral administrations from Haslam through Madeline Rogero to Indya Kincannon today. Almost all of that money built housing first. Apartments like CitySouth went up. Alliance Brewing opened. South Banks itself added 230 units across 10 buildings on 7.9 acres before its own retail space had a tenant.
Retail space in a form-based code district gets built because the code requires it, not because a restaurant operator asked for it. That is a useful thing to understand if you live along Waterfront Drive and have wondered why a promising storefront can sit vacant for years. It is not a sign the neighborhood is stalling. It is a sign the sequence runs housing first, amenities later, on a timeline set by whoever eventually walks through the door with an idea.
Not every resident is comfortable with how fast the housing side of that sequence is moving. Near the Gay Street Bridge, which has been closed to car traffic since 2024 and now carries only foot and bike traffic, a proposed 220-unit complex for adults 55 and older drew pushback this spring. Resident Kathy Mahan told reporters the corner already carries too much with The Davy and 303 Flats nearby, calling the intersection "a death trap." The Kerbela Shriners, whose temple currently sits on that hill, are considering selling the site as their membership has declined. Whatever gets built there, the pattern holds: rooftops arrive on a faster schedule than the roads, crossings, and storefronts meant to serve them.
The Next 15 Acres Are Entering the Same Slow Lane
That pattern is about to repeat on a bigger scale. This spring, KCDC opened a Request for Qualifications for roughly 15 acres just downriver from Earl's, across the river from the University of Tennessee campus. The site runs 1,400 linear feet along the water and includes six parcels on West Blount Avenue and Scottish Pike, land that spent decades as light industrial space tied to the old Jefferson Woolen Mills. KCDC wants to preserve the 1948 Jefferson Mills Addition building as part of whatever comes next, and Bentley has said the finished project could top $200 million.
Here is the timeline that matters if you live nearby and want to know when to expect something you can actually walk to:
- Developers filed notice of intent to submit by July 7, 2026
- Full qualification submissions were due August 7, 2026
- KCDC expects to post a shortlist of finalist teams this month, September 2026
- Bentley has said a fully vetted development team and concept likely won't be in place until late this year or early 2027
- From there, roughly 12 months of design work and a permitting process still stand between a signed developer and a shovel in the ground
- Groundbreaking is not expected before late 2027 or early 2028
The site's biggest long-term draw is a planned $60 million pedestrian and bike bridge that would connect the property directly to the UT campus, giving South Knoxville a car-free route across the river for the first time. That bridge is part of the same Downriver Master Plan the Knoxville City Council approved earlier this year, the same plan that grew out of a South Waterfront Advisory and Advocacy Group formed back in 2023 with nearly 40 residents and business owners at the table. It is a real plan with real momentum behind it. It is also, by Bentley's own estimate, still more than a year from breaking ground even in the best case.
What This Means for Your Next Walk to Suttree Landing
None of this changes what is already good about a walk along the river today. Suttree Landing Park still anchors the neighborhood, Sevier Avenue still carries most of the food and beer traffic with spots like Kern's Food Hall drawing people in alongside the breweries that got there first, and the Urban Wilderness trail network is a few minutes away at Baker Creek Preserve and Ijams Nature Center. Earl's patio has quickly become the kind of place where you can grab a smashburger or sit with a laptop for an hour, the sort of unhurried spot the team behind it was clearly building toward.
What changes is how you read the next round of cranes and RFQs. When KCDC announces its shortlisted developer this month, that news will travel fast around the neighborhood, and it should. Just do not expect a restaurant, a coffee shop, or even a finished bridge to follow quickly behind it. The gray box that became Earl's took three years to find the right idea. The next 15 acres are entering that same waiting period now, on a timeline its own developer has already laid out in public.
If you are watching this stretch of river for reasons that go beyond where to eat tonight, from land near a growing corridor to how public investment shapes long-term value, Home and Farms Realty has spent years tracking how Southeast markets like this one actually move. Let's Connect when you are ready to talk through what a neighborhood in transition means for your own plans.
