Now that the sale of the property has closed, Lenoir City resident Diane Powell has big things planned for the old Waller Building that borders Broadway, A and Depot streets.
Powell said the closure occurred about a week ago, and she can’t wait to finally get started on upgrades to the 15,000-square-foot historical property.
“So, we have been working on our proposal, working with Knox Heritage, working with banks, working with lining up contractors and that sort of thing for the last year,” she said. “... I cannot wait to actually start getting in there and really making progress.”
Interior demolition is projected to begin in June, Powell said.
“As soon as I can get the insides demolished — and when I say demolished I’m talking about taking down the 1960s, 1970s paneling, the old mechanical system,” Powell said. “We’re not taking down any of the plaster walls or anything like that now. There’s a lot of windows there on A Street that I just can’t wait to open, to let light start coming into that building again.”
The goal behind renovations is to “honor the past” but still support the future with local businesses. Powell said she intended to hold true to the building’s history, but the dated infrastructure would need to be replaced with new electrical, air conditioning and plumbing.
Meeting requirements on sprinkler systems and the Americans with Disabilities Act will need to be completed, she said.
“We want to create this place in a way that it will be there for the next 100 years,” Powell said. “And it will be preserved well because the last — I would say last 40 years or so have been really hard on this building with very little upkeep and just the mechanicals and things are in bad shape, so everything’s got to be tended to.”
Work on the historical building, which has been around since the early 1900s, is part of the rehabilitation timeline and protective covenants set forth by Knox Heritage and East Tennessee Preservation Alliance.
Kim Trent, executive director with Knox Heritage, said Powell will have until July 31 to examine and correct all “major structural issues” and complete the first level of interior work to make the space “inhabitable.”
Trent said financing will need to be in place by Aug. 31, and by Dec. 31, 2016, most of the second level’s interior work will need to be completed in addition to installation of mechanical electrical and plumbing systems. Overall, rehabilitation should take 18-20 months.
“For the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance and Knox Heritage, it’s our mission to save historic properties, and a lot of times when you sell a property you’re not sure what’s going to happen,” she said. “So it’s a tool that’s used all across the country by preservation groups to put these easements in place and that makes sure the property’s never torn down, and it ensures that a new owner won’t just buy the property and hold it and just let it to continue to deteriorate.”
Powell has no intention to let the property deteriorate and instead wants to use the building as a food market on the first level. She said she hopes to have vendors provide different kinds of food, and a “large common seating area” will be available for people to eat.
“For example, maybe a barbecue vendor, and I’d really like to have a wood fire pizza vendor, coffee, ice cream, that sort of thing,” Powell said. “And what I want to use that also is for people that want to start a small business but don’t have everything to invest in a whole restaurant, so we want to sort of use it as a incubator for small businesses or small restaurant startups.”
The second level, which Powell said was an old dance hall in the 1940s, will likely be used for events in the community once rehabilitation has been finished.
“The second floor hasn’t been used since the 1950s, so that’s why we’re really excited with opening that up again and sharing that with the community because it is an amazing space and people are really going to enjoy that,” Powell said.
Powell said she hopes the purchase will create a domino effect in the area, where other people will begin to see “the potential in these old buildings and start to reclaim them.”
Lenoir City Assistant Administrator Amber Scott said she believes Powell’s intention to renovate the Waller Building could create more buzz for downtown.
“You’ve got to find something that you cannot find on Highway 321,” Scott said. “You have to have a Highway 321. It’s a successful (corridor). It’s commercial, the bright lights and all that, the big chain stores. But it’s also important to have your unique historical artistic cultural spaces downtown, and that’s what we want, and I think that’s what she’s going to do.”
