Continuing the rebirth of downtown Knoxville, the City of Knoxville in partnership with private development, is bringing baseball back to the downtown core with a public multi-use stadium, notably named Covenant Health Park after the region’s premier healthcare provider. The robust redevelopment includes a multi-use stadium, with surrounding restaurant, retail, residential space and public plazas, revitalizing the historic Old City neighborhood and serving as a catalyst for continued mixed-use development in the area.
The year-round stadium will be the home of the MiLB Knoxville Smokies baseball team and the USL1 One Knox SC soccer team, seating around 7,000 for sports events and up to 10,000 people for festivals and concerts. The seating bowl will feature branded fan amenities, with luxury boxes, picnic pavilions, and an outdoor restaurant and bar for an elevated game-day experience.
The design reflects the local historic neighborhood using brick, stone, and steel. The Club level features exposed cross-laminated timber (CLT), leveraging sustainable construction methods while bringing in the warmth of the region’s natural landscape. The local feeling is continued in the connections to the greenway, directly behind the Tennessee-shaped scoreboard and an aesthetic water tower paying homage to the city’s early 1900’s city skyline. The entry plazas, new pedestrian bridge and streetscape improvements will connect the new venue to the rest of downtown, offering safe, welcoming pedestrian pathways as the area continues to grow.
Challenging Foundations
Located in a previous warehouse district, this project is situated on a brownfield site that required heavy lifting from the start of construction to mitigate contaminated soil and adequately prepare the site for foundations. During soil excavation, the team discovered and demolished over 5,000 tons of natural rock, which required additional drilling and extended the timeline for site work by three months. Despite the schedule and budget challenges, the team successfully prepped the site with clean topsoil and a solid foundation for steel construction to begin on schedule.
Barton Malow is an association partner with Denark Construction and Elite Diversified Construction, Inc. on this catalyst project.
