• Community Facilities and Services

Community Facilities and Services

Public Schools
Sixteen public schools serve the sector. Although six of these are not located in the Central City, their service areas extend into the sector. Enrollment at the schools was 9,500 (academic year 2001-2002); their enrollment capacity has not been reached. There have been significant improvements in the last five years, including the opening of the new Christenberry Elementary School and improvements to the various magnet schools. The magnet school program has had a positive impact in maintaining student enrollment. Still, with a smaller than average student age population, enrollment is not anticipated to exceed school capacities for the next five years.

Three of the sector’s elementary schools were closed during the past few years, including Brownlow, Lincoln Park and Oakwood. Lincoln Park is now used an adult education center for vocational programs while Oakwood serves as a teacher support center. Brownlow is considered surplus property. A contract to sell the school for residential reuse is pending (as of January 2003). Other public education facilities include Old Knoxville High School, which still operates for adult educational purposes, and houses the Center School (an alternative high school), and Sam E. Hill School, which serves as a special education pre-school.

Libraries
The Central Sector is served by two branch libraries and the main library, Lawson-McGhee. The Murphy Branch is located in the Ross Building on Western Avenue. It began operating in 1990 and contains 2,175 square feet. Its circulation is the lowest of any library in the county, being less than 11,000 in FY 2001. The North Knoxville Branch, dating from 1963, also serves the sector. Located east of Broadway, its circulation was almost 52,000 in FY 2001. The Lawson-McGhee Library opened in 1971 and contains approximately 70,000 square feet. With nearly 500,000 items circulating annually, it accounts for almost one-third of the library system’s circulation.

Fire Protection, Emergency Medical Services, and Law Enforcement
Fire Protection: The Knoxville Fire Department (KFD) has sole responsibility for fire protection. In addition to its administrative headquarters, there are six KFD fire stations in the sector. Based on a nationally recognized scale from one (excellent) to ten, the Knoxville Fire Department has an Insurance Services Office rating of three, which is better than most cities of equal size.

Emergency Medical Services: Rural Metro, a private company, provides ambulance service based on a series of posts through which the mobile ambulance personnel respond. The Fire Department occasionally serves in a “first response” capacity until Rural Metro personnel arrive at an emergency scene.

Law Enforcement: The Knoxville Police Department, whose headquarters are in the Safety Building on Church Avenue, has jurisdiction in this sector. Six patrol beats overlap the Central Sector. The beats are patrolled by one-officer cars. Additionally there are walking beats in and around the downtown area, including the Old City, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and Market Square.

Parks and Recreation Facilities
The Knoxville Department of Parks and Recreation maintains a wide range of park resources including neighborhood and community parks, athletic fields and such special areas as Krutch Park and Sharps Ridge Memorial Park. The National Recreation Park Association refers to neighborhood and community parks as “close to home parks” and recommends that roughly 6 acres be provided per 1,000 residents. Excluding the number of UT dormitory students (who have access to a wide variety of recreational facilities on campus), the ratio for the Central Sector is approximately 3 acres per 1,000 residents.

While there are numerous parks in the Central City, most are relatively small. Thirteen of the neighborhood parks are less than 2 acres in size. Small parks cannot provide a broad range of activities and they absorb a larger share of maintenance costs in proportion to their size.

During the past 10 years there have been concerted efforts to improve parks. Playgrounds have been upgraded and unsafe apparatus such as old swings and seesaws have been removed. Improvements at Morningside, Harriet Tubman and West View Parks are exemplary. An extensive improvement program is underway at Caswell Park; the first phase involved the creation of a state of the art softball complex.

In addition to parks, there are nine recreation centers in the sector, including a few that serve senior citizens. These are generally small centers, however, and can be improved to meet community needs. Additionally, school grounds and athletic facilities serve the various neighborhoods. The system of greenway trails continues to grow. There are over five miles of asphalt bike trails, including those associated with the First Creek, Neyland and Third Creek Greenways.

Extensions to the greenway system have been major park and recreation achievements.

Lonsdale Recreation Center is small. With expansion, it could better meet community needs and recreation commission facility requirements.