Knox County commissioners are set to vote August 31 on a fifth amendment to the development agreement governing the historic Andrew Johnson Building on Gay Street, putting a hard December 31, 2026 deadline on when developer BNA Associates must start construction on the long-delayed hotel conversion. The agreement's current due date has already passed, and if the company misses the new one, the county's contract allows it to reclaim the 18-story building and search for a new developer.
The stakes and the timeline were laid out in an exclusive report from the Knoxville News Sentinel, which detailed how BNA Associates needs the updated agreement in hand to close its financing. Philip Welker, cofounder of BNA Associates, told the paper the company is approaching the start of demolition and that the project will continue as planned, with a fall 2026 construction start now targeted. “The new timeline updates the development agreement and brings it into compliance,” Welker said, according to the outlet's report.
Welker also struck a philosophical note about the years of slippage. “These projects take a long time and depend on many people doing what they promise,” he said, per the same account. Chris Caldwell, chief financial officer and co-chief of staff for Knox County, is among the officials tied to the deal moving through commission.
A Sale, A Pandemic, and Years of Slipped Deadlines
Knox County officially conveyed the building to BNA Associates affiliate Americana Knoxville, LLC, on August 1, 2022, for $6 million, according to WBIR. That sale followed a 2017 request for proposals aimed at returning the landmark to local tax rolls. The development agreement had already been amended four times between March 2021 and June 2022 before this proposed fifth change, WBIR reports.
Physical work on the site was initially held up while Knox County relocated its schools administration offices out of the building and into the TVA East Tower and Summer Place complex, a process that wrapped by late 2021, according to Compass. Knox County Schools had made the building its home since 1992. Since the property changed hands, the developer has pointed to the pandemic, related supply chain issues, and high interest rates as factors behind the slower-than-hoped timeline. Frustration boiled over in March 2024, when Knox County sent BNA Associates a formal letter threatening legal action to reclaim the building if construction didn't start within 90 days, per WBIR.
An internal renovation permit for the project requires a $15,000 payment and is currently waiting on that payment to move forward, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel's reporting. The hotel is now slated to open in 2028.
Music-Themed Design Plans Stay the Same
The hotel's design plans remain the same as what was most recently outlined in 2024, per the Knoxville News Sentinel. Updated interior plans for the 192-room, music-themed hotel call for a ground-floor restaurant, live music and event venues spanning the entire second floor, a rooftop bar overlooking the Tennessee River, and restoration of a long-removed marble staircase, according to a detailed account from Inside of Knoxville, which also reported on the layout changes prioritizing performance space.
BNA Associates operates through hotel management company Oliver Hospitality, which previously developed Knoxville's 28-room Oliver Hotel on Market Square, according to Hotel Business. The company's portfolio also includes the Fairlane Hotel in Nashville and the 156-room DoubleTree by Hilton Clarksville Riverview, which opened in 2024.
A Skyscraper Built for Country Music History
Designed by local architectural firm Baumann & Baumann in the Second Renaissance Revival style, the 203-foot, 18-story structure was completed in 1929 as Knoxville's tallest building, a title it held until 1979, when it was planned for conversion into office space, according to Wikipedia. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 9, 1980, and originally catered to downtown visitors and tourists headed to the Great Smoky Mountains.
During the late 1930s, the hotel's 17th floor housed the live radio broadcast studios of WNOX's Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, which helped launch country music legends including Roy Acuff and Chet Atkins, according to the City of Knoxville. The hotel also employed the city's first female hotel clerk. Over the decades it hosted an eclectic roster of guests, including aviator Amelia Earhart, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, jazz leader Duke Ellington, composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, singer Hank Williams, football coach Paul Bear Bryant, and King Hussein of Jordan, according to the Knoxville History Project.
That layered history is part of what has kept the building's fate a matter of civic attention through nearly a decade of stalled timelines. Whether BNA Associates can finally close its financing and break ground before the new deadline will determine if the Andrew Johnson Building's next chapter as a hotel actually begins, or if Knox County ends up back at square one looking for another developer.
