I hope you’ve had a chance to recover from “springing forward.” I do love the longer daylight hours, but the first day or so can be hard. Daylight Saving Time is observed in 70 countries around the world to increase productivity during daylight hours. In the U.S. it was officially adopted by the Federal Government in 1966 and is now controlled by the Department of Transportation. This year DST will revert to Standard Time on Nov. 6. Enjoy the long evenings!

Last week our recording numbers were down a bit in both lending and sales, but Knoxville is still doing great! And, with some big news from Amazon, we can hope that more and more people will move to our great county.

Nick McBride

The property transfers for the second week of March 2021 came to 259 in number with a grand total of $93.81 million dollars. Good news for the economy, we recorded more commercial transactions over $1 million than we have had in weeks. One of these is the gas station beside Rooms to Go and Auto Zone on Kingston Pike. This 1.08-acre lot changed hands from RIYA Petrol LLC to IJK Properties LLC for $1 million. I hear there’s a good food truck in the parking lot of this space that many of you have probably visited.

Another piece of property that sold was the retail center at 272 N. Peters Road in the Cedar Bluff area. This is next to Nama Restaurant on the corner of Cedar Bluff and North Peters. D/E Partners sold the center to OFAM HG IHA6 LLC for $4.1 million.

The best news of the week is that plans for the old Knoxville Center Mall have been solidified. We can now look for Amazon to be moving forward with their new Knoxville Delivery Station, which is the fifth in Tennessee. The property is now owned by ET Knoxville LLC after changing hands last week. Millertown Pavilion LLC sold their portion of the building and parking areas to ET Knoxville for $14.5 million. ET Knoxville LLC also purchased three of the former anchor stores and parking areas: Belk ($2 million), Dillard’s ($1.1 million) and Sears ($4.5 million). We can count ourselves lucky that so many companies think Knoxville is a great place to be.

The lending numbers for the week resulted in 632 loans equaling $174.11 million, which is great! The banks that funded loans over $1 million are listed here. The total includes all loans over $1 million for each bank.

  • First Century Bank – $1 million
  • FirstBank – $2.15 million
  • Mountain Commerce Bank – $2.2 million
  • ORNL FCU – $2.4 million
  • Renasant Bank – $3.06 million
  • First Citizens Bank & Trust – $4.64 million
  • Morgan Stanley Mortgage Capital Holdings – $21.87 million

It’s almost spring! Flowers and trees are blooming, and the days are warmer — something we can all be happy about. Let’s make it a great week!

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Nick McBride is register of deeds for Knox County.