Pigeon Forge’s Belle Island sale goes through

11/22/2011

A new owner has bought part of the Belle Island property in Pigeon Forge and is planning an attraction whose centerpiece will be a 200-foot skywheel.

LeConte Village LLC paid $10 million for the retail portion of Belle Island, an unfinished project near the Parkway that includes a steamboat-shaped museum shell and has been dormant since Regions Bank took the property at a foreclosure sale in 2009.

Darby Campbell, the Knoxville-based developer who has partnered with Bob McManus to spearhead the deal, said several potential tenants are looking at the project and predicted the eventual tenants would invest around $75 million.

Campbell said his group plans to demolish the steamboat building, which at one time was expected to house the Hollywood memorabilia collection of actress Debbie Reynolds.

Campbell said his group paid cash for the site, and expects to invest another $13 million in improvements, not counting the skywheel. He said the $13 million includes $5 million that will be provided by the city of Pigeon Forge for infrastructure improvements, including a road connecting the Parkway, and a planned $45 million event center that also will be developed by Campbell and McManus.

Campbell estimated the island attraction will open in the spring of 2013.

"The concept now would be mainly entertainment and restaurants and the hotel and things of that nature, with some retail infill," he said. "The main draw, I would say, would be entertainment."

Campbell said the skywheel will be the tallest structure in Pigeon Forge and will include cars that are heated and air-conditioned.

The purchase does not include a partially completed hotel on the island, but Campbell said his group has that property under contract.

The developer estimated that three years ago the land his group just purchased would have appraised for $12 million, not including the 250,000 square feet of buildings on the site that he estimated are 85 percent complete. Regions submitted a credit bid of $23.9 million in acquiring the property at a foreclosure sale in August of 2009.

Campbell acknowledged concerns about the economy, but said that was why he and McManus put together a group that paid cash for the site.

"If the economy were to take a turn for the worse, we could just sit and wait," he said.

Source: Knox News Sentinel