What’s more remarkable is that Knoxville landed the World’s Fair at all. You think of all the major city locales they’d usually be at, New Orleans, Vancouver, Montreal, et al, but Knoxville ? It was no surprise there was some funny business to get it there (between Carter, the Butchers, etc.), rodent shenanigans in a Republican city, no less.
Butcher and the mayor more or less pushed it plus a couple of more developers who left town afterward some to Chattanooga actually. But in Knoxville both parties have their share of bad deals. Alexander was a backer of Whittle Communications which cut a deal to build it's corporate Head Quarters in Knoxville. The campus was built and they left town shortly after. The city was stuck with a building one of many at the time in the downtown area empty.
Downtown has come back a little bit mostly being converted to residence etc but if you want to shop you better hit the outlying areas such as Knoxville Center {formerly called East Towne Mall or West Town Mall. Most business development is west actually. East and west Knoxville and County has better terrain for building on. North Knox County has some places but not quite as flat. Emory Road on I-75 north is about the limit of it on the north side and it's growing up fast now.
One last thing. I think if the fair hadn't gone bust contributing to the banking failures Jake Butcher and not Clinton would have been the DEMs 1992 choice in the POTUS race.