UT purchased 901 Twenty-Second Street, the Thackston Branch Elementary School, in April 2008 with a view to using it as a possible replacement for the child care facility at Golf Range Apartments. The complex consisted of two houses and playground facilities. UT leased the property back to the school’s owner, Judy Wright, through July 2009. She asked for an extension of the lease, but it was not granted. UT representatives walked through the property a week before an early morning fire on February 21, 2009, gutted the buildings and destroyed playground equipment while Wright was on a trip.
On March 4 the Knoxville Fire Department confirmed that the fire had been arson and that a “foreign substance” had been found and had been sent to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation lab for testing. UT razed the houses, removed the ruined playground equipment, and used the insurance proceeds to help defray the cost of building a second child care facility on Lake Avenue adjacent to the one built to relocate the child care facility from Laurel Apartments.