Boathouse

The university’s first boathouse was built in 1895. The most recent boathouse, on Neyland Drive, was a partnership that grew out of the city’s effort to develop Volunteer Landing. Women’s intercollegiate rowing had been established in 1995, and the NCAA sanctioned the sport in the 1996–97 academic year. The UT team was still housed, along with the club sport, at the Knoxville Glove Company, and UT was investigating potential sites for a boathouse facility.

Knoxville businessman Pete Claussen proposed to partner with UT by having the Boathouse Benevolent Society, a nonprofit membership entity of which he was the leader, build a structure on land leased from UT that would contain two floors dedicated to the boathouse and a third floor that would contain a restaurant that guaranteed members of the society seating for UT home athletic events. The society would own the structure. UT contributed $1.5 million to the project and allocated dedicated parking spaces in the commuter parking lot across Neyland Drive for patrons of the restaurant. The City of Knoxville provided a $120,000 grant and installed an on-demand traffic light for the project.

Groundbreaking for the rowing facility was September 30, 1999, and the $2.5 million facility was completed in fall 2000. The 18,000-square-foot boathouse occupied the first two levels of the facility. The 7,320-third-level space became the Tennessee Grill, a restaurant operated by Dr. Bill Emendorfer’s Restaurant Concepts, which served lunch and dinner, with special privileges for members of the Boathouse Benevolent Society. The Tennessee Grill closed in December 2006, and the restaurant was reopened as Bridgeview Grill in early 2007. It was operated by UT’s Dining Services contractor and was open for lunch and dinner. Bridgeview ceased to provide regular restaurant service on July 25, 2008, due to slow sales, but continued to offer the venue for events.

TVA permitting for the structure was enhanced because it replaced an existing structure—the former pumping station for the UT steam plant—when Pasqua Nuclear Engineering served as the UT steam plant. The university subsequently assumed full ownership and control of the structure.

Citation Information

The following information is provided for citations.

  • Title Boathouse
  • Author
  • Keywords Boathouse
  • Website Name Volopedia
  • Publisher University of Tennessee Libraries
  • URL
  • Access Date July 12, 2025
  • Original Published Date
  • Date of Last Update October 4, 2018