UT announced in January 1965 that it had entered into an agreement with Duggan and Associates to build, finance, and lease back to UT married student apartments on Sutherland Avenue, with the buildings to be turned over to UT after 30 years. Duggan and Associates became Walker Graham and Associates after UT signed the contract.
The 19-and-one-half-acre tract on Sutherland Avenue came from the city, acquisition of three acres of land owned by the state, and five acres of land then used as a golf driving range, which were deeded to UT. The architect for the project was Good and Goodstein of Knoxville.
The complex consisted of 420 apartments, two-story, brick-veneer buildings, grouped in pairs, with a common flight of stairs at each end of the court. Each apartment had electric heating and cooling, an electric range, and a refrigerator. A service building housed the laundry room, recreation room, waiting area for the bus, maintenance shop, and the resident manager’s office. Additional recreational facilities included a swimming pool, wading pool, three playground areas, tennis courts, and a basketball court. There were 150 of the apartments occupied in October 1965, with the remainder completed in 1966.
The university announced in February 2009 that both Sutherland and Golf Range apartment complexes would be taken out of service at the end of the 2010 spring semester. Reasons included declining demand for university-supplied housing for graduate and married students, the availability of private apartment complex options that obviated the need for apartment complexes for graduate and married students that were owned and managed by the university, and an evaluation that concluded that renovation of the complexes was not possible—both would have had to be torn down and rebuilt. The complex was taken out of service in 2010 and provides part of the site for the student recreation and intramural fields.