Born in Germany in 1836, Peter Kern emigrated to the United States and settled in Knoxville during the Civil War. By the third quarter of the 19^th century, Kern’s Bakery was established in downtown Knoxville, growing steadily in subsequent decades to become an established, beloved regional bakery. Acquired in 1989 by Sara Lee, the now-discontinued Kern’s brand remains a touchstone in the memories of Knoxvillians.

Sara Lee operated the principal Kern’s facility on Chapman Highway until 2012. For nearly a decade, plans gestated to redevelop the shuttered property, a prominent Knoxville landmark. In 2017, the historic bakery, constructed incrementally from 1931, was successfully listed on the National Register of Historic Places, though further development stalled after some exterior rehabilitation work was completed.

In 2019, Kern’s Bakery was acquired by a team led by Atlanta-based Mallory & Evans who envisioned a $32 million project that would convert the former Kern’s Bakery industrial facility into a mixed-use destination retail and food hall development to anchor the booming South Knoxville riverfront.

Hired to provide contingent fee-based historic preservation consulting and tax credit arranging services, Crescent Growth Capital structured a financing incorporating Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, PACE funding, a TIF grant from Knoxville city government, bridge financing for the historic tax credit equity, and construction and senior loans. Crescent closed on the project’s financing in February of 2022 and then structured and closed, in December 2023, a financing to take out the PACE funding component.

Crescent’s in-house historic preservation specialist prepared a five-element Historic Preservation Certification Application (including multiple Part 2 amendments) over a three-year period. Part 3 approval of the HPCA was received on July 1, 2024, by which point Kern’s Food Hall had debuted, delighting Knoxvillians who still cherished memories of Peter Kern’s community business.