Drive Kingston Pike on a Saturday morning this month and you will pass two different versions of "new" within about two miles of each other. Turn toward Brooklawn Street and you will see Biddle Farms, the mixed-use development planned as Farragut's first walkable Main Street, still filling in lot by lot across from Farragut High School. Keep going toward Parkside Drive and you will hit Turkey Creek, where a Nordstrom Rack that did not exist two months ago now shares a parking lot with PGA Tour Superstore and Marshall's.
Both corridors are advertising the same thing: something you have not tried yet. Their recent openings have followed different timelines, reflecting the different stages of development in the two corridors.
Biddle Farms' First Openings
Biddle Farms sits on land that used to hold a Kroger and its empty parking lot, a stretch the town's own zoning materials called an eyesore across from the high school. When Farragut rezoned the 43.63-acre site to allow the project, the vote followed a nearly six-hour public meeting with 244 residents speaking against the plan and 19 in favor, according to the town's own zoning record. The developer, CHM LLC, had already been meeting with the town since 2019.
Biddle Farms' first openings came at different points in 2025. According to The Farragut Press, Parlor Doughnuts, one of the first tenants to open, first served customers on February 15, 2025, at 106 Biddle Farms Blvd. Sweathouz, the infrared sauna and cold-plunge studio, opened that same February, the chain's first Farragut location. Tupelo Honey, the sit-down restaurant developers once called the project's anchor, did not hold its ribbon cutting until October 23, 2025.
Add it up and the distance between the zoning approval and a plate of biscuits at Tupelo Honey runs close to four years. The plan for Biddle Farms always included a Main Street layout, a Town Green built for concerts and festivals, and roughly 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, according to the developer's own project pages. That vision is real. It is just arriving on a construction timeline, not a retail one, because every restaurant there needed a building, a parking lot, and utility work to exist first.
Recent Openings in Turkey Creek
Turkey Creek's existing shopping centers have also welcomed new tenants over the past year and a half:
- Flying Biscuit Café opened at 11582 Parkside Drive in May 2025, the chain's 38th location nationwide.
- Barnes & Noble opened October 7, 2025, at 11334 Parkside Drive, in the former Party City space, marking the bookseller's second Knoxville store.
- Whataburger opened November 17, 2025, at 310 Wild Geese Road, Knoxville's second location of the Texas chain.
- Nordstrom Rack opened June 25, 2026, at 11417 Parkside Drive inside Pinnacle Turkey Creek, a 30,000-square-foot store next to Sono Bello and near Buffalo Wild Wings.
Nordstrom announced the Turkey Creek location in June 2025 and opened it to shoppers a year later in an existing retail space.
In a WATE report last fall, Julie Blaylock, president and CEO of the Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce, said the city center of Knox County had shifted west. Recent openings in the two corridors reflect different settings: Turkey Creek tenants have moved into existing retail space, while Biddle Farms has been filling in as construction progresses.
What Actually Opened Versus What Was Only Announced
Here is the same story in numbers, comparing how long it took each corridor to turn an announcement into something you could actually walk into:
| Location | Announced or approved | First tenant opened | Approximate time to open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biddle Farms Town Center | Rezoned 2021 | Feb. 15, 2025 (Parlor Doughnuts) | About 4 years |
| Pinnacle Turkey Creek's 2025 retail wave | Spring 2025 press release | Oct. 7, 2025 (Barnes & Noble) | About 6 months |
| Nordstrom Rack, Turkey Creek | June 2025 announcement | June 25, 2026 | About 12 months |
The different timelines reflect two types of development: ground-up mixed-use construction and tenant infill inside an existing shopping center.
The New Neighbor Nobody's Talking About Yet
Not everything new in Farragut this year is a place to eat or shop. In late July, Maverick Insurance held a grand opening at 11221 Outlet Drive, the former Sitel call center site, drawing about 300 people. The company expects to eventually staff the 45,000-square-foot building with as many as 1,000 employees.
That is not a restaurant opening you will read about on a food blog, but it is the kind of change that shows up in your own week without you tracing it back to a single ribbon cutting. More employees working near Outlet Drive could mean more lunch traffic at nearby restaurants, more cars on that stretch of road during shift changes, and more neighbors who work five minutes from home instead of forty. Farragut's growth this year is not only measured in doughnut shops and bookstores. Some of it is measured in office headcount.
Your Actual Errand List Has Quietly Changed
If you have lived in Farragut for a few years, your mental map of "where to go for X" is probably out of date without you realizing it. A few examples worth updating:
Need a book or a coffee before your kid's soccer game? Barnes & Noble on Parkside Drive has had a café running since October. Craving something sweet on a Saturday morning that is not from a chain you have already tried a hundred times? Parlor Doughnuts on Biddle Farms Boulevard has been open since February 2025. Looking to sweat out a long week without driving across town? Sweathouz opened its first Farragut location the same month.
Even the businesses that did not move corridors have shuffled addresses. Snooty Patootie Boutique relocated to 11134 Kingston Pike in July 2025. Wild Wings Café, long a fixture near Founders Park, closed and reopened at its original location on Campbell Lakes Road in December 2025. Dullahan's Irish Pub, at 12744 Kingston Pike in the Renaissance development, was gearing up to open in time for St. Patrick's Day 2025.
None of this is dramatic on its own. Together, it means the Farragut you drove through two years ago is not quite the Farragut you are driving through now, and the changes did not arrive from the direction most people expected.
The Takeaway for Anyone Who Lives Here
Biddle Farms will keep filling in. More retail space is still under negotiation there, and the Town Green has not even been fully landscaped yet because construction crews did not want to damage it before the surrounding buildings were finished. When it does come together, it will be the closest thing Farragut has ever had to a genuine walkable center.
Recent openings have occurred in both corridors: Turkey Creek's existing retail spaces have added tenants, while Biddle Farms' first tenants have opened as construction has progressed. The development types and timelines differ, so checking both corridors can help you see what's new in town.
If you are watching Farragut change and wondering what it means for your own plans, whether that is finding a home near the new activity on Parkside Drive or understanding how a growing job base on Outlet Drive might shape the neighborhood over the next few years, the team at Martha Riordan knows this stretch of Kingston Pike block by block. Get in touch when you are ready to talk through it.
