Month: February 2011

A Cooper-Young Development Corporation (CYDC) project to revive a deteriorating stretch of Seattle Street has led to the deterioration of the organization itself.

The 20-year-old CYDC’s board has agreed to allow its president, Reb Haizlip, to manage the organization out of existence after the failure of the Seattle Street project and a recent Regions Bank lawsuit to recoup money borrowed for the group’s operating expenses.

“When we tie up our loose ends, we’ll seek a vote of dissolution from the board. We’ll present that to the secretary of state and that will be the end,” Haizlip said.

Over the years, the group has developed more than 60 properties in the Cooper-Young neighborhood. Some of those developments were new homes, and others were renovated homes or commercial businesses. When the development corporation was founded in 1991, the Midtown neighborhood was just beginning to bounce back from its reputation as a crime-ridden area.

“Twenty years ago, Cooper-Young was considered somewhat on the other side of safe,” Haizlip said.

The group was successful in reviving the neighborhood by growing home ownership and increasing the area’s housing stock. In 2006, the CYDC launched the Seattle Street project with funding support from the city and state.

The group purchased 10 properties on Seattle Street, a rundown neighborhood off McLean and just west of the Cooper-Young neighborhood. They built six new homes, but once constructed, they couldn’t sell them.

“Our timing could not have been worse. The homes came online just about the time that the real estate market went into its spiraling decline,” Haizlip said. “That made it impossible for us to sell. We could not lease them or rent them. It was a tragedy for our organization.”

Today, the new homes on Seattle remain empty and boarded. Some of the homes were foreclosed.

“We spoke with our lending institutions and informed them that foreclosure was our only course because we couldn’t sell them,” Haizlip said. “We thought it’d be better if the homes were back in their hands instead of ours.”

Additionally, the group was recently hit with a lawsuit from Regions Bank, which is attempting to recoup money borrowed more than 10 years ago for the group’s operating expenses.

For years, the CYDC paid small amounts to satisfy the interest on the uncollateralized loan, and eventually the board created a fund to retire its debt.

“When the real estate market got to the point where we couldn’t sustain our operations, we began tapping into that fund which we created to buy back the debt,” Haizlip said. “In the end, they sued us for the money, and the board elected the suit to be won. That election effectively terminated our ability to operate.”

The CYDC recently sold its old office building on Cooper Street to the Cooper-Young Community Association.

Despite the group’s post-recession financial woes, Haizlip hopes residents will remember the good things the group did to rehab the Cooper-Young Historic District.

“This was the first group of developers in the neighborhood. These were pioneers. These were the people who bought really derelict homes and brought sweat equity and money into them,” Haizlip said. “These are the people who brought the neighborhood back, and I think the organization deserves a lot of credit.

If the Mallory-Neely mansion in Victorian Village were a woman, she’d look darn good for her age. But even this grand dame of Memphis’ past isn’t immune to time.

Built in 1852, the 25-room structure at 652 Adams is in dire need of a new roof and restoration work to about a third of its 70 windows, said Wesley Creel, administrator of programs for the Pink Palace Family of Museums.

The carriage house/visitor’s center, situated behind the main house, is also out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The Mallory-Neely mansion will remain closed to the public until the repairs and ADA-upgrades are complete.

“I’m hoping that we will have a new roof by Christmastime,” Creel said. “That’s usually how long it takes for all the processes to work. But we still can’t open until we’re ADA compliant.”

Though Creel hesitated to set a date, he said the ADA upgrades might not be completed until spring 2012.

For years, the city-owned Mallory-Neely mansion was open to the public as a museum of Victorian culture, but it was shuttered in 2005 because of city budget cuts. That same year, the city of Memphis and the U.S. Department of Justice agreed that all city-owned facilities would have to become ADA compliant.

As far as Creel is concerned, the roof takes top priority this fiscal year. It isn’t leaking yet but has “major potential for some damage.” About $268,000 is available to replace the roof, but Creel is hoping prospective contractors will bid the job for less.

That would allow for at least some of the windows to be repaired and weatherized — a custom restoration that could cost about $4,000 per window. To put that figure into perspective, Creel said some windows in the house are seven and eight feet tall.

Meanwhile, the city’s capital improvement budget for 2012 allocates $36,000 for architectural engineering fees and $150,000 for construction, renovation, and repairs at Mallory-Neely. Those amounts could go a long way toward shoring up more damaged window casings and funding the ADA requirements, which include producing audio/visual tours for people with mobility impairments and improving the area outside the carriage house to make it wheelchair-accessible.

But first, a cash-strapped Memphis City Council must approve those amounts. Right now, the city anticipates a $70 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2012 that could lead to layoffs and other sweeping austerity measures.

Cynthia Buchanan, the city’s director of Parks Services, appeared last week before a city council committee to submit a preliminary design schematic for the work. It was approved, so the next step involves a full council review on March 1st. After that, a bid package can be issued to contractors.

“We intended to open [Mallory-Neely] this year, but when we realized how massive the improvements were going to be, we didn’t want to bring in the public when we might have to be doing things that were dangerous,” Buchanan said.

Although frustrated by Mallory-Neely’s dormancy, Scott Blake, executive director of Victorian Village Inc., looks forward to the day when the mansion finally reopens for tours.

“Our little area needs that kinetic energy [that will be created] when the Mallory-Neely House is open,” Blake said.

Right now, amenities in the area, which lies between the downtown core and medical district, are limited. The Woodruff-Fontaine House at 680 Adams is the only continuously open museum in Victorian Village. The Goyer-Lee House sits empty and in need of extensive restoration work.

Blake is hoping a private developer will buy the Goyer-Lee House, which is for sale, and repurpose it as a bed-and-breakfast or some other tourist attraction. Whatever it becomes, the Goyer-Lee House, like Mallory-Neely, will have to be repositioned within historical guidelines.

A new proposal to add bicycle lanes along Madison Avenue from Cleveland to Cooper is bringing back bad memories for some business owners along the Midtown strip.

In 2003, the Memphis Area Transit Authority ripped up the avenue west of Cleveland to install the Madison trolley line. Construction took longer than expected, and some business owners blamed the project for a drop in patronage. Now some are worried that proposed bike lanes could have the same effect.

“We have hundreds and hundreds of jobs through here, and when you take away traffic flow, sales drop and jobs go away,” said Mike Cooper, owner of the dry cleaning business Mercury Valet Service Inc. on Madison. “Once they started [construction of] the trolley line west of me, we went from 17,000 cars a day to 12,000.”

Cooper spoke against adding bike lanes along Madison at a public meeting hosted by the city engineer’s office last week. Madison Avenue is scheduled for repaving this year, and the city plans to add some form of bike path.

The city is considering three options. One would add signage along Madison encouraging drivers to share the road with bicyclists. Another would add signage plus painted arrows to show cyclists the safest route.

But the bicycle advocacy community favors the third option, which would take away one lane of traffic in each direction, add a turn lane, and create designated bicycle lanes along both sides of the street.

Anthony Siracusa, founder of Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop, said the bike lane plan also should create additional on-street parking. He said repaving will not require the city to close the street, as was the case during trolley construction.

“The trolley was implemented on a stretch of Madison, which is not the section in question now. But that impact alone on business owners who aren’t even a part of this debate has led to a lot of fear,” Siracusa said.

Some business owners, like Cooper, also have expressed concern about the possibility of reduced traffic flow along Madison. Others, like Jared McStay, owner of Shangri-La Records, believe reducing traffic lanes might cause cars to slow down.

“I don’t think bicycle lanes will take traffic away, but it may slow traffic down. That’s a good thing,” McStay said.

City bike/pedestrian coordinator Kyle Wagenschutz said the turning lane would counteract any slowing of traffic.

“Adding that turning lane is key to all of this. If we went from four lanes to two lanes without a turn lane, we’d see a dramatic negative effect on traffic flow,” Wagenschutz said. “But having the turn lane keeps traffic flowing at much the same rate it does today.”

Siracusa said business owners who oppose bike lanes are probably afraid of change.

“We’re emerging from the bowels of the Great Recession of 2008,” Siracusa said. “If you’re operating a business at a 3 or 4 percent margin, you’re concerned about what a change may mean. But business districts around the country have implemented bicycle lanes, and it improves the revenue for businesses in and around the area where the lanes were added.”

Wagenschutz said the city would determine which option to move forward with based on the input gathered at last week’s meeting. The repaving project should begin in the spring or summer. Although some business owners object to the project, others fully support the addition of bike lanes.

“The trolley was a bad experience for people at the other end of the street, but this won’t be like that,” said Chuck Skypeck, co-founder of Boscos Squared on Madison. “Bicycle lanes make for a more livable neighborhood. In the long term, this is great stuff.”

When health expert and author Chet Sisk volunteered at a homeless shelter in Denver, he said he saw people donate food “he wouldn’t feed his dog.”

“Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, chicken-on-a-stick, and pastries. Basically things that would’ve been better off being buried in a local landfill,” Sisk said.

Sisk, founder of Quality Foods for Everyone, a program that provides organic, all-natural foods to homeless shelters nationwide, was at the University of Memphis last week speaking on the topic “Food Fight: How To Bridge the Food Divide Before Things Get Really Ugly.”

Sisk said bakeries often donate day-old sweets to homeless shelters and feeding programs. This practice holds true in cities across the country, and Memphis is no exception.

Jason Smith is the group coordinator for the Memphis chapter of Food Not Bombs, an organization that provides the homeless with healthy, vegetarian meals every Saturday. Smith said stores are more likely to donate baked goods than healthy foods.

“Baked goods are thrown out every day, but fresh produce is harder to come by,” Smith said.

Smith said Food Not Bombs wants to change the way Memphis’ homeless population eats.

“A lot of churches and shelters serve fried chicken, hamburgers, and hot dogs. We’re trying to provide an alternative to that,” Smith said.

Homeless people often have compromised immune systems, and unhealthy foods aren’t helping.

“Many are recovering addicts or are still suffering from addiction or alcoholism. Many don’t know when or where their next meal is coming from or where they’re going to sleep, so their health has already been ravaged,” Sisk said.

Brad Watkins, organizing coordinator of the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center, said it’s challenging for local shelters to provide nutritious food when they’re relying on donations, but he said healthier food for the homeless would cut down on medical costs.

Most local shelters do the best with what they have. Sister Maureen Griner, executive director of the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality, said volunteers bring meals to the transitional house on Poplar every Monday night. Past meals have included pork tenderloin, pizza, tacos, and chili. Volunteers are encouraged to bring healthy meals, but Griner said, unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

Steve Carpenter, director of development at downtown’s Memphis Union Mission, said they normally serve some form of meat, vegetables, a starch, and bread at their free daily breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

“We try to keep it as balanced as possible,” Carpenter said.

A volunteer at the St. Vincent de Paul Food Mission on North Cleveland said they serve bag lunches that include “sandwiches, something sweet, and something salty.”

“The plan is to provide guests with something nutritious,” said the volunteer, who asked to have his name withheld. “We normally serve bologna or peanut butter sandwiches, chips, and donuts or cookies.”