Month: February 2014

• Toby Sells
• Memphis leaders and media members got a tour and a construction update on the Bass Pro Shops project inside the Pyramid Tuesday.

An army of hard-hatted, neon-vested construction workers paused their work briefly Tuesday for a tour inside the mammoth shell of the Pyramid as Bass Pro Shops officials invited Memphis leaders and media members for a look at the progress there.

Company officials predicted Tuesday the store will open by December. When it does, it will be the second largest Bass Pro in the country.

New details about the project emerged at Tuesday’s tour. The hotel inside the store, called Big Cypress Lodge, has been expanded from 56 rooms to about 100 and will feature a spa and fitness facility. An alligator pit will be built around the base of two interior elevators that will take guests to the top of the Pyramid that will have an expanded viewing area, and a restaurant.

“There will be two large, glass, cantilevered decks that will be added to the south and west (top portion) of the Pyramid,” said Tom Jowett, vice-president of design and development for Bass Pro Shops. “This will allow people to walk out (over the edge) similar to the way people can walk out on the Grand Canyon.”

The main floor of the store will feature large, swamped-themed water features like a lake, a stream, and a river. It will also have two cypress tree sculptures that will rise 100 feet from the store floor. The Ducks Unlimited National Waterfowling Heritage Center on the store’s second floor will have an aviary for ducks. The store will also have Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl, which will have 13 lanes of fish-themed bowling.

Bass Pro took over the construction at the site in October after the city completed interior demolition, the removal of the seating, seismic protections and the replacement of the heating and cooling systems.

Construction workers are now putting in steel supports for the tree sculptures and the in-ground structures to support the elevators. Demolition of the floor is underway for the alligator pit and water features.

• Television angler Bill Dance welcomes the crowd to Tuesday’s tour of the Bass Pro Shops in the Pyramid.

The floor of the Pyramid has been cleared to the walls and dug mostly to the dirt. Dump trucks and front-end loaders paced in and out of the space Tuesday to load and unload materials. A large auger drill boomed loudly as it made a hole in a piece of concrete still left on the floor.

The project will create 500 permanent jobs in Memphis, company officials said Tuesday, with 300 of them working in the Pyramid.

Television angler Bill Dance said Tuesday Bass Pro president Jim Hagel tasked him with the decision to open a store in the Pyramid eight years ago. Unable to come up with a decision, Hegel suggested he and Dance go fishing on the Mississippi River close to Memphis. If they caught a 30-pound catfish, they’d take on the project, Dance said.

“We caught a 32-pound catfish and we released that old fish.,” Dance said Tuesday. “She’s still out there swimming. So, if you catch her, give her a pat on the head and a big hug and thank her for this great facility. We’re here eight years later.”

The state of Tennessee is responsible for the backlog of untested rape kits in Memphis and should pay for their testing, according to Memphis City Council member Wanda Halbert.

• Halbert

In September, Memphis Police Department director Toney Armstrong told the Memphis City Council that his department had discovered 12,164 untested rape kits. The kits are collections of pieces of evidence gathered after a person reports that they have been sexually assaulted. MPD has used state and local funds to send off 2,226 of these kits for testing so far.

Halbert floated an idea Tuesday to delay a $1 million transfer from the city’s general fund to the Memphis Police Department to begin the process to test additional kits. Halbert said she wanted an admission from the state government that it is at fault for the untested kits before the money was transferred.

She said the state has threatened to intervene in the city’s financial matters in the past, and that now the state is “asking Memphis citizens for money for something that the state should have taken care of.”

“I applaud the city for getting involved with this, and I am not having a problem making an investment but still recognizing this was never a responsibility for the city to begin with,” Halbert said during the council’s public safety committee meeting Tuesday. “For the [Wharton administration], the police, and any attorney sitting in this room, we’re just repeatedly knocking on the door of the citizens of Memphis to pay for others’ challenges and needs, and it hurts Memphis in many ways.”

George Little, the city’s chief administrative officer, told council members that inquiries are now underway to determine what government is ultimately responsible for the untested rape kits but could not say Tuesday if Halbert’s charge was correct. But he warned against any action that would delay the testing of the kits.

“We have pending litigation right now and there’s a discovery process associated with that,” Little said, noting that a federal lawsuit about the kits was filed against the city in December. “The further delay of the testing of the kits will be justice denied to the victims and we’d be on pretty thin ice legally.”

Halbert was resolute in her assertion, however, saying Memphis “is paying for someone else’s job.” But she pulled her amendment that would have delayed the funding transfer to the MPD. The amendment was in a package of financial transfers brought to the council Tuesday from the Wharton administration. The council will vote on the package in its full meeting Tuesday afternoon but could be changed in its next meeting in two weeks.

Halbert said she wants to hear from the state before the final vote is taken on the matter.

Little said the administration is now in talks with state officials to get $2 million for further testing. Wharton said last week that the city needs about $5.5 million to test all of the city’s untested kits.

“I don’t dispute the assertions of Councilwoman Halbert but from my position, they’re irrelevant,” said council member Shea Flinn, “The city and the state failed these people and the list of failures on this is a mile long. We need to just move on and we have the rest of our lives to cast aspersions and point out blame.”