Author: Jane Schneider

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Cover Feature News

Breaking the Silence on Shelby County’s Opioid Crisis

On Wednesday, February 8, 2017, Cody Stephens became the 59th person in Shelby County to die from a heroin-fentanyl overdose. He was 29. Cody’s mother, Sharon Stephens, remembers being told that fact by police the afternoon she learned her son had died. It didn’t seem possible. Not her child, the gregarious, fun-loving kid she remembered and loved.  

“Everywhere he went, people gathered to him because he was the kid who was funny, very athletic, and good at everything,” she says. 

Cody’s introduction to opioids started innocently enough, following a hip injury he sustained while playing baseball at Bolton High. At 18, he was prescribed Lortab, also known as hydrocodone, to manage the pain. But it wasn’t long before the teen discovered “he liked the way pills made him feel,” says Stephens.

Vicodin, OxyContin, morphine, and fentanyl are opioid-based medications often prescribed by doctors to help ease pain and discomfort following surgery. Additionally, these medications give users a sense of euphoria and relaxation. Like many teenagers, Cody experimented with weed and Xanax in high school. But opioids are a different animal. They alter the brain’s chemistry by attaching to opioid receptors, thereby creating cravings and an ever-increasing demand for more pills as tolerance to the drug builds. 

For some, what starts as pain management gradually morphs into addiction. As his dependence grew, the number of pills Cody took escalated. The spiraling expense of chasing a high took its toll, too. He couldn’t hold a steady job. He stole. And when his habit finally grew too costly, Cody turned to a cheaper alternative — heroin. He was 23.

“It’s like the drug took over. He couldn’t look in the mirror and see himself,” Sharon explains. “You become a slave to addiction. It sucks you in and you can’t let it go.” 

He didn’t travel this dark road alone, however. Cody lost a number of friends to addiction. “How many?” his mother pauses a moment. “Maybe 12 or 13? It’s hard to keep track.” 

In fact, Cody Stephens is just one of a legion of young Americans who have been lost to the opioid epidemic. Opioid-related overdose claims at least three lives every day in Tennessee. Nationally, deaths from opioid and heroin abuse have steadily climbed over the past decade. With 42,249 lives lost in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. 

For families whose children’s lives have been hijacked by drug dependence, the road to recovery can be a frustrating, lengthy, heart-rending, and expensive journey. Law enforcement frequently becomes part of the story, too, as users turn to crime to help pay for their habit. 

“Cody began stealing from Target and Walmart, small items he could resell,” his mother recalls. Then, belongings at their home and around the neighborhood began to turn up missing: air compressors, lawn equipment, a shotgun, even Sharon’s wedding rings. All for quick cash and the next high.

“I was ashamed to even go outside for a while. I still loved my son, but I was in disbelief as to what he’d done,” says Stephens. “I thought, ‘There’s something deeper going on. This isn’t Cody.’ Seeing your son deteriorate before your eyes? You just feel helpless — and hopeless.”

A Public Health Crisis

In 2016, 1,631 Tennesseans died from a drug overdose. In Shelby County, between 2013 and 2016, 474 lives were lost, according to health department data. Opioids are the main driver. As this public health crisis rages on, state and local government has finally begun to amp up the resources necessary to reduce deaths and deliver the services urgently needed for recovery. Governor Bill Haslam’s proposed 2018-2019 budget earmarks $30 million in state and federal funds to tackle the problem.

Locally, on May 14th, the Shelby County Commission’s Opioid Task Force unveiled a comprehensive, $2.4 million plan that creates a partnership between city and county government, law enforcement, the health department, and other health-care agencies to more effectively address opioid abuse. The four-pronged plan focuses on county-wide data collection and mapping of heroin deaths and overdose locations, prevention education, treatment, and law enforcement aimed at slowing opioid trafficking.   

One preventative measure that’s making a difference is having Narcan (naloxone) more available to the community. Nurse Jill Carney with the Memphis Area Prevention Coalition has trained more than 500 first-responders, medical and rehab professionals, and family members on how to administer the drug, which revives someone who has overdosed. 

“We used it and it has saved three lives at our Sober Living house,” says Walter Williams, executive director of MidSouth Sober Living. “Hopefully, with more information, people will draw a line in the sand so they won’t try heroin because they know too many people who have died.”

The state has earmarked $2 million in funding to treat opioid addiction using Suboxone, a medication-assisted treatment program. Centers like MidSouth Sober Living and CAAP, Inc. (Cocaine Alcohol Awareness Program) are partnering with the Addiction Science Center at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) to provide the drug and rehabilitation services that can help users toward sobriety.

Center director Daniel Sumrok, a physician, has been using medically assisted treatment along with trauma therapy with his patients for more than a decade. He likens addiction to a chronic illness, which must be treated, and says drugs like Suboxone can effectively help to manage cravings and stabilize patients’ lives. 

“Most were living in a car and had stolen from those they knew,” he observes. “Now, they’re more stable, they’re better parents, and they’re more reliable because they aren’t chasing the next high,” he says.   

While Sumrok sees first-hand the evidence that MAT can help people manage addiction, members of the treatment community remain decidedly divided between total abstinence (managing sobriety without drugs) and medically-assisted treatment for addiction.

Fighting the Addiction

For parents, sometimes just recognizing that an adult child is struggling with addiction can be challenging. Many mask drug dependence and successfully hide their habit from family members. 

As a nurse, Terri Fick knew first-hand the addiction issues that could result when treating pain with OxyContin or hydrocodone. So when her son, Kevin, had reconstructive surgery to repair a knee injury at age 21, she made sure his pain management was appropriate. 

“He had morphine for surgery, but there were no meds for chronic pain. I’d had patients with chronic pain that led to addiction. I didn’t want him going down that path,” she says. She even talked about the dangers of addiction with her four children.

But Kevin had also endured surgeries earlier in his life to correct the effects of congenital scoliosis. The fusing of 15 vertebrae left him with a limited range of motion and self-consciousness about his appearance. As he grew older, he experienced bouts of anxiety and depression. Fick says his addiction to Percocet (made with oxycodone) started sometime after the knee surgery, though she has no idea how long he actually used. 

When she finally did realize his addiction, they sent him to a treatment facility in Alabama, where he stayed for two weeks before returning home. Fick only learned of his heroin use when Kevin died of a fentanyl-laced heroin overdose on November 4, 2015. He was 25.

“I never thought Kevin would use heroin. I was shocked. But young people don’t have the stigma against heroin that once existed,” she says. “Drugs today are less forgiving. Experimenting now can be life or death — with fentanyl, you don’t get a second chance.”

To cope with their loss, Fick and her husband, David, sought  counseling at the Kemmons Wilson Family Center for Good Grief, and participated in a parents grief support group at Collierville United Methodist Church. She now speaks at area high schools and runs Remembering Kevin’s Light, a nonprofit that distributes new and used sports equipment to inner city youth programs.

“We went the sports route because Kevin loved sports,” says Fick. “The nonprofit gives me purpose again. You want to keep their memory alive and talk about his life. We take gift bags to a recovery residence in Southaven and tell Kevin’s story. We say, ‘We care about you.’ Maybe we can make some good come out of a tragedy.” 

Breaking the Silence

The difficult part of living with addiction is the silence and secrecy that surrounds the subject. Addiction is not easily broached. Parents wrestle with a mix of shame, guilt, anger, and anxiety trying to manage and/or fix an adult child’s life that has spun out of control.

“I think families have a lot of shame. You don’t want people to think badly of you,” Fick says. “Heroin use goes on a lot, but people keep silent about it. I think my son was too embarrassed and ashamed to come forward for help. I think the stigma keeps people from getting help.”

Tackling that stigma was part of the focus of a recent conference entitled Faith and the Addicted Brain held at the University of Memphis. Approximately 150 church members gathered to learn more about the epidemic and how congregations can better respond to those in need. 

One speaker, Stacie Glover, says using drugs helped her numb feelings of abandonment by parents too involved in their own drug use to care for her. “I had a family of addicts and alcoholics,” she says. “Drugs helped me escape from my issues. I wanted to stop using, but I didn’t know how.” At The Salvation Army’s Renewal Place, Glover found new direction and began her recovery. Today, she works as a case manager for the organization and is in college pursuing her master’s degree.   

The hope is that churches will borrow a page from places like Collierville UMC and Christ Church Memphis, where their No Whispers Initiative provides support and counseling to families who struggle with mental health and addiction issues. Butch Odom, director of behavioral health at Church Health, says his organization is actively training people in mental health first-aid, offering eight hours of training that “teaches participants how to ask questions to help others get the help they need,” he says.

Sumrok firmly believes trauma-informed therapy can be most effective in helping those with addiction begin to understand the root causes behind why they self-medicate. Angela Quadrani, a treatment consultant with American Addiction Centers, agrees, saying addressing addiction requires a multi-disciplinary approach. 

“We need doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, mental health behavioralists to treat the actions behind why people use,” she says. “It might be anxiety, depression, or some other trauma.”

How to Intervene

Being able to talk about drug use is one thing, getting help is quite another. Sometimes, families bring in an interventionist to convene a family meeting and confront the drug user about their problem. 

“There’s a small window of opportunity when an addict wants help,” notes Jack Wyatt, executive director of the Memphis Area Prevention Coalition. “If you put them on hold for 24 to 48 hours, you lose that opportunity to give them help. And it can be another year before they hit bottom again and seek help.”

That means being able to find a detox bed quickly, which often isn’t the case. Going into detox for opioid use is painful and requires medical oversight. (Unassisted withdrawal may not be life-threatening, but it can lead to relapse.) Getting clean takes three to seven days, depending on how much the individual has been using, but cravings can often take months to subside.

“The biggest barrier in Memphis is that most treatment centers are not set up to do medical detox, and the few that do require insurance,” says Wyatt. “Most heroin addicts don’t have insurance.”  

Quadrani tells of a 29-year-old opioid addict she’d been working with who was admitted to Regional One’s emergency room. Even though the young woman was 13 weeks pregnant and wanting to get off pills, because she had public insurance from Arkansas, Quadrani couldn’t find her a detox bed. “She’s carrying another life, yet she’s the hardest to find a bed for. If she’d had private insurance, she would have been a shoo-in.” 

Following detox, a patient checks into rehab for seven to 28 days, with some extended residential or halfway houses stretching services to 90 days. However, once a user returns home, the challenge is not to fall back into old habits. That’s where sponsors and Al Anon or Narc Anon meetings play a role in helping users stay clean. 

Rehab is not a one-time process. Many users relapse and return to rehab numerous times before finding lasting sobriety. “Some people need five or six times in treatment before it finally clicks,” notes Myron Edwards, clinical supervisor at CAAP. “That’s why you can never give up on someone, no matter how many times they go to treatment.” 

“I needed community support and outpatient care,” adds Wyatt, whose own drug habit kept him on the streets for several years as a young adult. “Everyone in my life had given up on me but one person, and he’d call to say, ‘Hey, I think you’re gonna be all right.’ And that made all the difference in the world to me.” 

While the constant state of drama drug dependence brings can be difficult and expensive for families, parents must be willing to be part of the recovery process, too. “One person with an addiction impacts all of the family,” says Edwards, “though they aren’t usually aware of the impact until members sit down with someone to show the ways in which it impacts them.”

The Lingering Impact

Sharon Walker’s son Ryan had completed 30 days of rehab when he overdosed on heroin at age 27 two years ago. He died alone in a hotel room, just four days after leaving rehab. Experts say users are most vulnerable to relapse at that time, and the possibility of death is real.

“That’s frequently the most dangerous time,” notes Sumrok, “since their tolerance is down and they’ll go back and use the same dose again.”

Ryan left behind a young son who was born drug-addicted. Now a chatty, sunny 2-year-old, there’s little evidence of his difficult start in life. In addition to she and her husband raising Carter, Walker also oversees her nonprofit, Remembering Ryan. She sends sound machines and layette items to caregivers of drug-exposed babies and mothers in recovery.

“I often wonder how we missed this. I wasn’t the cool parent. We would never have guessed it was heroin,” she says. “We couldn’t save our own son, and that makes me feel so powerless. But if I can talk about it and my story can save one person, then I can make a difference.”

RESOURCES

• Kemmons Wilson Family Center for Good Grief

bmhgiving.org 

Counseling for individuals who have lost a loved one.

• Memphis Addiction Help

memphisaddictionhelp.org

A service of Church Health, this prevention and education website has

links to a variety of services, including detox, treatment, family and church support.

• Memphis Area Prevention Coalition

memphisprevention.org

The coalition provides Narcan training, peer-to-peer support for users,and treatment information.

• TN Redline

(800) 889-9789

Addiction treatment referrals. Callers can connect with treatment providers in their area.

• TN Together

tn.gov/opioids/html  

This state-run website provides drug education, prevention, and treatment resources. Also includes county-by-county data on drug overdose.

• UT Addiction Medicine • universityclinicalhealth.com/search-symptoms/

Help for people who struggle with addiction issues, including medically-assisted treatment for opioid use. Click on Practices and then UT Addiction Medicine

ONLINE RESOURCES •

Allies in Recovery

alliesinrecovery.net

Website focuses on helping family members learn new ways of addressing and thinking about substance abuse and the issues it raises with loved ones who use.

• Lost to Opiods

losttoopioids.nsc.org

By the National Safety Council, this site memorializes the thousands who have died from opioid abuse. Family members contribute pictures and stories of loved ones.

• Memphis War on Heroin

Private Facebook group that shares information and education on heroin use and treatment.

PARENT-LED NONPROFITS

• Cody’s Closet 

Collecting clothes for people leaving recovery and prison.

Contact: Message Cody’s Closet on Facebook

• Remembering Kevin’s Light 

Collecting new and gently used sports equipment for programs that serve inner city youth.  

Contact: rememberingkevinslight@gmail.com or message Remembering Kevin’s Light on Facebook

• Remembering Ryan

Helping drug exposed babies, caregivers, and mothers in recovery with their children.  

Contact: Sharon Walker — sharwalker6@gmail.com

Categories
News News Feature

Collage’s RISE

CREDIT: Jermel Tucker

Kevin Thomas, artistic director of Collage Dance Collective, watches intently as four dancers sway and lunge across the studio floor. The angular movements are athletic yet lyrical as the dancers, Brandye Lee, Daphne Lee, Bernard DuBois II, and Daniel Cooke, respond to the music, a repetitive, staccato piano movement that is echoed in their jumpy style. The performance is riveting.

January has shaped up to be an exciting month for the company.

First the company traveled to Manhattan to participate in a conference produced by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. This international meet-up, which showcases live works by theater, music, comedy, and dance companies, puts Collage in front of important decision makers as they ponder their upcoming seasons.

Jermel Tucker

RISE by Collage Dance Collective

Collage then took RISE, a concert inspired by the legacy and contributions of civil rights giants, to Washington, D.C., for a performance during the Dr. Martin Luther King weekend. The choreography of one piece features text from King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address.

A Memphis performance of RISE takes place at the Cannon Performing Arts Center Sunday, January 22nd, at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $25-$40.

“When you come to see RISE, it’s a visual representation of our mission,” says executive director Marcellus Harper. “You get to see the trajectory of excellence and the themes that we’re addressing.”

Thomas and Harper founded Collage Dance Collective in 2006 while living in NYC. Theirs is one of the few classical ballets companies of color nationally. Thomas, a native of Montreal, Canada, received his training with L’Ecole Supérieure de Ballet du Québec and went on to dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Cleveland San Jose Ballet, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

“When I danced with Harlem, it was the first time I danced with other people of color. It was very empowering,” says Thomas. That experience fanned Thomas’ desire to launch his own company.

Harper grew up influenced by the rich arts scene of Washington, D.C. A double major at the University of Maryland in biology and theater, he eventually worked for Marriott in corporate marketing and event production before moving into nonprofit management. A position with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital brought the pair to Memphis in 2007. They believed their vision, to build a ballet corps of color and to make classical training available to African-American children, particularly boys, could fill a void.

“Today over 12 [black ballerinas] are living and working in Memphis,” notes Harper. “That progress is encouraging.”

Collage started modestly, renting rehearsal space from churches in Midtown while Thomas worked as artistic coordinator at New Ballet Ensemble. In 2009, Collage moved into their studio in the Broad Avenue Arts District and began the dance academy. An anonymous donor enabled the company to fully employ its nine dancers in 2015.

The company’s mission is to inspire the growth of ballet in Memphis’ African-American community and develop a knowledgable audience. Fifty percent of those who attend their performances say they’ve never been to the ballet, according to Harper. “We’re educating students and parents to see this art form and [promoting] understanding on how arts organizations are supported. We need community support beyond buying tickets,” he says. “We need people volunteering by serving on our board, by becoming donors who will support with financial resources to produce art of this caliber and grow it.”

RISE will give viewers a feel for their emotive, powerful style as the troupe interprets works by nationally known choreographers Kevin Iega Jeff and Thomas.

Come, be moved.

Categories
Art Art Feature

“This May Surprise You” at AMUM.

If you’ve never been to the Art Museum of the University of Memphis (AMUM), now is the time to go. The gallery is celebrating its 35th anniversary this fall, a noteworthy occasion for which AMUM has mounted an eclectic exhibition of rarely seen and newly acquired work.

From intense, modernist paintings to colorful African textiles and intricate, 16th-century pen-and-ink drawings of Aztec life, the show is appropriately titled “This May Surprise You.” It runs through December 17th.

What draws you into the gallery are the vibrant works of Josef Albers, a Bauhaus painter from Germany who later became a Yale professor. Introducing elements of modernism to a new generation of artists, his series, Homage to a Square, are a concentrated study in color and light.

His paintings were given to AMUM by William S. Huff, a colleague of Albers at Yale who taught architecture. The work came to Memphis vis-à-vis Huff’s great uncle, painter Samuel Hester Crone, whose drawings you can see as well. Crone was a Memphian who studied in Europe in the late 1800s, eventually becoming a noted artist. While Huff grew up with Crone’s paintings, he knew little about his life. So he has worked to document the places Crone lived and painted.

AMUM’s holdings reflect Memphis and the interests of some of its more adventurous residents, but the museum’s original purpose was to showcase contemporary art.

“This show represents transition, from the high focus on contemporary work to being more versatile. When we opened in October 1981, we were the only one to display this kind of work,” says AMUM’s director Leslie Luebbers.

Now that contemporary galleries are more prevalent locally, it seemed appropriate to refocus the museum’s mission.

In the early years, AMUM was a repository for collections like the Native American, South American, and African textiles given by cotton magnate and avid hunter Berry Boswell Brooks. Then, a monetary gift enabled the university to purchase an Egyptian collection of antiquities being decommissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the early 1980s.

“It was a small group [of artifacts], but it was primo and these items hadn’t been shown at all,” Luebbers says.

Now on permanent display, the collection continues to spur academic research of Egyptian art and archaeology.

AMUM’s small space made storing acquisitions problematic, so it stopped receiving material for a number of years.

That changed in 2008, when a diverse, 180-piece collection of Sub-Saharan African art textiles and cultural artifacts was donated by Martha and Robert Fogelman. A second gift in 2012 came from Patricia Cloar Milsted of Carroll Cloar’s lithographs, and then there was Huff’s collection in 2013. A sampling of these works can be seen in the show.

It was moving their entire holdings for repair work last summer that helped to reacquaint Luebbers with the breadth of materials the museum had amassed over its 35-year history.

It also convinced her to better share that largess with students. “I feel the need to at least introduce 18- and 19-year-olds to museums and what they do, so they can get their fingers in it.”

Should AMUM enlarge its footprint, something Luebbers is hoping will happen when the university’s new music center opens, she anticipates being able to do more art education with undergraduates.

She mentions one student who suggested mounting an exhibition on propaganda, using AMUM’s collection. “That’s the kind of thing I find delightful and valuable, that we can have a platform for contemporary relevance.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

Poison Pills

Craig Minton will tell you straight up — he’s an adrenaline junkie. He craves the surge he feels driving fast cars or riding menacing bulls. But he’ll also tell you he could have never predicted his need for speed would spiral into a 15-year addiction to pain pills.  

As a young man, the 42-year-old swing-shift worker and father of four loved to rodeo. The thrill of entering the dusty arena as his name was called, the icy clang of the steel gate swinging wide as his ride exploded into the ring, the heft of a 1,600-pound bull twisting violently as he held fast, desperately trying to last the eight seconds required to count as a qualified ride. 

It was such a rush.  

Then, during a rodeo ride in the late 1990s, Minton was thrown from a bull and knocked unconscious for more than an hour. Rushed to an area hospital, the CT-scan revealed a herniated disk. Following a brief hospital stay, Minton was sent home with hydrocodone, a prescription pain medication. Hydrocodone, like oxycodone, is one of several opioids doctors routinely prescribe for treating pain. (See sidebar) All are strong, Schedule 1 narcotics. While they do the job, there is also high potential for abuse. And what physicians often fail to tell their patients is how very addictive these pain meds can be.

Within months, Minton was hooked. In his addiction, he joined millions of Americans traveling down a harrowing rabbit hole, chasing the scream.

The Growth of an Urgent Public Health Problem

The surging opioid epidemic has made many national headlines this year, jumping to the fore as one of the country’s most urgent public health issues. Last year, overdoses from prescription drugs, opioid pain medications, and heroin surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in America, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration adds that nearly 2 million people suffer from opioid-use disorder related to prescription pain medications, which has contributed to both increased heroin use and the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. 

In response to this alarming trend, President Obama signed into law the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act on July 22nd, authorizing more than $181 million annually in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic and expand much-needed access to care. The law awaits Congressional appropriation.

Meanwhile, Tennessee has been making headlines of its own. The state ranked number two nationally in 2012 for opioid prescriptions and consumption. In 2014, opioid overdose claimed 1,263 lives — more people than died in auto accidents and gunfire. By 2015, Tennessee ranked among the top 10 states nationally for death by drug overdose.  

The state’s epidemic started several years ago in rural northeast Tennessee and gradually spread westward to Shelby County, impacting people from all walks of life along the way. As doctors wrote more and more prescriptions for pain meds, unintentional overdoses followed. Between 2001 and 2011, overdoses jumped by 250 percent, notes Steven Baumrucker, system medical director, hospice and palliative medicine, Wellmont Health System, who regularly presents to physicians about safe prescription practices.

That widespread abuse of painkillers, coupled with an alarming rise in heroin use, led to the convening of forums in Nashville and Knoxville last April, where state health officials, law enforcement, and medical professionals gathered to address what the Tennessee Department of Health labels as our “number one public health issue.” 

In Memphis, healthcare providers at ERs such as St. Francis and Regional One Health have seen a significant uptick in the number of people coming in needing pain medication or worse, being treated for overdose. The abuse extracts a toll — on users and the healthcare system.

“It’s definitely on the rise,” notes Chantay Smartt, medical director for emergency medicine at Regional One. “I’ve seen more overdoses in the last eight to 10 months than I have in my whole career. It’s hard to provide care for families because they don’t understand what’s going on with their loved ones. They want us to admit them, but that’s not the standard of care we provide. We treat symptoms, we don’t do detox.”  

How Did We Get Here?

Back in the mid-1990s, opioid narcotics barely registered a blip on the radar screen of pharmaceutical sales. But two issues drove demand. The first came from the medical community, notes Baumrucker. “We [doctors] were told [by the Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting body in health care] that we were undertreating pain and that we could get into legal trouble” if left unaddressed. So in 2001, healthcare providers were directed to begin asking patients about their pain. In addition to checking other vitals like blood pressure and pulse rate, pain was made the “fifth vital sign” used to assess patients. 

The second was largely due to the marketing pitch for OxyContin in which Purdue Pharma misled physicians and patients by claiming the potential for addiction was slight. That claim was all that was needed to amp up sales. By the early 2000s, the tidal wave of opioids had begun to surge.

Treating Ongoing Pain  

Minton says the hydrocodone eased his pain at first, and he took his meds as prescribed. But over time, instead of needing less medication to feel better, he found himself needing more. Two pills a day increased to four, then eight, until he was popping 90 to 100 pills a month “just to feel normal.”

“After your brain clears out and you’re no longer being told to take it, the painkiller can make you feel crippled,” Minton says. “It’s like you can’t get out of bed in the morning without taking pills.”

His physician, Daniel Sumrok, an assistant professor at the University of Tennesse Health Science Center (UTHSC) and director of UTHSC’s Center for Addiction Science, says Minton’s experience is common. As a specialist in addiction medicine, Sumrok sees many patients at his family practice for whom pain treatment has morphed into a physical dependence. Most people who take opioids for more than three to four weeks develop a tolerance to the medication. The quick cycling nature of these drugs creates cravings, and, with long-term use, the pain patients experience can actually worsen due to chemical changes in the brain. 

“As soon as the drug high falls off, the brain starts needing more, and it creates a craving,” Sumrok says. “Many people are unaware of the possibility of addiction. They think if a physician writes it up, it has to be okay.”  

Barry Cooper agrees. “Out of every 20 people we treat, at least 15 are for prescription drugs,” says Cooper, executive director of the Jackson Area Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency (JACOA). “You’d be shocked at how many times patients say they got into it innocently from an injury on a job or a surgery.”

Patient testimonies he shares reflect prescription med use that has stretched for five or 10 years, with many patients becoming caught in a vicious cycle of dependence they are unable to break on their own.

Furthermore, more than half of those who abuse painkillers wind up getting them from a friend or relative, according to a 2014 report from the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. Many people pass along meds simply unaware of the danger.

Tennessee also has the second-highest rate of prescriptions per person nationally. To address the problem of doctor shopping, the Tennessee Department of Health began tracking prescriptions several years ago through the controlled substance monitoring database. The database tracks patients who have received pain med prescriptions for 15 days or more. Physicians, pharmacies, and other healthcare providers have access to the database, and heavier use has helped to reduce the number of patients who try to get more medication than prescribed.  

But pills are out there and they aren’t hard to come by. Minton says when his supply ran low, he’d simply buy from guys he knew. Over time, he noticed the pills produced significant side effects, including irritability and mood swings.  “I was very volatile,” Minton admits. 

One afternoon while cooking dinner, he suddenly blacked out. When he awoke, he found himself in the ER, two of his teenage boys by his side. “That’s what got me clean,” he says. “I didn’t realize I’d let it get that out of control.”  

The Path to Heroin

Minton is one of the lucky ones. When prescription pill habits become too expensive, many users turn to a cheaper alternative: heroin.

Lieutenant Reginald Hubbard, executive officer with the Shelby County Sheriff’s narcotic’s division, says his department has made opioid and heroin abuse a top priority for 2016. Heroin seizures have risen substantially over the past several years. “We’re finding heroin all over Shelby County,” Hubbard says.

Though he says the division is making some headway, the problem is serious. Last year, 80 people died of heroin overdoses in Shelby County, compared to 42 in 2013. Already this year, more than 24 people have died. Much of the heroin flowing into the Mid-South comes from Mexico or China via the internet. Hubbard says dealers are also cutting the drug with fentanyl, a stronger, more lethal narcotic that can cause overdose. The majority of users are young adults ages 19 to 35. 

“More than 80 percent of first-time heroin users started with prescription pills that became too costly,” says Stephen Loyd, medical director for Tennessee’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. 

Jennifer Williams experienced this firsthand with her 21-year-old son, Jason (not his real name). Jason played baseball in high school and got good grades until he and his friends began smoking pot and experimenting with pills they got from family medicine cabinets. “The little bit he started with soon became not enough,” she says. After graduation, the expense of pills led him to heroin. 

One day, Jason was caught stealing money from the store where he worked. When his boss discovered why, he immediately called Jennifer. When she arrived, her son confessed, “‘I’ve been doing heroin,’ I literally could have dropped to my knees,” she says. She checked her son into a detox facility that night. 

“As a parent, when you’re going through this, other parents pull away,” she says. “You feel ashamed and embarrassed. No one wants to think their kid will fall into this. But since it happened to my family, I’ve had so many other people whisper to me that their nephew or son has had a similar experience.” 

Getting Treatment

Those families wind up seeking treatment at centers such as Serenity Recovery Center and JACOA. Tennessee’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services funds approximately 97 substance abuse treatment facilities statewide. But according to Mary-Linden Salter, executive director for the Tennessee Association of Alcohol, Drug, and Other Addiction Services, an advocacy group for these service providers, roughly 1,200 people are wait-listed for each residential detox program. “And most insurance companies will not pay for a medical detox, since coming off opiates, while extremely uncomfortable, won’t kill you,” says Salter. 

The state’s mental health system is already overburdened and struggling to adequately care for the many Tennesseeans who need help. Salter says centers will frequently have empty beds because they have run out of funds. Cooper concurs: “For every 10 addicts who need treatment, only one receives it.”

Loyd, who has been clean 10 years from his own addiction to Vicodin, acknowledges that the state needs to increase services, particularly medication-assisted therapy for those who are addicted. “Medications like Suboxone help to keep patients in therapy. It allows you to manage the withdrawal symptoms.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all problem,” he says. “We must take an open-minded, evidence-based approach to treatment. The goal is to prevent death and suffering from abuse.”

Sumrock agrees. He takes an integrated, holistic approach in his practice, using talk as well as medication-assisted therapy as a means of moving patients toward sobriety. “I’m helping people regain some normalcy and control of their addiction and making life more manageable,” he says. Patients frequently tell him how relieved they are to have their life back, a life not dictated by finding money to chase the next high.

With the opening of the Center for Addiction Science in Midtown, which treats people with substance abuse, gambling, and porn issues, UTHSC is hoping to more fully address addiction within the community. The college is also putting together a curriculum for medical students that will provide training in addiction medicine, course-work Sumrok is currently developing. 

Treatment can work. Minton has been clean and sober for five years. Gone is the irritability and fog that clouded his thinking. Instead, his job is going well, he no longer smokes, he works out regularly, and enjoys spending time with his family. 

“It’s so much more peaceful around my house,” he says. “I finally feel normal.” 

Count it as one small victory in a large and ongoing battle.

Discard Meds Safely

The Shelby County Sheriff’s office oversees two drug-collection bins for the public to dispose of unwanted medications. The boxes are under 24-hour surveillance. Six new bins will be added in Shelby County at area Walgreens this fall.

Locations: 

Sheriff’s Office, Arlington Substation – 11670 Memphis-Arlington Rd., 38002 

Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, 993 Dovecrest Rd., 38134

Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

What can be discarded: Unwanted, outdated, and unused prescription drugs, vitamins, over-the-counter liquids (in leak-proof containers), medicated ointments, lotions, or drops, and pet medications. NO: Syringes, IV bags, illegal drugs & narcotics (though police will accept if placed in the container). 

At home: Remove medication from original packaging and mix with kitty litter or coffee grounds. Place mixture in a bag and dispose of in the trash.

For more: tn.gov/behavioral-health/section/substance-abuse-services.

Frequently Prescribed Controlled Substances

Three of the top 5 most prescribed medications from Tennessee’s controlled substance monitoring database are opioids.

1. Hydrocodone products – opioid

2. Alprazolam – generic name for Xanax; a benzodiazepine

3. Oxycodone products – opioid

4. Zolpidem – generic name for Ambien

5. Tramadol – opioid: Brand names Ultram, ConZip, Ryzolt

Source: Tennessee Department of Health

12th National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day

Saturday, October 22 • 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

A safe, convenient way for Shelby County residents to get rid of unused or expired medications. The Shelby County Sheriff’s department will manage three locations during this annual take-back. You can drop off unwanted drugs here:

– County Building, 1080 Madison, 38103

– Kroger, 7942 Winchester, 38125

– Kroger, 11635 Highway 70, 38002

Do You Need Help? Call the TN Redline: (800) 889-9789 

Callers receive up-to-date information and referrals for alcohol, drug, gambling, and other addiction issues. Three referral sources are given when possible. Coordinated by the Tennessee Association of Alcohol, Drug, and other Addiction Services. • taadas.org

Or go to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services • tn.gov/behavioral-health

Categories
News News Feature

Bee Good

As you survey the bounty of your Thanksgiving Day dinner this year, send up a word of thanks to the honeybee. From your Aunt Delia’s pecan pie to Nana’s cranberry-orange relish and that heavenly sweet potato casserole, all those fruits and nuts and vegetables are made possible as the result of pollination from bees. You may not realize it, but honeybees — European honeybees to be precise — pollinate about 80 percent of the foods we eat.

In fact, bees are so important that Mike Studer, the state apiarist who inspects registered hives in Tennessee for disease and pests, routinely fields phone calls from farmers requesting bee colonies to help with their crops. A rancher in Middle Tennessee told Studer his cattle weren’t fattening up properly because his alfalfa and clover hay hadn’t been pollinated, leaving the feed lacking in important proteins. That connection “is something you just don’t think about,” Studer says. “That’s when it hit home to me just how important bees are to our food supply.”

Bees fly within about a two-mile radius from the apiary (the box which houses the hive), gathering nectar from flowering plants a drop at a time, visiting 50 to 100 flowers before reaching their nectar-storing capacity. The bee then returns to the hive, where it spreads the nectar throughout the comb and fans it with its wings to thicken it. The resulting honey — a healthy hive of 50,000 bees will produce 100 pounds of honey over the course of a year — produces food for the colony. Beekeepers gather a percentage of that for human consumption.

Commercial growers truck colonies of bees across state lines to pollinate everything from almond trees in California and citrus groves in Florida to apple orchards in Washington and blueberry bushes in Maine, making it “the largest agricultural migration in the world,” according to Richard Underhill, president of the Arkansas Beekeepers Association. Honey production, while better known to consumers, is actually a much smaller segment of the beekeeping industry.

Bees play a vital role in U.S. food production, but since 2007 honeybees have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Scientists call it Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a phenomenon in which worker bees abruptly disappear from the hive, leaving the queen and honey behind. Why it occurs remains a mystery.

Beekeeper Bill Hughes of Brighton, Tennessee, has observed losses firsthand. Since 2008, his colonies have declined from 400 to 60. Hughes, who has been keeping bees for 20 years, has checked many of his apiaries only to find them empty, the bees not dead but simply vanished. Studer and his colleagues report that feral bees, too, are all but gone. “I used to catch wild swarms,” Hughes says, “but if they’ve been poisoned by insecticide, the bees won’t breed,” further reducing their numbers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that 33 percent of bee colonies have collapsed nationally due to CCD (and in some regions, that number is closer to 50 percent). While colony losses are not unexpected, losses of this magnitude set off alarm bells. Underhill calls it “the largest historical die-off in the history of beekeeping.”

It turns out that honeybees have many foes: fungal parasites, Varroa and tracheal mites, diseases like chalkbrood, and a lack of nutritional diversity. Even the use of altered seeds to grow crops like soybeans may play a role. But among its biggest foes is the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which have become more prevalent in the last decade.

“Bees have been described as the canary in the coal mine, since conditions in the environment tell us we’ve altered the environment — from the amount of chemicals we use to the effects of global warming,” Underhill says. The bee decline has scientists scrambling to better understand these complex creatures and what can be done to stop CCD before it becomes an agricultural crisis. Studer says the USDA is working in concert with a host of universities, conducting multiple studies to better understand the factors that impact the health of bees. But the answers may be five years away. “It’s extremely difficult with so many different variables both inside and outside the colony,” Studer says.

So as you spoon that dollop of honey onto your biscuit at Thanksgiving, don’t take that sweet treat for granted. Honeybees need our help.

Jane Schneider is editor of Memphis Parent.

Categories
News News Feature

Waste Not

Last week, Covington, Tennessee, mayor David Gordon flipped the switch on a new gasification power plant that puts his town squarely on the map of cutting-edge sustainable practices — by turning wood waste and sewage sludge into energy.

Town leaders, PHG Energy officials, and the media were on hand for the plant’s grand opening on October 30th. The morning-long event included speeches, a barbecue plate lunch, and a tour of the facility, located just steps away from the town’s sewage treatment plant.

Calling himself a “confirmed nerd,” Gordon says he spent two years researching energy conversion before enlisting PHG Energy’s assistance in building the plant. Many cities have expressed interest in this emerging technology, but no one wanted to be first. “It’s not just a feel-good,” Gordon said. “I’m a steward of taxpayers’ money. What we did had to make financial sense, not just be good for the environment. I was finally convinced that this would make financial sense.”

“Yesterday, Covington was throwing wood waste and sewage sludge into the landfill,” said Chris Koczaja, PHG Energy vice president of sales and engineering. “Today, they’re mixing 80 to 90 percent woodchips with 10 to 20 percent sewage sludge and gasifying it into heat energy.”

What helped was a $250,000 grant the town received from the Clean Tennessee Energy Grant Program, administered by Tennessee’s Department of Environment and Conservation. The funds, which were part of a five-year federal settlement from the Tennessee Valley Authority, are earmarked for energy projects that operate with lower emissions and pollutant rates in cities and towns across the state.

“We funded this to see if this will work, so we can have data,” said Kathy Glapa with the Office of Sustainable Practices. “The town will report for five years on their carbon reduction and energy savings.”

The $2.5 million gasification plant is designed to burn up to 12 tons of waste a day. It can even take tires. Small towns such as Covington (pop. 9,500), a rural community 40 miles north of Memphis, spend thousands of dollars annually to haul tons of wood debris to landfills, paying approximately $30 per ton in transportation and tipping costs.

Now, the plant’s construction tab will be offset with $3.5 million in savings over 20 years. PHG Energy officials say they are pleased with the results, since it is the first time the Knoxville-based company has built a downdraft gasifier using these two different waste streams. The biggest challenge, according to PHG Energy president Tom Stanzione, was navigating the state’s regulatory requirements. But the savings, he notes, aren’t just monetary. “You’re saving in CO2 emissions. This plant represents significant carbon reduction,” he said.

Little remains at the end of the process but “biochar,” a carbon-rich charcoal. Several companies have expressed interest in using this end product to produce fertilizer, something Gordon’s office plans to investigate. The plant doesn’t require specialized personnel to run it; instead, employees at the sewage treatment plant are being trained to take the helm.

Gasification is not a new technology. Developed during the 19th century, it was first used to burn coal, producing gas for street lamps. But as fossil fuel emerged, the development of gasification slowed. Now, it is on the upswing again, as companies like PHG Energy scale down the size of the plants and find different waste streams that can convert biomass into energy.

“This is cutting-edge,” said Josh McGill, with Applied Chemical Technologies (ACT), the company that worked with PHG. “Lots of people are talking about it, but not many are doing it.”

“This technology is real, and it’s cost-effective,” added ACT founder, Ray Shirley. “A lot of people will be coming to Covington to see how this works.”

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

Belonging

CREDIT: Courtesy of Center City Commission

As Halloween grows near, the residents at Number 10 Main Apartments are busy conjuring up creepy costumes. The building’s elegant lobby is festooned with spider webs hanging from the light fixtures, and skeletons are seated primly in the hallway. The decorations add a playful touch to otherwise buttoned-down surroundings. There will be more, the manager assures me, since each year, Number 10 plays host to a kick-ass costume party. It started out as a rather modest affair, a mixer designed to bring residents together, but over time, its popularity (not to mention the popularity of those who reside here) has grown. Last year’s bash attracted 400 to 500 revelers, making it one of the more anticipated neighborhood parties downtown.

“A lot of residents like to get involved with putting it together,” notes building manager Greta Hollingsworth, whose father, Jay Hollingsworth, and Henry Grovesnor converted the former bank into a 112-unit apartment building in 2000. “We have a lot of chefs who live in the building, and they bring in food from their restaurants,” she says. Others help out by getting the rooftop ready or determining which band will play.

Courtesy of Center City Commission

Local artist paints on South Main

The party creates a sense of belonging for residents — about half of whom have lived here since the building opened — and that belonging creates community. In addition to the Halloween romp, Hollingsworth says residents gather for wine tastings on the roof deck, with its expansive views of the Mississippi River, or to watch ballgames together. There’s even talk of a local restaurant offering to teach a pastry-making class. “A lot of people show up, even to watch the smaller things like the basketball and football games,” Hollingsworth says.

People who live outside the city might think of urban life as sterile, devoid of the neighborliness of suburban life. With 28,000 people now calling downtown home, it’s not exactly an intimate place. And living in a townhouse, condominium, or high-rise can bring a certain autonomy. But while the suburbs promise a bucolic life filled with backyard barbecues and garage sales, “You shut your garage, go into the backyard, and that’s it,” notes developer Phil Woodard, who lives in the South Main Historic District and has played a hand in its growth. “Here, it’s hard not to socialize with your neighbors,” because the street essentially becomes your front yard.

When Woodard and his wife, Terry, moved downtown in 1996, South Main was still “pretty quiet,” with many of the neighborhood’s old warehouses and working-class hotels empty and shuttered. While the couple knew a lot of Memphians through their construction and wine businesses, “I found another group of people downtown. They were definitely more liberal and more diverse,” Woodard says. Perhaps because of their pioneering vigor, a certain esprit de corps knitted early residents together. As the Woodards began refurbishing their building, they met their neighbors, either out on the street during evening walks, or, such as in developer Henry Turley’s case, when residents moseyed inside to find out who was behind the dust.

As South Main’s reinvention began to blossom with art galleries and boutiques, it was Woodard who helped create the trolley art tours back in October 2000. “I think the first one only had five people,” he says with a laugh. “I put my mother and [a local musician] on to sing, along with some champagne. We didn’t have a lot of folks, but they had a great time.” His idea was to create a focal point for the neighborhood, one that would bring people together and generate a buzz — not to mention sales — for the district’s galleries. “Now it’s more of a social thing than an art thing,” Woodard says. “But it’s also having an economic impact on businesses on South Main. For many, it’s the best day of the whole month.” The tour has also succeeded in bringing people downtown to see for themselves what living in the city looks like.

Many faces, different places

Courtesy of Memphis Farmers Market

Keith Forrester of Whitton Farms and Chef Stephen Hassinger of The Inn at Hunt-Phelan

The diversity of downtown’s residents also holds appeal. Though you’ll certainly find plenty of native Memphians, there are also urban transplants from cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Buildings like 10 North Main boast an eclectic mix of professionals as well, who are post-college and middle-aged, financial analysts with Morgan Keegan, newly minted doctors, chefs at downtown’s tony bistros, court clerks, lawyers, even “the guy who does the Memphis panhandling Web site,” says Hollingsworth. “Yep, he lives here too.”

But it’s neighborhood activities like the trolley tour, and, more recently, the Memphis Farmers Market, that provide a gathering place for residents to connect and catch up on each other’s lives.

“Once I started living down here, I began to think of it as the show Cheers, where everyone knows your name,” says Diane Gordon, a resident who also has her interior design business on South Main. “You can go into an establishment and people get to know who you are.”

Gordon and her husband first bought their loft condo two years ago as a weekend escape. She wanted to learn more about the community, so she began attending neighborhood association meetings. “I think the people here were more welcoming because of the influx of different locations that they came from,” observes Gordon. “I didn’t feel the competitiveness of the suburbs.” Now president of the South Main Association, Gordon says her move downtown has awakened a sense of community activism she didn’t feel compelled to pursue when she was living in the suburbs. Here, in this growing neighborhood, there were more possibilities.

Sharon Leicham, a transplant from the San Francisco Bay area, agrees. When several residents began talking about farmers markets they’d experienced in other cities, it didn’t take long for the idea to gain momentum. As one of the co-founders of the Memphis Farmers Market, Leicham likes the sense of possibility life in the city has afforded her, not to mention the ease.

Courtesy of Memphis Farmers Market

Vivan Gray at the Memphis Farmers Market

“Here I can walk almost everywhere to get my hair and nails done. I can walk to Easy Way for vegetables. I can do almost everything downtown without a car, and I do.”

In her 24-unit building, residents organize progressive suppers to strengthen ties that first form while picking up the mail or walking the dog. The Farmers Market, a Saturday ritual for many downtowners, has provided another opportunity for community building.

“A lot of people have withdrawal when we close [for the season], because we have regulars who’ve developed relationships with some of the farmers,” Leicham says.

While those relationships might slow as the market goes on hiatus, there are plenty of other opportunities for downtowners to rub shoulders. With the RiverArtsFest celebration happening this weekend on South Main, and the holidays just around the corner, folks will no doubt find ample ways to knit themselves together, strengthening the neighborhood one relationship at a time.

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

No Vacancy?

When Jennie Hill returned home from college last spring, she knew she wanted something different from “my other life,” as she puts it, referring to growing up in the suburbs of Memphis. Close proximity to her job as an intern architect with Looney Ricks Kiss Architects was a priority, as was being a part of the hubbub of city life.

“I wanted to be downtown because that’s where stuff happens,” Hill says. “There’s always something going on, with plenty of cool things to do.”

Though it took time, she eventually found an apartment on Mud Island she liked. She put down $300 in May as earnest money to hold a place that wasn’t even available until September. And her rent, at $725 for a 630-foot studio, is steep. As more young professionals clamor to call downtown home, they may find locating a rental tricky — in a neighborhood that’s increasingly tight for apartment space.

Condo conversions have played a significant role in the shrinking of apartment stock downtown. Over the past several years, signature apartment buildings like the Shrine, the Lofts at South Main, Claridge House, RiverTower at South Bluff, and Paperworks (the first warehouse-to-apartment conversion in the South Main district), have all been converted to condominiums. According to figures from the Center City Commission, 593 apartment units have gone condo. And the conversion craze hasn’t stopped at downtown’s doorstep.

Memphis Is a Good Deal

Investors from across the country have been scooping up older high-rise properties from Midtown to Germantown. For example, the Glenmary at Evergreen (formerly Woodmont Towers) on North Parkway is being developed by the Gintz Group from Tacoma, Washington, and Nashville-based Bristol Development converted the former Park Place apartments in Germantown into a condo development called the Monarch.

Part of Memphis’ appeal is its high occupancy rate, coupled with a strong national economy and the relative affordability of properties compared to other urban markets. “Investors are seeing that nationally, Memphis might be the last bastion of condo conversions because it’s been overlooked for so long,” says LEDIC Management CEO Pierce Ledbetter.

From a development standpoint, conversions have been a good thing for properties that were in need of refurbishing. A case in point is RiverTower at South Bluffs (formerly the Rivermark), a downtown rental property that had languished in an ’80s time warp until being purchased and converted to condominiums by McCord Development, Inc., based in Houston, Texas.

RiverTower, overlooking the Mississippi, has gone from hotel to apartment house to condos.

While offering exceptional views of the Mississippi River, the 240-unit complex suffered from “an identity crisis,” notes Ledbetter, referring to the building’s history as a hotel and later apartment high-rise, which left it with an odd mix of both spacious and cramped apartment units. With its purchase by McCord Development, an assets management and development firm, the building received a complete renovation and is now selling stylish one-, two-, and three-bedroom condo units. McCord has developed similar high-rise communities in Texas, California, and Florida.

“What [investors] like to see is a city with a reduced supply of land, high occupancy rates, and increasing rents,” says Ledbetter, whose company is the largest apartment and condominium manager in the city. “That makes it much easier for banks to underwrite the loan for the property. And with so many good things going on downtown, it keeps driving the trend.”

High Occupancy Rates

According to “The Source: Greater Memphis Area Multifamily Market Statistics for 2006,” a survey released by the Apartment Association of Greater Memphis, occupancy rates downtown hover at 94.6 percent, almost five points above the countywide rate of 90 percent. (The Center City Commission — CCC — pegs downtown’s rate closer to 91 percent.) Living downtown also costs apartment dwellers more. The survey, which canvassed 50,000 apartment units in 12 submarkets, looked at categories such as amenities, rents per-square-foot, and floor plans. Their findings: The average rent for a 950-square-foot apartment in Shelby County is $685, but downtowners can expect to pay $893 for a slightly smaller space, at 917 square feet. Though rents may be higher downtown, Leslie Gower, director of communications for the CCC, says their market research shows most people prefer to live where their social life is and commute to work. Since downtown’s entertainment sector has strengthened, so too has its desirability as a neighborhood.

Are more apartment complexes on the horizon for downtown? Such high occupancy rates would suggest they’re needed, particularly with the addition of the University of Memphis’ law school soon to call Front Street home. “Downtown is probably ripe for more apartment units,” agrees Amy Carkuff, who’s been involved as an interior designer with a host of condo projects downtown. “I think there’s a market for students and young professionals.”

Manny Heckle, president of the Apartment Association of Greater Memphis and HM Heckle, a properties management firm, says, for him, the question is simple: “How many condos are selling and how many will revert back to rentals? I would say too many condos have hit the market in the last few years. I think we’re condo-saturated.”

View of the Claridge House on Main Street: facade.

View of the Claridge House on Main Street: bedroom.

Those thoughts prompted developer Jason Wexler to put his money in the rental market. Wexler’s company, Green Hat Partners, already has completed two historic rehabs (Cornerstone and Main Street Flats apartments), and he’s now among a handful of developers working on creating additional apartment buildings downtown. Radio Center Flats, a project currently under way at the old WDIA building, is one of Wexler’s projects; and according to the CCC, there are 14 other apartment developments in the planning or construction phase for downtown.

View of the Claridge House on Main Street: lobby.

Paperworks in the South Main District is Memphis’ first warehouse-to-apartments conversion.

“We’ve been pretty cautious about condos and decided not to go that route because of the number that have come online,” Wexler says. “We thought there was a need for more apartments in the downtown core, in part because of the number of projects that were going from rental to condo conversion.” The combined buildings will eventually create 587 new apartment units. But when you consider that condo conversions have removed 593 rentals from the market, the likelihood is that the rental market downtown will continue to remain tight.

“We do minimal marketing or advertising, and our occupancy rate is 100 percent most all the time,” says Wexler. “We rely on word of mouth or put an ad on apartments.com to find new tenants.”

Glenmary, a high-rise located on North Parkway, was once Woodmont Towers.

And who knows? That may simply add to the luster of nabbing a downtown address. ■

Categories
Living Spaces Real Estate

Design Mastermind

When Amelia Carkuff first moved back to Memphis in 1998, she wanted to work downtown. But her client base was initially out east, so instead, she would stroll the bluffs to take the city’s pulse.

“I used to walk downtown on Sundays and knew every available building,” says the 38-year-old owner of Carkuff Interior Design. “We’d import our coffee from the Starbucks at McLean and Union, because there was no place to get coffee downtown back then.”

Today, coffee shops abound, thanks to the robust condominium market that’s breathed new life into downtown. And Carkuff has been riding the wave of Memphis’ condo boom. If you’ve visited the models at the Goodwyn Building, Art House at Riverside Drive and West Georgia Street, or One Beale (at the building that once housed Joe’s Crab Shack), then you’ve seen some of Carkuff’s work. The spaces she designs are sleek, modern, and eye-catching. But the part of her job the public sees is often the culmination of a year-and-a-half’s worth of work. As an interior designer, Carkuff’s duties go far beyond selecting colors and buying furniture. She works closely with architects and developers to give shape to the entire design process.

“If I’m lucky, I get in before the [artist] renderings get done,” Carkuff says. “There’s nothing better than when the developer pulls a team together. At some point, we all have input on a job. If I’m fortunate, we’re all hired early and collectively reinforce each other’s decisions.”

Those decisions define the look of the building, the floor plans of the units, and the niche and price point the developer aims to fill. Carkuff’s expertise is understanding how to spend the least to get the most when completing an interior. She determines all indoor finishes — from the kitchen cabinets, lighting fixtures, and flooring to appliances, wall colors, even bathroom sinks and faucets.

“I know what the market is asking for,” she notes. “I understand the relationship between price per square foot and the level of finish in a building.” It’s that kind of knowledge that sets her apart from the pack, says longtime architect and consultant Tony Bologna.

“Amy doesn’t just deal with interiors,” says Bologna, who has partnered with Carkuff on a number of projects. “She sees the big picture, what we’re trying to accomplish and how we need to get there. She also understands space and unit plans and how people will live in them. I think some do it better than others, but Amy does it better than most.”

Carkuff enjoys the construction process and understanding what makes a building tick. She says she gained invaluable experience early in her career when, after graduating from Mississippi State University with a dual major in interior design and marketing, she moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and worked as a designer in the hospitality industry. Two hotel projects — the Old Citadel (Embassy Suites Historic District) and Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina — exposed her to the range of issues that arise whether completing a restoration or building from the ground up. That knowledge has served her well, particularly as Memphis developers have rethought old buildings.

Bologna cites the Glenmary at Evergreen as a good example of Carkuff’s ability to be a team player and see past what exists to the possibility of what could be. The lobby of the former apartment high-rise was dreary, says Bologna. “It was set in the 1970s and had [a box of] mailboxes right in the middle of the room. We had to bring the building up-to-date while working with the existing volume and space.”

The lobby’s transformation into a trendy, urban living room is enhanced with enlarged black-and-white photographs of Hollywood stars by local fashion photographer Jack Robinson. The finished look, with its smoky blue/gray palette and stylish furnishings, conveys a hip, contemporary feel.

Greg Akers

Amelia Carkuff-designed sales models at One Beale

When designing the sales office at One Beale, Carkuff sat down with developers and sales staff to discuss the ambience they wanted the room to project. “We knew we couldn’t show a unit,” says Carkuff, “but through the sales center, we wanted to cue into some of the amenities of the hotel and spa.” (In addition to being a condominium development, One Beale will house a Hyatt Regency hotel and Hyatt Pure spa.)

“We thought the way to approach buyers was to have a personal, handsome, understated space, like a fine, upscale jewelry store where you’re treated in a personal way,” says Terry Saunders, principal broker with Martin Group Realty.

Dominated by 9-foot windows and sweeping views of the Mississippi River, the space Carkuff created is elegant yet inviting (think North Beach Miami). Colors for the sofas and throws are derived from the surrounding landscape: cream, aquamarine, and teal with huge potted palms to balance the room and add interesting texture. “It’s classically modern without being too overstated for the space,” notes Karen Carlisle, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for One Beale developer Carlisle Corp.

Always in search of new ways to use materials, Carkuff routinely pages through ELLE Decor, Dwell, and Metropolis magazines for inspiration. Each issue is then catalogued for reference on future projects. She also keeps abreast of the best products through research. She recently completed a cost and quality analysis on high-end kitchen appliances by makers like Sub-Zero, Wolf, General Electric, and Viking. In addition to reading Consumer Reports, she spoke with distributors, sales reps, and installers to learn which line had the fewest problems. (She reports GE’s Monogram line came out on top.)

In her spare time, Carkuff plans to put some of her creativity to work on her own building. She bought a 16,000-square-foot warehouse on Virginia Street — a location she laughingly refers to as “the other side of the tracks” — where she resides and has an office. But she has big plans to create a few apartment units. “On every project, there are some wacky things you suggest that if they could only see inside your head, they would do it.” This time, she’ll make the call. ■