Belz HRP Partners
The Citizen is slated to open at Union and McLean in 2019.
In 2019, The Citizen will stand atop a newly vacant lot at Union and McLean.
Developers announced Thursday that the project will contain 173 1-and-2-bedroom apartments, a parking garage, pool, gym, a residential common area, and a lounge. The Citizen will also offer 10,000 square feet of retail and restaurants space.
The project first emerged to the public in October 2015. At the time, the project was called “Midtown Market” and included 188 apartments, 10,500 feet for smaller retail tenants, and 30,500 feet of space for a “national gourmet grocery store.”
That project, with its $43.5 million price tag, won a $10.5 million tax break from the Center City Finance Corp. (a board of the Downtown Memphis Commission) over a 15-year period.
But that development “was not able to move forward as planned,” said developers Belz HRP Partners, a union of Memphis-based Belz Enterprises and Georgia-based Harbour Retail Partners.
The group scaled the project back to $33.5 million, 175 apartment units, and shrank the retail space. The plan still included a “national gourmet grocery store.” Developers did not say on Thursday whether or not such a store was still part of the plan.
The revised plan still earned developers a $6.6 milling tax break over 15 years.
Adam Belz Groveman, Belz Entrprises’ director of project development, told a crowd gathered on the site Thursday that “Midtown has become a destination for national and local retailers and restaurants.”
For proof, he pointed to the Starbucks across Union, which, he said, was the first Starbucks in Memphis and is still the chain’s top performer here. Also, the Walgreens that sits east of the site, is that chain’s top store in Memphis and in the top five in the state.
But, as for the name of the development, Groveman said, is all about the community.
The Citizen is a name that we hope communicates the idea that this space is not apart from the community but rather engaging it in a meaningful way,” he said.
