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Intersection where improvements would begin
Memphis City Council member Joe Brown told the director of the City’s Division of Housing and Community Development (HCD) Paul Young that he wants to see a project planned to improve Jackson Avenue be expedited.
“If you ever noticed other projects in the city…they move very expedient; they’re fast-tracked,” Brown said. “We fast track what we want to fast track.”
Focused on roadway enhancements, the Jackson Avenue Improvement Project, Young says, will strengthen the commercializing efforts along the Jackson corridor, anticipating opportunities for building anchors in the community.
But Young told the City Council Housing and Community Development committee that construction would not begin until 2018. This is a “conservative timeline,” Young says. “But we’re going to try to move this project as quickly as we can.”
The next step, he says, is to hold meetings over the next few months with the general public and stakeholders along the Jackson corridor, in order to be get people’s candid opinion of the proposal.
He says this could result in possible design revisions.
The goal though, Young says, is to secure all funding by July 2018, with construction beginning in September of that year.
However, Brown says the corridor in question looks like a “war zone” and that the project needs to be sped along.
Brown, along with council member Janis Fullilove also said they would like to see other types of initiatives and projects that target within the neighborhoods that Jackson Avenue runs through, such as the historic Klondike and Smokey City neighborhoods in North Memphis.
Fullilove says she hasn’t seen development in the Klondike area in years and she would like to see HCD produce a solid plan for the neighborhood soon.
“I’m game for whatever you bring to the table,” she said.
