Tag: Bass Pro

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Many People Are Saying …

This is the best column anyone ever wrote in the history of Memphis.

Many people have thought about writing a column this good but were unable to get it done. People are saying no one can write a column like I can, and they are right. It’s not surprising. That’s because I invented the word “column.” I have all the best words, and no one else even compares.

Geoff Calkins tried 11 times to write this column. Dan Conaway couldn’t even make his fingers move when he tried to write this column. Tonyaa Weathersbee? No way. John Beifuss? Don’t make me laugh. Even Jackson Baker gave it a shot, but it just didn’t happen.

I’m a stable genius, and I’m the best. Get over it. No one writes like I can. But writing isn’t all I do.

Many of you have probably driven by the empty pedestals in Memphis’ Downtown parks. Most people don’t know there used to be statues of Confederates there. They were very fine people, but the statues were put up after the War Between the States, which I call the “Civil War.” Many people don’t know that we had a Civil War. That’s because it was 300 years ago, which is why we needed to take down the statues. They were too old.

I called the mayor of Memphis last year and said, “Mayor Stricker, those statues have to come down.” He said, “Sir, no one has been able to take down those statues. They’ve been there for 250 years. It can’t be done, sir.” Well, I got it done. Afterwards, he said, “Sir, I did not think anyone could do that. Thank you.” There were strong men and women in the mayor’s office, and they were all crying because they didn’t think anyone could take down those statues. They all said, “What a great outcome, sir. Thank you. And congratulations.”

True story. You can look it up.

Many of you will be surprised to learn that the University of Memphis football team used to be terrible. It’s true. They lost 29 games in a row in 2003. It was ridiculous how bad they were. Most people don’t know that David Rudge, the president of the university, called me a couple of years ago. He was whimpering and crying on the phone. He said, “Sir, what can we do? People are saying our football team is terrible.”

I said, “Hire a great coach, Dave.” And I told him about this young fellow, Mark Norveen, who at the time was an assistant volleyball coach at Arkansas College. Most people haven’t heard of Arkansas College. Great school, just outside of Tulsa. Mark’s a handsome young man. Right out of central casting. “Hire Mark Norveen,” I said.

Well, Dave did, and look what happened. The Tigers have been undefeated for six years, and they’re going to be on Fox’s “Gamers Day” show with Steve Doocy this weekend against the great University of Notre Dame.

I plan to be at the game. They’re going to put my picture on the big television screen — I call it a JumboTron — so people can cheer for me. People are saying I’ll get the greatest ovation in the history of football. They say 20,000 people won’t even be able to get into the stadium.

There are lots of other things that many people don’t know about me. For example, I helped do the deal to get Bass Pro to build a pyramid Downtown. It used to be a Walgreens. The elevator to the top? That was my idea. The giant man-eating alligators? That was my idea, too.

And many people would be surprised to learn that I was behind getting $270 million dollars allocated from the city to move the Raymond James brokerage out of that dump Downtown into a great new building they already owned out in eastern Memphis.

Here are some other things people would be surprised to learn about me:

I helped design the Midtown Kroger parking lot.

I taught Penny Hardaway how to do a crossover dribble.

I named Mud Island.

I invented barbecued ribs.

Do I get any credit? No. But that’s all right. I’m a big boy. I don’t need the applause. I don’t need everybody to grovel and suck up to me. Many, many people are saying I’m the best columnist ever and this is the greatest column anyone ever wrote. That’s enough for me. For now.

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Cover Feature News

On the Clock: Memphis Animals Who Put in a Day’s Work

CREDIT: Bee Garriott/Facebook

My three dogs haven’t worked a day in their lives. Unless you consider napping, eating, and demanding lovin’s work. That’s my oldest boy, Doogie Howser, on the cover. (Shout-out to Hollywood Feed for providing his cover-worthy wardrobe.) He’s 9 years old, and he is the very best boy. Doogie’s brought me — and, I’m certain, all who’ve encountered him — so much joy (and unsolicited slobbery kisses), so, in that sense, you could say he has put in some work. He also provided crucial insight and editorial assistance for this cover story and is awaiting his paycheck.

We thought it’d be cool to search the city for other animals putting in the time — to brighten people’s days, relieve anxiety, greet guests, or entertain the masses. We found dogs (lots of dogs), cats, ducks, fish, and even goats working various jobs in Memphis. We hope you’ll enjoy — as much as we did — getting to know more about these hard workers and how they keep business going around town. — Shara Clark

Bee Garriott/Facebook

Bee

Bee

“People come in here just to see her,” says Martha Garriott. “They know her name, and they don’t know mine.” Garriott’s referring to her toy poodle, Bee, the unofficial supervisor at Urban Earth Garden Center. Bee’s smaller than many of the lawn ornaments and flower pots the center sells, but she’s doing big, important work. From her post — a comfy bed, layered with toys, atop a tall chair behind the counter — she oversees the store. “Any time I ring up a sale, I have to put her in the chair to get on the register because she’ll bark if I don’t,” Garriott says. “She has to watch me to make sure I do it correctly.”

Bee, a former champion show dog and breeding dog, was rescued by Garriott three years ago and has been working at Urban Earth since 2017. Her duties include greeting customers (who often bring her treats and toys), modeling products for the center’s Facebook page, and providing pet therapy to her co-workers.

When Garriott first brought her home, she says, “Bee had never been on grass, she didn’t know what grass was. She had never been allowed to jump, and I don’t think she knew how to bark, she was so quiet for so long. But she’s got a very good life now. Everybody loves her.” — Shara Clark

Say hi to Bee at Urban Earth Garden Center, 80 Flicker Street.

The Peabody Memphis

Peabody Ducks

Peabody Ducks

Just like clockwork, every day at 5 p.m., after six hours of paddling around in the Peabody Hotel lobby fountain, the illustrious Peabody ducks are ready to retire to their posh Duck Palace on the rooftop. Their “valet,” head Duckmaster Doug Weatherford, steps down before the crowd of eager children and families to announce the ducks’ march back upstairs.

“All that remains is to play the John Philip Sousa ‘King Cotton March’ and march our five feathered friends single-file up the red carpet into that elevator en route to the palace on the rooftop,” he proclaims. “You, too, will have been an eyewitness to the world-famous march of the Peabody ducks!”

The five mallards — one brightly colored male and four females — step onto the red carpet and march back to their humble abode, where they will live for 90 days before they are sent back out into the wild and five of their friends come to take their place. Until then, this team of ducks will continue to enjoy their five-star Peabody Hotel experience, complete with room service — we hear the ducks turn their beaks up at iceberg lettuce, so they receive the finest romaine — and personal showers dealt by Weatherford himself.

“They’re wild animals, so we don’t give them names, and they only ‘work’ for us for 90 days,” says Weatherford. “Our object here is to make sure that they’re healthy and that they remain as unchanged as possible.” — Julia Baker

Watch the ducks march (11 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily) at The Peabody Memphis, 118 S. Second.

T. Clifton Gallery

Argus

Argus

A low bark — almost a grunt — was heard when I entered T. Clifton Art and Custom Framing Gallery. The sound came from a huge ball of fur on the floor. It was Argus, a chocolate St. Bernard who, at the age of 10, is a Broad Avenue legend. The gallery even sells T-shirts bearing Argus’ likeness.

“He’s come to work with me every day since he was 7 weeks old,” says gallery owner Tom Clifton. And this is a gallery filled with glassware, some items priced at thousands of dollars, on open shelves. “Ever since he was a puppy, he’s never broken a thing.”

Argus isn’t a guard dog per se, but he “senses things I don’t,” Clifton says. He’ll let out a “woof, almost a grunt,” which is fitting because Clifton named Argus after a mythological Greek “warrior guard.” Argus, who’s been in FedEx TV commercials and various fashion shoots and brought cheer to nursing homes, is recognized when Clifton goes out.

The first time Clifton saw Argus, he was in a pen with other puppies. Argus walked up to the side of the pen, put his paw on the edge, and stared at him. “That was it,” Clifton says. “From that moment, we’ve been inseparable.” — Michael Donahue

Visit Argus at T. Clifton Art and Custom Framing Gallery, 571 Broad Avenue.

Bruce VanWyngarden

The Goats of Beale

The Goats of Beale

Angelina and Zena are a pair of 5-year-old goats who patrol the west side of the patio at Silky O’Sullivan’s on Beale. They are the fourth pair of goats to inhabit the famed joint since it opened in 1992, a result of a brainstorm by the club’s legendary founder, the late Silky Sullivan. “A goat named Puck is part of Irish mythology,” says club senior manager Jay Wells. “And Silky thought goats would be a great fit for the club. And they have been. People come from far and wide to see them, and they love visitors.”

The goats’ quarters, which include ramps and steps and private spaces, are separated from the customers by a couple of fences, mostly to keep patrons from feeding them or, worse, giving them beer. But Wells let me get up close and personal with A and Z, and let me tell you, they are the sweetest animals you could imagine, affectionate and curious and more than happy to nuzzle faces with their visitor.

“They have a better health plan than I do,” says Wells. “The vet comes regularly to trim their hooves and horns and check them out. They come from a goat farm near Atoka, which is where they retire at some point.”

And what do they eat? “Purina Goat Chow,” says Wells. Well, that, and the saltine crackers I gave them.

— Bruce VanWyngarden

Meet Angelina and Zena at Silky O’Sullivan’s, 183 Beale Street.

Jesse Davis

Zen

Zen

It’s the most common trope in comic books — the traumatic origin story. Wolverine underwent horrible experiments. Ditto Rocket Raccoon, X-23, and the Winter Soldier. Well, real-life comic dog Zen might have them all beat.

“We think she was a bait dog because her ears are clipped, and they’re not professionally clipped. And she had gnarly scars on her head and her legs. She’s filling in now, but she was skinny. She was rough,” says Shannon Merritt, co-owner of 901 Comics and 901 Games and dog-father to Zen.

Like Professor X giving Wolverine a home, Merritt found Zen at Memphis Animal Shelter, whisked her away, and gave her a new home and a new purpose — to patrol the aisles of the comic store, nosing out head-scratches and belly-rubs from customers.

Patrons of 901 Comics will doubtless remember M.J., the mascot of Merritt’s Bad Dog Comics line, who lost her battle with cancer in the winter of 2018. “I had a real tough time when M.J. passed,” Merritt says, though Zen is doing her best to fill the pit-bull-sized hole in his heart. The pair stick together and support each other. “She comes with me whenever I’m working,” Merritt says. “She’s okay with everybody coming in here.” — Jesse Davis

Rub Zen’s belly at 901 Comics, 2162 Young Avenue.

Metal Museum

Spatz

Metal Museum

Mr. Fuller

Spatz and Mr. Fuller

If there’s a sweeter gig than bookstore cat, it can only be museum cat. What better way to pass the time than to pad about the museum grounds keeping an eye out for pests — or for friendly tourists willing to bestow belly rubs? Indeed, resident Metal Museum cats Spatz and Mr. Fuller have it made in the shade. Mr. Fuller is a lazy tabby who showed up in 2008, and Spatz, the wilder of the two, is a black cat who made his first appearance in 2015.

Don’t be fooled by their sweet gig, though, the cats do work. They’re mascots, says youth initiative coordinator Darcie Beeman-Black, who has incorporated the cats into the educational materials for youth groups, like the “I Spy” program and Spatz’s scavenger hunt. Even the cats’ names are teaching tools. “A fuller is a tool in the blacksmith’s shop. It’s a peg that fits perfectly into a slot of the same size, and they use it to make curves in metal,” Beeman-Black explains. “Spatz is the protective covering you wear over your shoes in the foundry. They named him Spatz because when he was a kitten, he was always at your feet.

“They are tough cats. They’re in the shop a lot,” Beeman-Black adds. When they aren’t in the shop, they can be seen lounging around the grounds. Mr. Fuller can usually be found near the sculpture of an ant. “You can just walk up to him and scratch his belly,” Beeman-Black says. “He’s really sweet.” — Jesse Davis

See Spatz and Mr. Fuller at the Metal Museum, 374 Metal Museum Drive.

Jon Sparks

Molly

Molly

Molly greeted me at the door to All About Bikes with a wag and a cold nose. “Come in,” she said, “and try out one of our Baja Trikes. They’re a nice, easy ride for Boomers.” I glared at her: “Are you saying I’m old?” I barked. She looked back with kindly, soulful eyes and nuzzled me saying, “It’s okay, I’m 12 years old, so I’m sympathetic. We can get you a comfortable seat as well.”

I harrumphed and looked at Tommy James, the shop’s co-owner and devoted minion to Molly. Ignoring my snit, he explained the store was formerly All About Pets, and you can see the one-time resident dog Shelby memorialized on the back wall. The mission changed, but a canine presence was preserved, and sweet, laid-back Molly has the run of the place, sometimes going out front to take in the air and receive visitors who often will come by just to say hi to her. Tommy doesn’t seem to take offense. I scratch Molly behind the ears and say, “Okay, you got something in a comfort bike?” She gives me a nudge. “Walk this way,” she says. “I got you.”

— Jon W. Sparks

Let Molly assist you at All About Bikes, 621 S. Mendenhall.

Bass Pro

Bass Pro

Fish, Ducks, and Alligators (Oh my!)

“There he is! There’s the surgeon!” That was the cry from a youthful visitor to the Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid during a visit last week. The lad, who was eager to communicate his excitement to a group of peers being squired by adults, was no doubt a vacationer from elsewhere, like many, perhaps most, of the visitors to the Memphis riverside attraction.

The young man was verbally mistaken; there was no doctor swimming in the pool where he was pointing. But there was a bona fide sturgeon — a big fish that was clearly an exotic being, a long, silver eminence among the dark lesser spawn swimming in the murky waters on the Pyramid floor. It’s not the dolphins at SeaWorld, but these aquatic creatures are an attraction all the same for the people who come to the Bass Pro Pyramid, not only to purchase outdoors ware but, it would seem, to get a whiff of the natural outdoors world while they’re at it.

The fish are real; so are the ducks in another pool, and the alligators swimming in a tank near the elevator. There are other wild creatures on view at Bass Pro — bears, moose, wild boars, for example, but these are stuffed animals or facsimiles of the real thing. Not working stiffs like the fish and the ducks. Just plain stiffs. But they all, real or fabricated, earn their keep.

— Jackson Baker

See the creatures of the great outdoors indoors at Bass Pro Shops, 1 Bass Pro Drive.

Maya Smith

Axel

Axel

While brothers Darin and Josh Throndson are busy making teeth and other dental supplies at Innovative Dental Technologies’ lab in Crosstown Concourse, Axel, their chocolate brown cane corso, is there for moral support. Only a year old, Axel already weighs about 120 pounds. He’s giant but gentle, they say.

The brothers say tug-of-war is one of his favorite pastimes. He also enjoys the dog park on the Crosstown campus. But, their friendly companion spends most of the work day sleeping. And he’s a snorer. The brothers say the snoring is sometimes distracting but a reliable source of laughter.

Since Crosstown is dog-friendly, Axel comes to work every day with the brothers, who work long hours, sometimes 60 hours a week. “He’s good company and it’s allowed, so why not bring him?”

He’s been coming to the lab since he was a puppy. The brothers carried him to the fourth-floor office in a laundry basket until he was big enough to walk. When Crosstown regulars see Axel now, they are surprised that this is the same dog that had to be carried in a basket, the brothers say.

— Maya Smith

Axel’s hard at work at Innovative Dental Technologies, 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 450.

Daniel McGarry

Buster

Buster

When I walk into Clearview Family Eyecare, Buster is on the receiving end of joyful head-scratches being doled out by a curly-haired toddler while her parents finalize their appointment. According to his owner, Dr. Seth Salley, he’s the clinic’s Chief Happiness Officer or CHO.

His primary duty, aside from rigorous napping, is greeting people. “When he hears somebody walk in, he comes out and sniffs them and says hi,” Salley says. “And then he sits on people’s feet.” His presence also tends to take the edge off for nervous patients. “I had an autistic kid in here a couple of weeks ago, and he was talking to Buster and me. When we got through the exam, his mom said, ‘I don’t know what happened, but he never talks to doctors … I think it was Buster.’ He just has that effect.”

Buster, 5, is an English Springer Spaniel imported from Sweden by breeders in Mason, Tennessee. “He was a breeding prospect, but they told me, ‘He’s so laid-back, he won’t breed.'” He’s been working as Clearview’s online mascot, welcome crew, and calming agent since he was adopted six months ago. His Swedish export pedigree papers list his given name as Big Brazzel Dragon Fly, but at the request of Salley’s kids, they renamed him Buster, after Andy’s dog in Toy Story. — SC

Feel Buster’s serenity at Clearview Family Eyecare, 618 Oakleaf Office Lane, #100.

Toby Sells

Lucy

Lucy

When Lucy does her job, there are no good options. “If you’re right, it’s bad,” says K9 Officer Brian Jenkins. “If you’re wrong, it’s bad, just in a different way.”

Lucy is a German Wirehaired Pointer, a stocky, beautiful dog with a gray/chocolate coat. Brimming with energy, she bursts through a door at Memphis International Airport, and her nose immediately goes to the ground. Over a bag, behind the gate desk, and up and down the rows of empty seats, Lucy hunts bombs. Lucy was trained at Lackland Air Force Base. Some of her kennel mates joined the military, sniffing out explosives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lucy met Jenkins and came to Memphis, keeping the airport here safe with the Transportation Security Administration.

After a few more sniffs, Lucy sits. Jenkins throws her a tennis ball, pets her head, and praises her good work. It was a training exercise, of course. If it was real, only bad options would be left. It’s either a “multi-million-dollar mistake” to dump the concourse, re-screen passengers, and recall aircraft, or, “there’s a bomb in my airport,” Jenkins says. Lucy just thinks she’s playing, though. Yes, she goes home with Jenkins at night. And, yes, “she has her own bedroom.” But, no, you should not pet Lucy. She’s working to keep you safe, and pets from strangers aren’t part of her training. — Toby Sells

See Lucy in action — no touching, please! — at Memphis International Airport, 2491 Winchester Road.

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Cover Feature News

The Robert Lipscomb Affair

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Robert Lipscomb has been called the most powerful man in Memphis. Power player. Power broker. Dealmaker. Deal breaker. Planning czar. Point man. Puppet master. Shadow operator. Rapist. Motherfucker.

He earned the first set of names from the powerful friends and opponents he made in a nearly 20-year career in two roles, the director of the Memphis division of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and as director of the Memphis Housing Authority (MHA). With those jobs, he directed the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars of government funding to the biggest and highest-profile projects in Memphis. This is how he — an unelected official, a behind-the-scenes operative known largely only to those in government and business — became so powerful.

The last two names in the first paragraph are from a man whose accusations have burned that power to the ground. The man, now 26 and living in Washington State, told Memphis Police Department (MPD) investigators that Lipscomb raped him. The accuser said that Lipscomb lured him into his SUV and then forced him to perform oral sex on him.

This was in 2003, according to a police report, while the accuser said he was a homeless teenager walking the streets of Memphis. The accuser said Lipscomb made him perform oral sex on him more than a dozen times after that, giving him money and promises of a better life to keep him quiet. Since the accuser’s first allegations surfaced two weeks ago, more accusers have called Memphis City Hall with similar stories about Lipscomb, city officials said. Nine by the end of last week, according to their count, though no further details have been forthcoming, either from City Hall or the MPD.

Indeed, they have gone seriously mum on what is presumably an ongoing investigation.

At this point, the allegations are just that, and Lipscomb hasn’t been charged or arrested for anything. But the stories about him have packed a powerful punch. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, called the allegations “disturbing.” Jack Sammons, the city’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), called them “sickening.” MHA Chairman Ian Randolph called them “horrendous.” Lipscomb quit his job at HCD. He was suspended with pay from the MHA. Investigations have been launched into the criminal aspects of the case, of course, but financial investigators are also shining their lights on the books of every agency Lipscomb directed.

Meanwhile, the ousted Lipscomb maintains his innocence. Although he quit talking to the press under orders of his attorney, Ricky Wilkins, he was telling reporters who showed up at his front door two weeks ago that the allegations are false.

From certain points of view, it hardly matters; the damage is done.

It’s likely that, since the allegations surfaced, anyone who ever had contact with Lipscomb has completely reassessed the man who seemed to have all the puzzle pieces and knew how they fit together. Even as the allegations against Lipscomb remain to be investigated and very probably adjudicated, a new and unflattering light has begun to shine upon Lipscomb.

To many in the public, he is now like a comic-book villain walking half in the bright light of polite society and half in a private darkness with the demons that may lie there. And for all these years, if the accusations against him are true, he would have been carrying a disturbingly divided self around, one with unfettered access both to the city’s most innocent as well as to its most powerful — and with only a thin veil separating his competent and somewhat wonky public personality from an alleged private self that was both violent and profane.

Jackson Baker

Lipscomb overseeing slide presentation of Fairgrounds TDZ project for County Commission earlier this year; with him are architect Tom Marshall and Convention & Visitors Bureau head Kevin Kane

The Rundown

Nearly two weeks have passed since the original allegation surfaced about Lipscomb. Here’s what we know so far. First, the publicly known chronology:

Sunday, Aug. 30 — A late-night memo was sent to the press noting that a man had accused Lipscomb of rape and that Lipscomb had been relieved of duty at HCD.

Monday, Aug. 31 — Lipscomb resigns as HCD director. More Lipscomb accusers reportedly call City Hall. The MPD searches Lipscomb’s house and takes computers, folders, and a camcorder as evidence.

Tuesday, Sept. 1 — Wharton taps HCD Deputy Director Debbie Singleton to run that agency in the interim. He recommends Maura Black Sullivan, the city’s deputy chief administrative officer, to temporarily lead MHA. Even more Lipscomb accusers are said to come forward.

Wednesday, Sept. 2 — MHA suspends Lipscomb with pay, appoints Sullivan as temporary director. Sammons tells the press that Wharton’s office is going quiet on the investigation to let the MPD do its job.

Thursday, Sept. 3 — Lipscomb’s initial accuser talks with several media, including the Flyer, adding a detail here or subtracting one there, but always insisting that Lipscomb promised him a job and a house in return for sexual favors, with the relationship souring, as the accuser put it to the Flyer, after he realized “the motherfucker” was “pulling my leg.”

Tuesday, Sept. 8 — Still no charges filed against Lipscomb.

Toby Sells

Jack Sammons during last week’s MHA meeting

Conversations with Wharton and Sammons, among others, have subsequently filled out these bare-boned details somewhat. The first warning signal had come into City Hall on Thursday, August 20th, with an explicit phone call to the mayor’s office from the Seattle man, who, as was later learned, was a Memphis native with a fairly lengthy police record locally.

Wharton was out campaigning, and the first to learn about the call was CAO Sammons, who had just returned from official business in Nashville. The most riveting aspect of the call, that which convinced Sammons — and later Wharton and Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong — that the matter had to be taken seriously was the caller’s insistence that he had Western Union receipts of blackmail payments from Lipscomb.

The caller had also spoken of a police complaint he had filed against Lipscomb in 2010, one that was virtually identical to his renewed complaint in 2015. The 2010 complaint was dismissed — on the basis, police records showed, that the complainant, who was homeless at the time, could not be located.

The similarity of the two accounts, five years apart, was a convincing fact to Sammons, who explained further that the complainant chose to repeat his charges again as a form of release recommended by a therapist in Seattle.

Acquainted with the basic facts upon his return to his office, Wharton called in Director Armstrong, on Friday, August 21st, and the two of them contacted the Seattle man, who repeated his tale and also forwarded photostats of the Western Union receipts.

Jackson Baker

Mayor Wharton faces a press scrum about Lipscomb matter

As the mayor would explain to the Flyer, he deferred to the judgment of his seasoned police director, who decided the matter was serious enough to merit a personal visit to Seattle to meet with the accuser. Armstrong would arrange for such a visit, by himself and a group of investigators, for the middle of the next week.

Between that weekend and the Armstrong party’s return from Seattle on Sunday, August 30th, there were meetings about various pending projects in City Hall involving Lipscomb, Wharton, and Sammons. They were conducted in a business-as-usual manner, with nothing said to Lipscomb about the caller from Seattle.

But on Sunday, Armstrong and his assisting officers were back in town, and they met with Wharton and Sammons at City Hall with a full briefing on what had been two full days of investigation in Seattle. The convened group then learned that the accuser from Seattle had contacted Fox-13 news with his accusations, and a reporter from that station had called, wanting details.

That fact sped up an itinerary that otherwise might have taken days or even weeks to develop. Lipscomb was called and asked to come to the mayor’s office for a meeting, which, he apparently presumed, had to do with some hitch in one of his ongoing projects.

When he arrived, however, he found out otherwise, and arrangements were made in the tense atmosphere of that meeting for him to begin the process of separating himself from city service.

The Upshot

Heading into its third week, the Lipscomb affair has seemingly settled into an incubation mode, with dormant legal and political implications that could either simmer quietly or explode into an ever-expanding crisis.

On the legal front, the deposed planning czar’s attorney, Wilkins, an able veteran who is as familiar both with Lipscomb and with the way city government operates as anybody around, was keeping his cards — such as have been dealt — close to his chest, with the full expectation that more surprises might be yet to come.

Wilkins has made it clear, though, that he felt his client’s rights had been put in jeopardy and that he will have much to say about several aspects of what has so far transpired at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, the implications of the affair for city business and the mayoral race that was just entering its stretch drive are still being assessed.

Politically, it is too early to tell. Wharton was receiving credit in some quarters for acting quickly and decisively in dealing with the problem, once it came up. Others were prepared to fault the mayor for not seeing the situation develop under his nose or for even looking the other way from potential trouble.

Further development in the Lipscomb saga could determine which view would prevail, at a time when polls show the mayor with only a slight lead over his closest opponent, Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland.

On the governmental front, it has long been a fact of life in City Hall that Lipscomb was calling the shots on city planning ventures, which included numerous neighborhood developments, the just-completed Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid attraction, and a $200 million pending TDZ (Tourism Development Zone) project involving the Fairgrounds.

John Branston

Lipscomb’s projects include the Pyramid,

John Branston

Heritage Trail,

Bianca Phillips

and Foote Homes.

Under two mayors, former city chief executive Willie Herenton and now Wharton, Lipscomb has been influential to the point that a common jest was to suggest that Herenton and Wharton had worked for Lipscomb rather than the other way around.

It was no joke, however, that under both his titles, Lipscomb had extraordinary power and bargaining ability, which left most members of the city council, even some who were privately critical of him, unable to say no to Lipscomb when pressed for a vote. Among other things, he had the ability to route developmental funding into their districts, or not, as he saw fit.

The Projects

No matter what was going on in his personal life, Lipscomb’s professional life as the director of the HCD and as the director of the MHA made him the point man on a number of massive city projects.

What will become of those projects — ranging from Foote Homes to the Fairgrounds redevelopment — remains to be seen, but the new MHA interim director, Sullivan, said she will be working with the new HCD interim director, Singleton, to evaluate each one in the coming months.

“Ms. Singleton and I have years of a good working relationship already and will work in concert to ensure the progress of the projects, but more importantly, the success of the city’s residents,” Sullivan said. “These projects are all multi-faceted and involve various divisions of city government. We are both currently evaluating the businesses, and the forward progress of each of these projects is a part of that evaluation.”

Here’s a rundown of a few of the projects Lipscomb’s departure leaves unfinished:

Foote Homes: Through the Memphis Heritage Trail project, Lipscomb had a vision to raze the city’s public housing projects and replace them with multi-income housing. And he saw through the eradication of five of the city’s six housing projects (and the displacement of their residents via housing vouchers) between 2001, when LeMoyne Gardens were razed and redeveloped as College Park, to 2014 when Cleaborn Homes were torn down and rebuilt as Cleaborn Pointe at Heritage Landing.

But the last housing project left in the city — Foote Homes — remains as MHA awaits a decision on the federal department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods grant. Winners of the grant are expected to be announced this month.

Kenneth Reardon, the former University of Memphis urban planning professor who led the Vance Avenue Collaborative (the group opposing the demolition of Foote Homes), believes Lipscomb’s sudden departure could put that grant at risk.

“What does Robert’s departure mean? He has been viewed as one of the most effective public housing directors in the country. So his departure, as the major planner/architect/public manager/guy who put the financing together, at this late stage, could have a serious negative effect on the city’s ability to get this [grant]. It’s hard to really know,” said Reardon, who recently moved to Boston to take a job as director of the graduate program for urban planning and development at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

At least Reardon is hoping the city doesn’t get the grant to tear down Foote Homes, which he believes is a colossally bad idea.

“We still think the city’s approach to Foote Homes is ill-conceived and certainly not the most creative and transformative proposal they could put forward, given that the number of low-income people needing deeply subsidized housing and the proportion of those who need to be downtown for employment and medical, educational reasons,” Reardon said. “Foote Homes remains a vital asset.”

Jordan Danelz, Mike McCarthy, and Marvin Stockwell of the Coliseum Coalition

The Fairgrounds: With Singleton named as the new interim director at HCD, Marvin Stockwell, the spokesman for the Coliseum Coalition, said the organization is prepared to continue talks with the city. Lipscomb was a proponent for the redevelopment of the Fairgrounds, possibly as a multi-purpose youth sports complex, and he was planning to go to the state after the October 8th election to push for TDZ status for the Fairgrounds, a move that was opposed by many. The Coliseum Coalition aims to save the long-vacant Mid-South Coliseum.

“We at the Coliseum Coalition stand ready to work with anyone and everyone to reopen and reuse the Mid-South Coliseum,” Stockwell said. “I think part of the reason that public opinion has continued to move in the direction of reopening the Coliseum is because we’ve been able to have a respectful dialogue with the city. We had that type of back-and-forth with Lipscomb, and we have every confidence that will carry forward. We’re going to pick up where we left off.”

Whitehaven: Whitehaven’s revitalization is dependent upon the area in its entirety, rather than only focusing on Southbrook Mall, which was a point of contention within the administration — and Lipscomb, who was secretly recorded earlier this year saying that some city leaders were “throwing darts” at a proposal to revamp the aging mall. Mayor A C Wharton will be heading a committee to enact the Whitehaven plan.

The Pinch District: Lipscomb’s involvement in the Pinch District development — the pressure on which has been mounting since far before Bass Pro Shops’ opening earlier this year — were first focused on making sure the hunting and fishing mega-store got up and running smoothly. During the rezoning of the Pinch District in 2013, Lipscomb was quoted as saying that the Pinch was “second priority” to Bass Pro Shops. With that complete, there’s been talk of a new hotel coming into the area. Tanja Mitchell, community development coordinator for Uptown Memphis, is hopeful that Lipscomb’s departure won’t affect the area’s redevelopment.

Toby Sells

a marquee board at the Memphis Housing Authority

“We’re happy to work with any agency to get the Pinch redeveloped, because that’s something that needs to happen. The Pinch needs to come to life again,” Mitchell said.

All these, and a pending $30 million federal development grant, are potentially hostages to fortune in the uncertain atmosphere of the moment, but Wharton and other city officials have expressed optimism that all can still proceed as before.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Robert Lipscomb’s Influence and Playing the Gamble

In this week’s cover story, we, like the rest of the Memphis media, have begun to scratch the surface (and, for once, that oft-used cliché seems to be the right metaphor) of an ongoing problem in city government.

Yes, we mean the Lipscomb affair, for sure — a saga, rivaling anything in Sophocles or Shakespeare, of a sudden and dramatic fall from the heights of power to the depths of apparent ruin and disgrace. And one, moreover, that leaves a slew of unanswered questions in its wake: How was one man allowed, through two successive city administrations, to accumulate so much power and influence that, to all intent and purpose, he was unbossed at City Hall, able not only to chart his own course but, it would seem, to decide the direction of city government itself in matters of development?

It was Lipscomb single-handedly who came up with the Bass Pro solution to the riddle of an empty but debt-consuming Pyramid. He committed the city to sticking with that strategy in the face of other suggestions, some of which might have had merits of their own, and through year after year of what seemed never-ending delays. As of now, it appears that Lipscomb was right, that his gamble paid off. (Ask us again in 10 years.)

Other projects, like the apparently abandoned Heritage Trail TIF (Tax Increment Financing) proposal of a few years back, would have put enormous swaths of the city in potential hock to pay for what seemed, finally, disproportionately modest developments within a limited geographical area. The purpose, to pay homage to the city’s civil rights legacy while upgrading a depressed area, was fine, but the whole thing seemed out of scale, and it would have involved the disingenuous premise of having the entirety of downtown — which, all things considered, has been enjoying a boom — classified technically as a slum.

That project, like Bass Pro, might have paid off, too, but it ultimately seemed too much a gamble — one in which the ante seemed out of scale with the potential payoff.

The jury is still out (another cliché that somehow seems wholly appropriate) on another Lipscomb leftover, an ongoing Fairgrounds TDZ (Tourism Development Zone) proposal, which the administration of Mayor A C Wharton evidently still hopes to win state approval for, though there have been abundant objections to it from citizens’ groups and preservationists.

Don’t misunderstand. Lipscomb had a certain genius for dreaming up these projects, all of which aimed artfully at snagging state or federal monies (or both) that our cash-poor city would have trouble coming up with otherwise. Maybe Memphis needed — and needs — to take a few risks.

But it now seems clear that some obvious cautions are in order, as well. When we mentioned scratching the surface of a problem, we didn’t mean the Lipscomb affair alone. We meant that civic tendency, so much in evidence that a state comptroller was forced to upbraid us for it not along ago, to live entirely at risk, without sufficient oversight, like a giddy Mr. Micawber with a habit for playing the lottery.

We can still dream; we just need to have enough wakefulness about us to know what’s going on in reality.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Pyramid History 101

If you’ve seen one mounted deer head you’ve pretty much seen them all, but 100 or so stuffed deer, elk, moose, bears, and other critters is another matter, so I went eagerly to check out those and other wonders of the new Bass Pro Pyramid when it opened.

And I was duly impressed. This is a special store in a special building. And if Bass Pro founder/owner Johnny Morris thinks first-time visitors aren’t as curious about the structure as they are about the furnishings, then he’s dumber than a catfish, which he obviously is not.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bass Pro go public within a year or so, with a valuation of a few billion dollars, which is not bad for an enterprise that started as a Missouri bait shop. So I say, as Morris and his team of architects and marketers go through their final punch list items, they should add one thing — a nod to the Pyramid’s history, perhaps a display or plaque, with suitable attention to the funders of the place (the citizens of Memphis and Shelby County) and its prime movers, schemes, and shenanigans. Yes, including Sidney Shlenker’s and Isaac Tigrett’s crystal skull. People love a good story as much as a plate of fried catfish or, I will wager, an ode to duck flyways.

I am sort of married to the Pyramid. I wrote so much about it that several times I swore I would write no more forever, and then something new would come along and I would break my vow.

In 1986, I was writing for The Commercial Appeal‘s Sunday magazine when a young man named Brent Hartz came calling. He had renderings of a gigantic golden pyramid his father had drawn several years before and was doing a road show to influential downtowners.

John Tigrett, who was as reclusive as his wife Pat is outgoing, was smitten. Memphis needed a landmark and a new arena, but this was no gimme. Mayor Dick Hackett and the reigning powers-that-be at then Memphis State University wanted to expand the Mid-South Coliseum at the fairgrounds. The Pyramid was too big, too expensive, too far, too risky. Tigrett persuaded his friend, FedEx founder Fred Smith, to chair the Public Building Authority that met for nearly a year. The go-ahead may well have doomed the fairgrounds, along with Hackett’s political career.

It was a Mad Men dream with a cast of characters, mishaps, and moments worthy of a mini-series: the decision to move the site from atop the South Bluff to “down in a hole”; the “Big Dig” groundbreaking with a giant lighted-shovel drop; daring ironworkers with video cameras at the topping-out ceremony; the gap-toothed Shlenker; the aforementioned hidden crystal skull at the apex; the flooded bathrooms at the opening concert; the inclinator to the top that never was; some rocking concerts and basketball tournaments; partial redemption as Grizzly bait; and the building’s closing in 2004.

“Who knows what’s going to happen to this Pyramid in the long run, how successful it’s going to be or not be,” said Morris in short and understated remarks at the opening ceremony.

He looked like a man who would rather kiss a rattlesnake than make a speech, but there is no shortage of Morris-abilia inside the Pyramid. The tales of Uncle Buck and the yarn about going fishing with Bill Dance and catching a whopper that closed the deal are cute, but it should be noted that this house was conceived and built in Memphis, and Bass Pro moved into it.

Even modest public buildings usually merit a plaque at the entrance recognizing the enablers. At the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, a riveting documentary film records the contributions of architect Eero Saarinen and the placement of the capstone piece.

The most interesting building in Memphis deserves something to acknowledge its history, and it would be good manners and good marketing if Bass Pro were to step up and do it. Why not give visitors an answer to their inevitable “How did this get here?” question?

You can’t make this stuff up, and you don’t have to. John Tigrett and Sidney Shlenker are gone, but the others are still alive, and there is gobs of archival film. Tell the story inside the building. Lord knows there’s room for it.

John Branston is a former Flyer senior editor who is now working on various writing projects — and his tennis game.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: And it Droned Me

It was a beautiful summer evening. The sun was falling low and orange over the Mississippi, creating a deep, warm light through the city. Cicadas were chirring, hidden high in the old oaks of Midtown. Purple martins and nighthawks circled above, picking off insects in the pale night sky. The man sat on his front porch, sipping a cold lager, waiting.

He heard it before he saw it, a distant mechanical humming. He felt a surge of excitement. It was coming. It would soon be here. And then, as if conjured by distant sorcery, it appeared, just above the treetops, hovering, searching. The man wanted to shout, “Here! Over here!” but he resisted. After a few seconds, the airship descended, coming in low like a bumble bee seeking clover, and landed on his front lawn.

“Pizza’s here!” he shouted to his wife inside. “About damn time,” he muttered, as he took the aromatic, still-warm box from the steely claws of the Domino’s drone …

Okay, George Orwell, I’m not. But if the plan outlined Sunday by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on 60 Minutes comes to fruition, delivery drones will be a common sight in the skies of Memphis and other urban areas by 2015.

Of course, it won’t happen, at least not in the next two years. Tech and aviation experts are dismissing the idea that drones — now considered useful only for surveillance and accidentally bombing wedding parties in the Middle East — will soon be dropping off your new pants from J. Crew.

Even for a decided non-expert like me, the idea seems absurd and unworkable. Bezos says his drones would operate within a 10-mile radius. That means you’d have to have distribution sites or warehouses in every major city. They’d have to be staffed with people to load and program dozens of drones and send them out with the proper package to the right address. This is cheaper and more practical than one guy in a truck with 100 packages? No way.

And let’s say the FAA does by some miracle approve drones for commercial use. If Amazon has them, you can bet Zappos, Macy’s, Bass Pro, and every other major retailer will want them. The skies of America’s cities would be filled with drones, destroying the peace of a summer night, scaring the birds, silencing the cicadas, and disturbing the peace. And here in the South, there’s no way people wouldn’t be using them for target practice. Think about it: Every time you hit one, you get a prize. Irresistible.

The only selling point for drones is that they will get your package to you faster. Bezos says he wants to deliver your Amazon package in 30 minutes or less. But what could you possibly need from Amazon in less than a half-hour? The newest iteration of 50 Shades of Grey? The latest Miley Cyrus CD? I don’t think so.

The only answer that makes sense is … pizza.

So it’s settled. The United States will limit drones to pizza delivery. I think we all can live with that.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion

Two Views on Fixing Memphis: Spend More or Spend Less

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“You cannot cut your way to prosperity.” — Memphis Housing and Community Development Director Robert Lipscomb.

“Our high property taxes are one reason people are leaving our city.” — Memphis City Councilman Jim Strickland.

These are the two main positions on the budget talks that will play out over the next several weeks. Keep them in mind and you will miss many a pearl and many a pain but you will “get it” for the most part.

Lipscomb is right. You can’t do nothing and let Raleigh, Whitehaven, downtown, Midtown, the fairgrounds, Frayser, or Whitehaven deteriorate. You have to build on what’s there, give comfort to the community groups and residents who stayed, nurture the anchors, connect the dots, tear down the blight or build something better.

Strickland is right. You can’t raise Memphis property taxes that are already the highest in the state and lower than the surrounding suburbs that are growing at its expense. You have to turn the tide, hold the line, cut the fat, make the tough cuts in the sensitive areas. People of means will make a flight to quality and vote with their taillights.

Lipscomb is wrong. You can’t save the malls. In the era of online shopping, even Wolfchase Galleria, Collierville’s Carriage Crossing, and Oak Court Mall in East Memphis are fighting for crowds and business. You can’t say yes to every council member and neighborhood group with a sad story in a city that is full of them. You can’t say yes to a parking garage in Overton Square without saying yes to a parking garage in Cooper-Young, yes to Madison Avenue in Midtown without saying yes to Elvis Presley Boulevard in Whitehaven and Austin Peay Highway in Raleigh.

Strickland is wrong. The overall tax burden in Tennessee is one of the lowest in the nation because there is no income tax. Memphis property taxes are high but valuations are low. The property tax disproportionately hurts homeowners but the 9.25 percent sales tax disproportionately hurts poor people.

Lipscomb is right. If basic services decline there will be more flight. Public investments can be an incentive to private investments. See Uptown, or AutoZone Park or Bass Pro and the Pyramid.

Strickland is right. Public investments can be wasteful. There is no guarantee that private investors will appear, or that they will deliver the goods if they do appear. AutoZone Park is too big, Beale Street Landing is behind schedule, over budget, and even its defenders are criticizing its appearance. In the fourth month of the year it is supposed to open, Bass Pro is the quietest $200 million game-changer you ever saw, showing all the urgency of a man fishing on a lazy summer afternoon, making barely a ripple much less a splash.

And Mayor A C Wharton is right. As he said in his budget presentation Tuesday, “Sixty cents of every dollar the administration spends is for public safety, and three out of every four general fund employees works in public safety.”

There are 3,032 employees in police services and 1,830 in fire services, for a total of 4,862 of the city’s 6,290 employees. Add another 2,000 employees of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and that makes 6,862 people with salaries, benefits, and pensions in the broad category of “public safety” which is not exactly accurate when you’re talking about, say, secretaries, but very effective when you’re defending your budget to the city council and the county commission. You want to keep criminals off the streets and knock down house fires and rescue people from flooded homes and yet you say you want to cut budgets? Huh? Are you crazy? How dare you!

When I read or hear these public safety numbers I flash to two mental pictures: the daily emergency preparedness briefings for the Great Memphis Flood of 2011 and the overwhelming police response to the Ku Klux Klan rally downtown three weeks ago.

As it turned out, both non-events did not live up to their hype. Both mobilized the forces of public safety to prepare for the worst and put them on display in a sort of trade show for law enforcement. So many mobile command buses, amphibious vehicles, SUVs, Humvees, motorcycles, horses, patrol cars, chief cars, SWAT teams, weapons, shields, vests, computers, GPS systems, radios, laptops, smart phones, satellite trucks, all of it state-of-the-art or close to it because firepower, hardware, and communications technology keep getting bigger and better or smaller and better or faster and better or more powerful and better and who wants last year’s model anyway when the guys on the other side of the mall or the law have this year’s? Especially if you’re the one getting mugged or robbed or your house is flooded or burning. Plus salaries and pensions and overtime. To protect a bigger coverage area while billing it to a smaller tax-paying population.

To summarize:

Can’t close schools, they’re the lifeblood of communities and our children are our future.

Can’t let malls close, they’re the lifeblood of our communities and as the mall goes so goes the neighborhood and besides it’s already in the budget a year or two from now.

Can’t cut public safety because it’s public safety, stupid.

Welcome to another budget season.

Categories
Opinion

A Darn Good Week for Downtown

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Wow. First the Harahan Bridge Project funding announcement Tuesday, then the Bass Pro Pyramid media event Thursday. Two projects that bookend a third project, Beale Street Landing and the steamboats, that is also changing the face of the riverfront. Over $300 million in public and private investment by my math. And a successful relaunch of the Outdoors Inc. Canoe and Kayak Race last Saturday.

At the Bass Pro deal, someone collared me to say “nanny nah-nah” in reference to some skepticism I expressed over the years, and someone else grabbed me to say how much she likes Bass Pro but the only problem is their clothes hardly ever wear out. A third person came over to reminisce about the Pyramid groundbreaking or “Big Dig” we both witnessed in 1989. It seems like it was only 20 years ago.

Sturdy footwear and garments, along with ammo and camo and Tracker boats and fishing rods and bait and stuffed animals and zip lines and big ole trees in a swamp and live demonstrations and restaurants serving fried catfish and hushpuppies. As the King and the Duke say of their tomfoolery in “Huckleberry Finn,” if that don’t fetch ’em then I don’t know Arkansaw. Or Tennessee either.

Except that Bass Pro is putting another store in Little Rock at about the same time. The apologists who say no big deal are kidding themselves. I’ll drop at least a couple hundred bucks a year at Bass Pro Pyramid and take every visitor there for the rest of my Memphis life. But that 4 million visitors estimate sounds high with so many outlets within 220 miles. I like the band of glass on the exterior of the building but was surprised to see such a major change in the renderings at such a late date in this deal that has been in the talking stages if not the doing stages for seven years. And the fate of the observation deck is still unknown. Sounds like someone hasn’t decided where to spend those funds yet.

The $30 million Harahan Bridge Project, also known as “Main Street to Main Street” is a classic example of politics and creative draftsmanship. Get some repairs done on the mall in Memphis and on Broadway in West Memphis and a very cool but expensive bike and pedestrian bridge paid for in part with federal transportation and stimulus funds. As Bill Dries of the Daily News pointed out, Whitehaven and Graceland got screwed, if you will, on the TIGER funds allotment. Hats off to Charlie McVean, the driving force behind the bike deal. Others have talked and written about it for at least 40 years, but McVean, nothing if not determined, got it done. I agree that every able-bodied soul in this area with a bike will want to do it at least once.

And “once” may be the operative word. It’s no greenline, people. While you’re waiting for the completion of the Harahan Project, which is a couple years away, here are two things to try: bike to Mud Island park on the walkway above the monorail, envisioned as a dramatic sky train 30 years ago. And, for the adventurous, drive to Crump Park next to the National Ornamental Metals Museum, park your car, jump on your bike or put on your Bass Pro sturdy boots, and climb the embankment to the narrow walkway on the south side of the Interstate 55 bridge just south of the Harahan. There is absolutely nothing stopping you. Step out on it and head for “the other side of the river” which can be as much as a mile or more away depending on the river level. You can hear the roar and feel the wind as trucks speed past so close you could reach out and touch them.

It shakes. It shakes a lot. There is a 30-inch concrete wall on one side and a 40-inch railing on the other side. Scary. And hot on a day like today. Nice view, and about the same one you can get from Martyr’s Park or the metals museum. I know there will be all sorts of safety features on the Harahan bike and pedestrian walkway, but that’s the point. This stuff is expensive. It takes maintenance. I can’t remember a day in the last few years when I did not see workmen working on the pilings under the interstate ramps near Riverside Drive and the Pyramid. I wonder how many people have thought this through.

Once it is completed, I hope the Harahan path connects to the levee in Arkansas and a true bike trail on the Tennessee side to make a national destination worthy of attention from Adventure Cycling Association, this Missoula, Montana outfit.

The key to both deals (and Beale Street Landing), says downtown visionary Henry Turley, is leveraging them into lasting broad benefits to downtown and Memphis in general. The Downtown Memphis Commission and the Riverfront Development Corporation have their charge. Whatever mistakes they may have made in the past don’t matter now. That was yesterday, we move on. We bought it, we got it. Now get the cobblestones done, figure out Front Street and Memphis in May and Mud Island Park and the Pinch. Then we’ll really have something to celebrate. We better do this, because a bike bridge, a boat dock, steamboat cruises for $3000, and tax money for a retailer sure doesn’t sound like government belt-tightening or a city and a country supposedly in the throes of a great recession.

Categories
Opinion

Pyramid Earthquake Upgrade Would Cost $15-20 Million

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Upgrading seismic protection for the Pyramid and a Bass Pro store would cost $5.2 million initially and as much as $20 million when the work is finished.

Memphis Housing and Community Development Director Robert Lipscomb gave those numbers to members of the Memphis City Council Tuesday. He said Bass Pro executives wanted to “test the appetite” of the council before proceeding.

“I have not heard anything negative,” said council chairman Myron Lowery.

The additional seismic protections were announced several weeks ago and are not in response to the earthquake in Japan, although Lipscomb did note that Memphis and Seattle have been mentioned as earthquake risk areas in recent media reports.

The first stage would be below ground and the second stage above ground in the building itself.

Responding to a question from a council member, Lipscomb said it would cost an estimated $6-8 million to demolish The Pyramid, less the salvage. He said Bass Pro is the only serious suitor for the iconic building.

On another subject, Lipscomb gave a status report on the fairgrounds redevelopment. He said several “quick wins” would set the stage for a developer to make it “an urban village” of retail and residential and a sports venue. The quick wins include $25 million worth of upgrades to the stadium, a pair of Jumbotrons for $3 million, demolition of the Coliseum for $2.2 million, and property acquisition on Hollywood and other streets bordering the fairgrounds.

Lipscomb hopes to get approval from the council on April 5th. In his proposal, the city would be project manager and solicit proposals from developers. An advisory committee of five to seven members would be appointed by the mayor and approved by the council.

The financing method would be some combination of tax-increment financing and Tourism Development Zone funds. Both of those use revenues generated by the project as well as incremental taxes from Midtown areas. That way they can be touted as not tapping money from the city’s general fund in an election year.

Categories
News

Bass Pro/Memphis Pyramid Deal is Shaky

Concerns over the Pyramid’s structural strength in case of seismic activity have the city and Bass Pro officials rethinking the Pinch development deal.
John Branston reports.