Tag: Beale Street Landing

Categories
Cover Feature News

Down by the Riverside

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

The Downtown Memphis riverfront does not suffer from a lack of planning.  Over the last quarter-century, a good dozen documents that could rightly be called plans have been completed for the area between the A.W. Willis Bridge and French Fort. But very few built improvements have arisen from these efforts.
— executive summary, Memphis Riverfront Analysis and Recommendations, Jeff Speck 2013

Two words easily sum up the Memphis riverfront: “It’s complicated.”

“If the solution were obvious, it would’ve been done a long time ago.” That’s Alan Crone, chairman of the newly formed Riverfront Task Force (RTF), quoting Mayor Jim Strickland. And that quote refers only to Mud Island River Park. 

Crone called it all a Gordian knot. That knot is comprised of smaller knots including centuries-old land claims, historic places, parks, our iconic festival, pedestrians, cars, mayors, council members, developers, anti-developers, money, money, and money. Nevermind that the Mississippi River rises and falls each year by about 57 feet, enough to swallow Hotel Napoleon. All of this has made “doing something” on the river a knot that generations of Memphians just haven’t been able to unravel. 

But nearly everyone interviewed for this story talked about the “amazing opportunity” or the “fabulous opportunity” or the “incredible opportunity” the river presents. It was that promise of opportunity that pushed former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton to form the Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) back in 2000, according to RDC president Benny Lendermon. 

Justin Fox Burks

Benny Lendermon

Since then, squadrons of architects, engineers, and planners have been called to our shore of the Big River. They’ve produced piles of plans easier described by weight (or, perhaps, in spent dollars) than the outcomes they’ve produced. Ideas have come, and then they’ve gone, brought to us and carried away on the surging-then-waning current of political and community energy for action.

“Now, for the first time in many decades, the city finds itself in the opposite position,” reads the 2013 Speck plan for the riverfront. “As other American cities have successfully acted upon bold plans to enliven their waterfronts, the citizens and leaders of Memphis have come to recognize that their river’s edge is not all that it could be. There exists a strong sense that change is welcome, but no single past plan offers a clear path for this change … and the last thing the city needs is another plan.”

Yet, here we are. Once again, out-of-town consultants canvass our riverfront formulating what is called a brand new Riverfront Concept Plan. They’re offering more ideas (but new ideas) that will knit the nearly five-mile expanse into some cohesive destination for tourists and locals alike to generate excitement, pride, and, yes, money for the city. To make that happen, there is indeed a new surge of political and community energy for action, riverfront leaders said. 

Sound like déjà vu? Well, John Farris, chairman of the RDC, said this time is different. Two private foundations — the Kresge Foundation and the Hyde Foundation — have signed on to help. Also, Mayor Strickland has assembled a task force, which will serve as an arbiter of differing interests on the river and review and choose portions of that new plan, ensuring that “something” will happen.  

“It’s not going to happen instantly, but I think it’s going to happen soon,” Farris said. “In the next few years, you’re going to be seeing a lot of change down on the Memphis riverfront, and it’s all going to be good.”

But some barriers exist between ideas and real change. Here are a few of them:

East doesn’t meet West
To many Memphians, downtown and the riverfront are two different things. “That separation is key,” Crone said. “I started saying that in most Memphians’ minds, Riverside Drive is as far away from Main Street as it is from White Station.”

Call it the Bluff Effect; it’s physical and mental. Climbing the bluff from Riverside to Front and points beyond is a real physical challenge to many. It’s an anomaly Lendermon said he has had to explain to out-of-town consultants. “They look at it and go, ‘What elevation change?'” Lendermon said.

But it’s not just about a heart-pulsing walk. Lendermon said there’s also little that invites people to make that trip. “People like having things to do and walking in places that don’t look like they’re abandoned,” he said. 

But the Bluff Effect also relies on a deep, more intrinsic need in Memphis: a car. 

“Most of the surveys we do [about riverfront issues] say the same thing: parking, parking, parking,” Crone said.  

That was certainly on the mind of Tonya Gollat in January. She and two friends were walking the riverfront. When asked what advice she’d give leaders on the riverfront, she said “parking.” 

“You want people to come down here, but where am I going to park?” Gollat asked. “They do have all this [gesturing at the Beale Street Landing lot], but it’s pay parking and it’s blocked off. People are not going to do it. That’s a waste.”

The Promenade and the “Overton heirs”
Besides any ethereal barriers to connecting downtown to the riverfront, there is another that is, indeed, invisible but very real. 

To see it, let’s dial the wayback machine to the city’s beginning. The founders, including John Overton, decreed a wide, vacant space atop the bluff from Union to some point north (Crone said the deed is a little unclear) would remain dedicated to public use.

So, doing any development on the “promenade” has been a thorny legal bush that has entangled and, ultimately, bested development and developers stretching back to Reconstruction.

“The Chickasaw Bluff, once essential in protecting the city from the Mississippi’s rising waters, now makes it difficult for pedestrians to see or even get near the river,” reads a 2004 study on the promenade area by Cooper, Robertson, and Partners.  

Public comments in that document called for “unique restaurants like ESPN Zone,” “quaint shops,” “restaurants with river views,” coffee houses, sidewalk cafes, museums, a pier, and more. So, the Cooper, Robertson plan called for some private development. 

But the Supreme Court ruled against any private development on the promenade back in the 1960s. The notion was stymied here again around 2004 by public outcry against it. 

“So, you’ve got the Overton legacy,” said Crone. “Then you have the Army Corps of Engineers, who has sway on what goes on on the river. Then, you have the Coast Guard, which has sway on what goes on on the river. So, people say, well, I just don’t see why they just can’t XYZ? Well, it’s probably not because they (being the city) doesn’t want to. It’s because you’ve got a lot of hurdles to overcome, assuming price is no object. It’s just very complicated.”  

The RDC
Lendermon said that public opposition to private development on the promenade and the formation of Friends for Our Riverfront was “where the RDC starting going South.

“That’s where we started losing [Memphis City Council] support,” Lendermon said. “At first, everyone was behind [the RDC], then it became like guerrilla warfare to get projects done.”

Virginia McLean, who founded Friends for Our Riverfront (FFOR), said she formed the group to give Memphians a voice on the public lands of the Memphis riverfront. She said leaders began to see the riverfront as a money maker instead of a public amenity. 

“Our position has always been that we have incredibly great bones for our riverfront,” McLean said. “It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. It doesn’t have to have big, silver-bullet projects.”

After the FFOR-led public outcry about the riverfront project, former Mayor Herenton, who appointed Lendermon to lead the RDC, fell out with the council, Lendermon said. “So, if you wanted projects to go through, you didn’t want Herenton to be there helping to support it.” The RDC was left walking a tightrope, Lendermon said, and all of a sudden his group and his work became controversial and, thus, an issue blocking the riverfront’s development.

That controversy certainly followed the RDC through the construction of Beale Street Landing, by far the biggest project the group has managed. The boat dock and public space started with a price tag of $10.4 million but ballooned to a final cost of $43.5 million. Lendermon said the cost changed because the project changed and was not over budget. 

Defending the Landing, Lendermon said dockings there this year will generate $42 million of economic impact. Also, he said, about $2.75 million will go to city tax coffers, which is about $500,000 more than the city is paying on the project’s debt every year. But Lendermon said that’s not the point. 

“It wasn’t built to be a break-even project,” Lendermon said. “It was built to be a park project. It was built to be an amenity.”

That project and many years of consecutive operating budget overruns have put the RDC in the crosshairs for some Memphis politicians. Former council members Wanda Halbert and Harold Collins both floated the idea of bringing RDC-controlled operations back under the city’s umbrella. In 2014, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton called for the organization to become more financially sustainable. By October 2014, the RDC began its “River Vision 2020” plan, which aimed to cut costs and find new revenue streams. 

Farris said the RDC is managing the riverfront for about the same price now that the city was paying 15 years ago. If the city were to do it, “They would’ve been paying a lot more money. From a pure contracting standpoint, we’re able to act a little bit quicker and more easily than the city as far as contracting and responding to issues that arise down on the riverfront,” Farris said. “We don’t have to go through a long procurement process to do work down on the riverfront.”

But the RDC has shrunk over the last few years. Revenue and expenses to the RDC basically halved from 2011 to 2015, according to tax documents. In 2011, the group brought in about $12.4 million and spent $13.2 million. In 2015, the RDC brought in about $6.6 million and spent $6.7 million.

During that time, Lendermon’s salary (another point on which the RDC has been criticized) has remained steady. In 2011, Lendermon made a base salary of $230,589. In 2014, the RDC paid Lendermon a total compesation package of $223,191.

City taxpayers have subsidized the RDC since its inception in 2000, and last year that contract cost $3.1 million. Though the IRS identifies the RDC as an economic development agency, Lendermon said the group hasn’t really done any development projects other than Beale Street Landing. He said the RDC mainly maintains the parks — making repairs, cutting grass, and providing security.

All of this was — before the RDC — the job of the now-defunct Memphis Parks Commission. If Lendermon’s job was to maintain the riverfront parks as a member of city staff, he’d be the highest paid person at Memphis City Hall. In 2016, Memphis Police Department (MPD) director Michael Rallings was paid $219,000. Mayor Jim Strickland was paid just more than $170,000. 

But RDC chairman Farris said comparing Lendermon’s salary to the mayor isn’t fair. “The mayor is not running the riverfront; he’s a public official,” Farris said. “He’s elected by the public. Benny works for a nonprofit.”

Farris said the RDC board chose Lendermon’s salary based on a 2014 report from the Memphis-based Centre Group. That report based his salary, in part, on RDC’s revenues of around $12 to $13 million, which are now around half of that. It also based it upon Lendermon’s length of time in the role. 

In 2014, the group said Lendermon should make between $203,000 and $230,000 wth a performance bonus of 25 percent. The firm compared Lendermon’s salary to other nonprofit executives at the time, including Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau president Kevin Kane ($326,844), Memphis Tomorrow president Blair Taylor ($237,120), Memphis Chamber president John Moore ($352,539), Reid Dulberger, president of the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine ($180,000), Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) president Paul Morris ($175,000), and Laura Morris, executive director of the Shelby Farms Conservancy ($126,716).

Terence Patterson, the new president of the DMC, made $190,000 in 2015, his first year. For the last three years, his group has managed Beale Street for the city, maintaining facilities and coordinating security plans, finances, and events. Last year, the Memphis Zoological Society got $2.9 million to manage the city’s zoo animals and exhibits. In 2015, zoo CEO Chuck Brady made $404,023.

Farris said what the RDC pays Lendermon is “a pretty good value for what he brings to the riverfront. The key reason why I think Benny is so perfectly situated to lead that effort down there is because he has so much institutional knowledge about the riverfront,” Farris said. “He fishes out on the Mississippi River. He is a river guy. He knows all that stuff backwards and forwards. We’re very fortunate to have him right now.”

With a talented, connected, and independent board, well-paid staffers, and years of experience dealing with riverfront issues, some have asked: If we have the RDC, why do we need a task force for riverfront development?

“A task force appointed by the mayor is in a much superior position to say to everybody, to the RDC, to Memphis in May, to Friends for Our Riverfront, and the DMC: I don’t care who it is — everything is on the table,” Crone said. “It’s maybe trite to say, but we really need to throw away all the paradigms and throw away all the preconceived notions about what we think about when we think about the riverfront. We’ve got to be open to change, because I think we’ve maxed out our current use and vision of the riverfront.” 

Tom Lee Park
Tom Lee Park is the “worst,” said Lendermon. “Everyone knows I call [Tom Lee Park] the worst waterfront park in America, and it still is. And I built it.”

Lendermon was the city’s director of public works when the Army Corps of Engineers built a dyke at the base of bluff to protect South Bluffs homes. For about $4 million, Lendermon directed the building of the grassy, 21-acre section of the park atop that dyke. 

The construction allowed for the major expansion of the Memphis in May festival, which, up until the rest of the park was built, had been bursting at the seams at the original, four-acre Tom Lee Park where Beale Street Landing is today. 

Lendermon said Tom Lee Park is a “great festival park,” but there’s no shade, no restrooms, and no place to gather. He said, “It’s like pasture land on the edge of the river,” and it has “so much more potential.” 

But changes, like adding trees or buildings, would hinder the stages, crews, trucks, grills, and more that pile into the park in the weeks before, during, and after Memphis in May. That leaves the park in a state of halted development. 

Memphis in May president Jim Holt said his organization brings 160,000 people to the riverfront each year, and he looks forward to new plans for the area.

“We look forward to opportunities to expand our program activities in Tom Lee Park, our festival home for over 40 years, and other improved public space which may become available with an enhanced and developed riverfront,” Holt said.

Justin Fox Burks

looking South from Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid

The Opportunities
Changes and additions, including Riverline, Civic Commons, and a new direction for the Beale Street Landing restaurant are all under discussion. Despite all the issues facing the riverfront, there is, indeed, opportunity there. Two projects are underway now that will bring real change to the Memphis riverfront — and probably this year. 

Work is ongoing to make walkable the river-facing stretch of trail on the west side of Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid. That project is only one part of an overall plan that will stitch the entire riverfront into a connected, walkable stretch. 

Signs will soon be posted for the Riverline project, which will direct pedestrians along the walkway stretching from the north end of Greenbelt Park to Big River Crossing. The RDC hired Copenhagen-based Gehl, an urban planning firm, to thread together what they call “an unbraided cord” of a riverfront from north to south. “[The riverfront] ties together here and there, but the idea is to gather it together,” Lendermon said. “[Gehl has] come up with a neat symbolic marking system to do that.”

Also, that east-west/promenade situation is getting a little love. Last year the city got a $5 million Reimagine the Civic Commons grant from national foundations to tie together some of those assets on the public promenade. That project hopes to thread together the area that includes the Cossitt Library, Memphis Park, and Mississippi River Park in to the Fourth Bluff. 

One of those projects, unveiled at a RDC meeting last week, will create a new recreation area for Mississippi River Park. The new section would incorporate tree houses, climbing structures, and a large meadow for play. 

That plan, which is set for an area just south of the Memphis Visitor Center, could also bring a pop-up park to Riverside Drive which would include basketball courts, a skating rink, and a space for food trucks. That part of the plan, which has not yet received final approval, would be placed on Riverside Drive, shutting down one block of the street from May through August. Work is expected to start on the project this fall. 

The Riverfront Bar & Grill, the restaurant inside Beale Street Landing, could be reimagined soon with some fresh ideas by a Memphis-famous restaurateur. 

Lendermon told RDC members last week that the restaurant will likely open for the season in April, as it does each year. But this summer, things could change. Lendermon said he is working on a new concept for the spot with a restaurateur “that everyone in this room would know.” However, he said no major change would come until the consultants have finished their work.  

Studio Gang and the New Plan
In January, the RDC hired Studio Gang, a renowned “architecture and urbanism practice” based in Chicago, to form the new Riverfront Concept Plan. The firm will present its findings to the Mayor’s Riverfront Task Force at the end of that 12-week process. 

From there, the task force will review options from the plan in a series of public meetings. Crone said the group will prioritize the best (and, perhaps, easiest) recommendations and then set them forth to the Memphis City Council, which will have the final word on funding any riverfront projects. 

Crone said the riverfront needs Overton-Park-level passion. “We need someone … to create for us that kind of amenity that — 100 years from now — people will be so passionate about that they’re willing to lay down in front of a car to protect it,” Crone said.  “We have a world-class amenity in Overton Park, and that’s what we need down [on the riverfront]. Right now we don’t have that.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Plan Calls for Improvements to Cobblestone Landing

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Navigating the cobblestones on the Mississippi River bank makes most people look like drunken deckhands returning from shore leave.

The field of uneven and awkward stone makes for an uncomfortable walk and is completely inaccessible for those in wheelchairs. But historians say Memphis would not be the city it is today without those stones, and for that reason, preservationists say they must be kept.

A plan is now moving, albeit slowly, to not only keep the cobblestone landing but to improve it. The project will cost roughly $6 million, and it will give Memphis Landing (the formal name for the cobblestone landing) an overlook, historical markers, a sidewalk for a smoother walk, and possibly a small boat ramp for canoes and kayaks. But Benny Lendermon, president of the Riverfront Development Corporation, said to not expect big changes.

“What you’re basically doing is restoring and saving a historic resource,” Lendermon said. “Yes, there will be some nice improvements, which will allow people to walk in some areas, but at the end of the day, the money is going to be spent on a historic resource.”

Toby Sells

Cobblestone landing

The latest move forward for the cobblestone project was an approval of the new sidewalk plan by the Memphis Landmarks Commission (MLC). That plan would create the Cobblestone Landing Accessible Trail, a sidewalk that will run along the wall below Riverside Drive. It will stretch from Court to Monroe with handicap-accessible ramps on both sides. The walk will feature two bump-outs for viewing and will be even with the cobblestones in the center.

“So, if you’re in a wheelchair, you could lean over and pat [the cobblestones],” Nancy Jane Baker, MLC manager, told the commission last month. “If you’re a child, you can walk on them and not get too far away from your parents, who don’t want to chase you all over the cobblestones.”

The new plan will also put a large mat at the bottom of the stone field that will shore up the field where it meets the river. The mat, unlike the stones, will move with the river. But it will be “yucky muddy,” Baker said, when the river is low and the mat can be seen, which will be about 20 percent of the time.

The area will also be cleaned, and some patches of concrete on the field will be replaced with reclaimed or new cobblestones. The area will remain the home for Memphis Riverboats, though some of the boats may begin docking at Beale Street Landing.

Lendermon said the project could include the creation of a small boat ramp at the north end of the landing, close to Mississippi River Park, for small, non-motorized watercraft, like canoes and kayaks.

A contractor will likely be selected for the project this year, Lendermon said, and the project could be completed as early as next year. The city and the Tennessee Department of Transportation are finalizing another plan to make the area safer for cars and pedestrians, especially over and around the trolley tracks that run along Riverside.

This new plan for the cobblestones basically began three decades ago. In the summer of 1994, the city built a foundation at the foot of Beale Street to be used for the relocation of the Tom Lee monument, according to a 1996 study from Memphis-based Garrow & Associates. Crews removed a large section of cobblestones, and the project was halted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for historic preservation.

A number of government agencies have piled onto the cobblestone project over the years. But in all that time, the cobblestones have largely remained untouched.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Museum of Terrible Ideas

A couple years ago, Flyer writer Chris Davis wrote a funny piece about Beale Street Landing, suggesting that it would be a great place to house the “Museum of Terrible Ideas.” I guess there was something about the giant corkscrew boat-landing ramp and the Lego-colored elevator shaft — and the long-delayed project’s $40 million price tag — that led him to make that suggestion.

Now that it’s built, I have nothing against Beale Street Landing. It’s a nice facility with great river views and a decent little restaurant. The Flyer even held its Best of Memphis party there last fall. So I guess the Museum of Terrible Ideas will have to find another home.

Maybe the Mid-South Coliseum could house the MTI. It’s certainly big enough, and it’s in the center of another possibly terrible idea — the Fairgrounds TMZ — a top-down project with few supporters outside of city hall.

Think of the possibities: There could be an exhibit showing how the feds once tried to put a freeway through the middle of one of the city’s great historic neighborhoods, a project that would have destroyed Midtown, the Sears Building project, Overton Park, and the Memphis Zoo. There could be an exhibit showing the thwarted plans to destroy the historic buildings of Overton Square and put in a low-end grocery store. There could be a section devoted to all our dead malls; a section honoring the former Airport Authority for its deft negotiations with Delta Airlines. Hell, there could be a whole wing dedicated to the terrible ideas of Senator Brian Kelsey.

And now there’s a new terrible idea that’s being, er, floated: water taxis. The Riverfront Development Corporation has ponied up $200,000, and gotten the feds to ante up $800,000, for a study on the feasibility of water taxis that would “ferry people from Bass Pro to Beale Street Landing and Mud Island.”

A 2013 report states: “Taxis are currently imagined as traipsing up and down the Wolf River Harbor, but the only water taxi that is likely to be effective at attracting people to Mud Island will be one that functions like a bridge, free of charge, zipping back and forth across the channel, always in sight, and never more than a few minutes away.”

This presumes that there are people who want to get to the tip of Mud Island. And that you can “zip” around the harbor. Both are out-of-town-concocted fantasies.

I have a little boat that’s docked in the Wolf River Harbor. It’s a no-wake zone, limiting boats to a speed that a casual jogger can easily surpass. If you speed up, you get ticketed by the harbor patrol, and you provoke the Asian carp to start jumping. There are kayakers and canoeists and fishermen in small jon boats. You can’t zip. A no-wake trip from Bass Pro to Beale Street Landing would take 20 minutes.

If water taxis were a good idea, someone would have started a water taxi business. It is, in fact, a terrible idea and the MTI should start clearing space now for its water taxi exhibit.

Here’s a good idea: Get the damn trolleys running before May, when Music Fest starts and Bass Pro opens and the Grizzlies are in the playoffs. Call ’em “land taxis” if it makes you feel better.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Downtown Memphis: Less is More

An early proposed version of Beale Street Landing.

The one thing Memphis and Shelby County have surely learned from the past decade or so, during which hard times visited and stayed around for a while, is that necessity truly is the mother of invention — and often a single mother at that. 

Even before the Great Crash of 2008-9, there was a general sense that we had let our ambitions on the development front soar a little too much. Take our riverfront: Organized opposition on the part of Friends of the River and other environmentally interested citizens was, along with alarms about the anticipated costs of the project, a major reason why some of the more ambitious iterations proposed by the Riverfront Development Corporation did not come to fruition. 

What was left on the plate was Beale Street Landing (BSL). Beset with delays, cost overruns, design controversies, and intermittent failures to cooperate by a sometimes unruly river, it finally got done within the past year. The public spaces are welcoming, the views are spectacular, and BSL has proved, if nothing else, to be a great place to have a party. The Flyer‘s own annual Best of Memphis celebration was held there to good effect earlier this year. 

It brings to mind the phrase — and the concept of — “less is more,” a term which, we discovered upon doing a little research, was originated not by the minimalist architect Mies van der Rohe, as was long supposed, but by Robert Browning in the British master’s 1855 poem, “Andrea del Sarto (Called ‘The Faultless Painter’).” 

We were stirred into admiration of a sort a few months back at an insight offered by Mayor A C Wharton (whom we had previously taken to desk, along with city planning maven Robert Lipscomb, for the grandiosity embedded in some of the ideas floated out of City Hall): Frustrated  by the scarcity of the times, by the drying up of public and private funding sources, and by overt warnings about fiscal over-reach from the state Comptroller’s office, Wharton offered a new, leaner version of development, which cast downtown Memphis as an open-air arena, with its parts — among them FedExForum, the National Civil Rights Museum, the soon-to-be Bass Pro Pyramid, and, yes, Beale Street Landing — being connected by relatively inexpensive public transportation. 

This was how the mayor saw us responding to tourist and convention competition from, say, Nashville, with its massive (and massively expensive) new Convention Center. 

“Less is more.” Yes, indeed. And even the nascent Main Street to Main Street Big Water Crossing project (aka Hanrahan Bridge project), establishing pedestrian connections between downtown and West Memphis, involves minimal transformation of existing natural surroundings at relatively low cost — the key component being a $14.9 million “Tiger Grant” from the federal government. Greg Maxted, the project’s executive director, made that modest but far-reaching project sing when he described its prospective glories to a luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club of Memphis on Tuesday. 

We have much to look forward to, and much of what is to come is already there, in a landscape that needs only some judicious tweaking, not a massive overhaul.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now Open: Riverfront Bar & Grill

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Despite the controversy, Beale Street Landing is now open for tourists and Memphians alike, and the Riverfront Bar and Grill located inside is the newest eating destination downtown.

Right now, Riverfront is still getting into the swing of things. The 144-seat restaurant just received its liquor license. It’s open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Both of which may change depending on demand from patrons. The menu is also expanding to include more entrées. Local breweries Memphis Made and High Cotton are in talks with the restaurant’s management to join Wiseacre in their on-tap selections.

The menu is simple — appetizers, salads, sandwiches, and desserts — and mostly under $10, a conscious decision made by management to keep it affordable. The sandwiches in particular are city-centric without being centered on barbecue: a grilled bologna with pimento cheese sandwich, called the Beale Street Bologna ($8.95), is one of the first menu items that might catch a hungry patron’s eye.

Other menu items include an appetizer featuring a Southern staple, fried green tomatoes for $6.95; the Chickasaw Bluffs Chicken Salad ($9.95); the Tom Lee Catfish Hoagie ($9.95); and a vegetarian sandwich with a giant portabella mushroom called the Cobblestone Mushroom Griller ($8.95). There’s also the Tennessee Caviar appetizer ($6.95) that features black-eyed peas and cilantro served with pimento cheese.

Justin Fox Burks

Beth Bomarito

“It’s Southern with flair,” says Beth Bomarito, the general manager for Beale Street Landing and the Riverfront Bar and Grill. “It’s not your traditional ‘meat and two.'”

Riverfront uses local ingredients to create the dishes that are designed to pull from Southern culture. Both the idea behind the food and the locality of the ingredients were important when the menu was being created, according to Bomarito.

“We may not be an ‘independent restaurant,’ but we’re as independent as you get,” she says. “We work for the city, but we don’t work for a corporate restaurant. That was really important to us to utilize [local] beers and the atmosphere of Memphis. We want Memphians to enjoy it, but we also want tourists to leave and know that they had a taste of Memphis.”

The restaurant aims to be user-friendly in food, environment, and access. “It makes it accessible for everyone. [Even] the people walking by, sweating and working out, can come in as well as business people,” Bomarito says. “We need [somewhere] to come eat on the riverfront. There’s not another riverfront restaurant between St. Louis and Vicksburg.”

The river views and the sunset can be seen from any part of the eatery and its outdoor seating area fits well within the parameters of the building’s design: the sloped, walkable grass that runs over the top of the rounded building shields Riverfront’s outdoor area, which is filled with tables and couches, from a scorching summer sun.

According to Bomarito, the shaded area is actually 10 degrees cooler than it is in the sun, thanks to the Mississippi River’s breeze and the building’s funnel-shaped opening. The reds, oranges, and yellows placed into the façade of the building, which also trickle into the inner walls of the restaurant, were deliberately Memphis too, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first glance. The rectangles are actually pixels from a photo of a sunset over the Mississippi River, so even the color themes are homegrown.

“We wanted to keep the colors in the restaurant very similar to a sunset on the river,” Bomarito says. “We have the best views of the sunset you can get in the city.”

Categories
Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

A Visit to Riverfront Bar & Grill

The outstanding weather pretty much demands lunch outdoors, and the outstanding view from the covered outdoor space at the newly open Riverfront Bar & Grill at Beale Street Landing pretty much demands making a day of it.

photo-115.JPG

The menu is small but smart for a place that will see a lot of tourist traffic. It’s Southern but not too syrupy.

[jump]

I ordered the Tennessee Caviar ($6.95) and the Southern Fried Tomato Salad ($7.95).

Screen_shot_2014-07-17_at_11.44.09_AM.jpg

photo-116.JPG

The Tennessee Caviar is described as a veggie salsa of blacked eyed peas and cilantro. It all adds up to nice, crisp flavors. The appetizer is served with toast points and a scoop of good, smoky pimento cheese. I was confused by the pimento cheese. Was it meant to be a topper for the salsa? I tried it and would say no.

The corn-meal breading for the fried green tomatoes was just-right, thin not too crunchy. It was served with a great lemon-tarragon dressing.

I also ordered the Beale Street Bologna Sandwich ($8.95) to-go for a coworker. This is a thick slice of fried bologna topped with pimento cheese and served on Texas toast.

photo-113.JPG

He thought this was one fine sandwich, which would be just as good without the pimento cheese.

One thing to note about the Riverfront Bar & Grill: It costs $5 for one-hour parking in the lot adjacent to Beale Street Landing. The server told me tickets were validated in the gift shop, but that only applies to those who are taking boat tours. They might want to tweak the policy to include the restaurant diners as well, as I’m sure they’re hoping to see healthy traffic from Memphians and tourists alike.

Read more about the Riverfront Bar & Grill in next week’s Flyer.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Beale Street Landing: A Timeline

After years of a constantly inflating budget and mounds of public scrutiny, Beale Street Landing officially opened to the public last weekend.

The Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) managed the landing’s design and construction process, and, despite criticism over the project, its president, Benny Lenderman, believes the landing has drastically improved neighboring Tom Lee Park.

“Beale Street Landing fixes Tom Lee Park, which I have said was one of the worst waterfront parks in the nation. Now it’s one of the best waterfront parks in the nation because all that it was missing — shade, restrooms, food amenities — are now housed within Beale Street Landing,” Lenderman said.

The $44 million boat dock and public space includes downtown’s only playground, a Riverfront Bar & Grill restaurant, a gift shop, docking facilities for the American Queen cruise line and other excursion boats, an observation deck, public art, and an eco-friendly green roof that connects to Tom Lee Park.

Beale Street Landing

But long before the landing was ever conceived, many plans, some of them including commercial development on a massive scale, were proposed for the riverfront. The Flyer has compiled a timeline with a few examples.

1819 — Andrew Jackson, John Overton, and James Winchester owned 5,000 acres on the bluff where the Wolf River flowed into the Mississippi. They commissioned surveyor William Lawrence to map out Memphis with lots, public squares, a public landing, and a public promenade along the river.

1978 — The Memphis Riverfront Study from the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development recommended a “riverfront garden walkway” with a “performing arts barge, an open air marketplace, barges or piers, marine service, and a better mooring site for riverboats.”

1987 — Center City Commission plan for downtown called for improving the public promenade as a “grand civic open space,” restoring the cobblestone landing, adding amenities such as “floating restaurants and places for art,” adding “something special at the foot of Beale,” creating a Bluffwalk, and adding an aquarium to Mud Island River Park.

1996 — Mayor Willie W. Herenton came into office in 1991 with the idea that the riverfront should be an “economic engine” for Memphis. He had several ambitious plans for the riverfront over his years in office, but in 1996, he introduced some new items. He wanted to fill in the southern tip of Mud Island to create 10 acres of private development as a “theme village,” build two land bridges to convert part of the harbor into a 28-acre lake, and he wanted to cut a channel into what was left of the river’s harbor. Those changes were estimated to cost between $25 and $30 million.

1999 — The Waterfront Center, a nonprofit that assists communities in making the best long-term plans for their waterfronts, was hired to work with the public in developing ideas for the riverfront. Those ideas included free, year-round access to Mud Island River Park, slower traffic on Riverside Drive, protection of the cobblestones, better docking for river tour boats, and scratching Herenton’s idea for the lake.

2000 — The RDC was founded as a public-private partnership to oversee, maintain, and “develop where appropriate” the public property along the riverfront.

2002 — Memphis City Council approved the Memphis Riverfront Master Plan. It included a 50- to 70-acre “land bridge” dam for commercial development. Early renderings showed large skyscraper-like buildings along the water’s edge. The channel to the Mississippi River was gone, and the harbor was to become Wolf Lake. The plan also included a mention of a boat docking facility in the area where Beale Street Landing is today.

Lenderman said the board later amended that master plan and removed the land bridge with commercial development.

This 2002 master plan features new skyscrapers and a land bridge filling in the riverfront.

“There were mistakes made [with that plan]. It was a 50-year plan, but the problem is, you can’t do a public 50-year plan. Board members can’t comprehend beyond five years, and the public can’t comprehend more than a year and a half.”

2003 — At the end of 2002, the RDC announced an international design competition for Beale Street Landing. More than 170 submissions came in from 20 foreign countries and 28 states within the U.S. By October, the winning design from the RTN firm of Buenos Aires, Argentina was chosen.

“A lot of local architects and even we [at the RDC] assumed that what you needed down there was Memphis’ Eiffel Tower or something to show where the river was, and then you’d build around that,” Lenderman said. “But what our design panel of judges gravitated toward is having the river be the attraction, and they liked the design that RTN came up with.”

2005 — In June, the Memphis City Council approved the Beale Street Landing project as part of the FY 2006 city capital improvement project budget. In August, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and the RDC said it tripled the cost of all projects along the Mississippi River and the price of steel, which was to be a key component of the landing’s construction. Critics of Beale Street Landing, especially Friends for Our Riverfront, had much to say about the project’s ever-increasing cost to taxpayers.

“The first number in a city budget book was $28 million. The final number, with design and permitting and construction, was $44 million,” Lenderman. “But part of that went up $1 million in the past two years because extra money was raised for the play area from private dollars. Of that number, $29 million was city taxpayer money, and $2 million was private donations. The rest was state and federal.”

In December of 2005, the first phase of construction on the landing began with dredging out the mouth of the Wolf River Harbor, widening the shipping channel by 50 feet.

2008 — A groundbreaking ceremony was held for Beale Street Landing.

2012 — The American Queen cruise line, the first passenger boat to dock at Beale Street Landing, held an event to celebrate its headquarters moving to Memphis.

2014 — Beale Street Landing held its grand opening event on June 28th.

Future — Preservation of the historic cobblestone landing has been approved, and it has been ready for construction for about 18 months. But that part of the project has been held up by a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) requirement that “railroad crossings within 100 feet of any project they fund be improved at the same time,” according to Lenderman. He said the RDC plans to go out to bid on the cobblestone project as soon as TDOT is ready to go.

Categories
News News Blog

Beale Street Landing Is Open

After a decade of design, planning, construction, and an ever-evolving budget, the Riverfront Development Corporation’s $43 million Beale Street Landing project officially opens to the public this weekend. The Flyer was granted a media tour today following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the landing’s playground.

DSC_0237.JPG

We’ll be featuring more in-depth coverage of the project’s history and budget in next Thursday’s Memphis Flyer. But for now, here’s a photo tour of Beale Street Landing.

A handful of children in bathing suits and their parents waited outside the playground this morning, as the staff and board of the RDC, Memphis city councilmembers, and others cut the park’s ribbon.

DSC_0206.JPG

The small playground, positioned inside a man-made island, features a giant catfish tunnel named Big John (after RDC board member John Stokes), a slide, and an interactive water park.

DSC_0226.JPG

DSC_0210.JPG

Kids can turn the water on by pushing a button with their foot, causing water to shoot from the tops of large metal cylinders designed to look like reeds. The water can be turned on between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily.

DSC_0212.JPG

Next to the park is another small island with gardens and seating areas. RDC vice-president Dorchelle Spence said that area is designed as a “place of respite” where people can sit and watch riverboats and barges. That area will have free wifi.

Beale Street Landing’s dock, where passengers load onto the American Queen and other riverboats, is made from barges so it can rise and fall with the river. Passengers access the boat by walking or riding in golf carts (available for the disabled or elderly) down the landing’s helical ramp.

DSC_0228.JPG

According to Spence, the American Queen docks here 13 times a year. The Mississippi Queen docks 15 times a year, and two other boats — the Grande Mariner and the Grande Caribe — dock here four times annually. The Island Queen, a sight-seeing cruise boat, takes passengers on cruises at 2:30 p.m. daily and on dinner cruises at night.

The colors for Beale Street Landing’s elevator shaft were chosen when its designers blew up a picture of the sun setting over the Mississippi River until only pixels were visible. They tried to replicate the colors of the Memphis sunset in the shaft. Visitors can enter the building from street level or from the deck atop the grassy roof.

DSC_0230.JPG

The grass roof of Beale Street Landing helps retain rainwater runoff, and it connects to the rest of Tom Lee Park.

DSC_0231.JPG

Inside the landing’s building is a gift shop with snow globes, Elvis souvenirs, Memphis tees, and other Bluff City memorabilia for riverboat passengers. Spence said, when the building is rented out for private events, the gift shop shelving will be hidden.

DSC_0233.JPG

The Riverfront Bar & Grill, managed by the RDC, will have a soft opening this weekend with an official opening set for the weekend of July 4th. There’s a full bar, Southern-style menu, and outdoor and indoor seating.

DSC_0234.JPG

Beale Street Landing’s grand opening is set for Saturday, June 28th from noon to 7 p.m. There’s a concert finale at 6 p.m.

Categories
Opinion

Another SNAFU at Beale Street Landing

CREDIT: John Branston

Benny Lendermon

The American Queen won’t be docking at Beale Street Landing when it comes to Memphis Friday. Instead the luxury river cruise boat will tie up at the north end of Mud Island for the second summer in a row, as will other visiting cruise boats.

The mooring arms of the 400-foot dock at Beale Street Landing are being detached this week because of low water at the mouth of the harbor. The daily excursion boats can still use the dock. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is not dredging the harbor this year due to budget cuts.

Meanwhile, the Riverfront Development Corporation’s contract runs out at the end of October. The RDC was on one-year contracts the last two years. The most recent one expired at the end of June — days before the big Fourth of July fireworks show on the river — so it was extended four months. Benny Lendermon, head of the RDC, said he is optimistic it will be renewed.

“We are in negotiations for a long-term contract,” he said in a dockside interview Thursday.

The RDC is also negotiating with a restaurant operator for the landing after no bids were received following the broken deal with the previous operator. The new prospect is said to be Beale Street restaurateur Tommy Peters.

The $42 million riverfront project has been plagued with problems and controversy almost since its inception. Here’s a snapshot history in Memphis Flyer photos.

Mooring arm of BSL dock

  • Mooring arm of BSL dock

The mooring arms raise and lower the dock, which consists of two 200-foot-long barges. They are being temporarily disconnected this week. The river is within five feet of a record low. Lendermon said it would have been possible but costly to design the dock for minus-15 feet on the river gauge, well below the record low. The RDC fired the dock contractor and a lawsuit is pending.

sidewalk.JPG

This plywood section of sidewalk from the shady space outside the future restaurant to Riverside Drive and Beale Street was supposed to be decorative tile. Another contractor screw-up.

restaurant.JPG

Restaurant partners Charlie Ryan and Bud Chittom decided in May not to go ahead with a much-needed food and beverage oasis, one of the main reasons for building the project in the first place. Ryan says there is not enough parking. A venue for parties and special events is one possible outcome. The only business inside the building is a gift shop and ticket office for daily excursion boats.

rubik.JPG

The multicolored elevator shaft, also known as the Beale Street Landing Rubik’s Cube, is the focal point of the project, to the dismay of some local urban design critics. It is supposed to represent . . . oh, never mind. It speaks for itself.

1340991500-paddleboat.jpg

The American Queen, whose regular visits were supposed to partially justify the cost of Beale Street Landing, will tie up at the north end of Mud Island Friday, just as it did last June when the water was low. Passengers get a bonus tour of Mud Island and Harbor Town by bus or limo enroute to downtown and their hotel. Lendermon said the dock at Beale Street Landing could be back in business for the big boats before the end of the cruise season in November.

parking.JPG

The black fence between the landing and the parking lot is supposed to come down within a week, making it easy for visitors to Tom Lee Park to climb the grassy hill to the top and the fine view of the river. It will also make it possible for some crazy vandal to drive up the hill. There will be a gate of some kind, like the ones currently in use at the parking lot entrances. As for the parking lot next to the landing, it is either not big enough (for a restaurant) or unsightly and unnecessary (design critics and proponents of a more pedestrian-friendly riverfront) because it separates the landing and the rest of Tom Lee Park.

mudisle.JPG

So near yet so far. A decent high-school quarterback could chunk a football from the dock to the southern tip of Mud Island River Park, but, alas, there is no close connection. To get to both, you have to walk or drive to or from the Mud Island entrance either at the parking garage across from City Hall or the parking lot at the north entrance to the river park.

workmen.JPG

Jobs, as always, were one of the justifications for the project. Beale Street Landing was envisioned as a $20-$30 million project and grew to a $40-million-plus project. The grand opening date, pushed back several times, is some time in 2014. Will Memphians embrace it, or shun it as they did Mud Island River Park? Readers of this blog know I have been critical of the overdo, design, and buck passing, but the view is really nice, visitors won’t care about the back story once it opens, and I hope it works now that we have it. See for yourself, but bring your own snacks and drinks.

Categories
Opinion

Reactions to the New Riverfront Report

CREDIT: John Branston

beale_st._bridge.JPG

Memphians with a stake in the riverfront have had time to consider the six “quick fixes” for the riverfront proposed by urban design expert Jeff Speck this week. Here is some of what they had to say.

Henry Turley, developer: “I thought the quote of the night was Paul Morris (head of the Downtown Memphis Commission) saying “plan less, do more.” I have long thought there was a battle between river access and expressway on Riverside Drive. Jeff Speck hit that right. On Bass Pro, I think he hit that right too. It is turned south and therefore does not significantly impact The Pinch. Several years ago I asked the McWherter administration not to put the state welcome center in Arkansas. The idea was to develop those sites, where the parks and development sites would go together. Overall, I didn’t find much to pick at.”

Charlie Ryan, partner in Beale Street Landing restaurant. “Wow. Wow. We already don’t have enough parking. So what else can I say. It is difficult to get to the building. It’s as simple as that.”

Bud Chittom, partner in Beale Street Landing restaurant: “Once the smoke clears there will be parking at the end of the park. We’ve got to have that little parking lot.”

Burton Carley, minister of Church of the River, called “the church of None Shall Pass” in the report. “It would cost the city millions for the river walk to come across our property. We spend a lot of money maintaining it.” Carley said the church has talked with the city and railroad about doing something to help the bike path to the Harahan Bridge without putting it in front of the church, with its big windows looking out over the river. “We are not obstructionists. The renewal of the riverfront began with the Church of the River.” Nor is he alarmed by anything in the report. “What I have learned in my 30 years here is not to pay attention too much.”

Tom Jones, who introduced Speck, wrote this on his Smart City Memphis blog, which includes links to the full report. Jones has been a close observer of downtown projects for more than three decades.

Jimmy Ogle, Beale Street Landing. “Taking out parking at Tom Lee Park would be tough right now. How do you get to the park?” Ogle said he is “lukewarm” to making changes in Riverside Drive.

Jim Holt, executive director of Memphis In May: “I met with Mr. Speck. Tom Lee Park has been our home for 37 years. Part of the magic of the event is the river. Every modification has an impact. We have been flexible.”

Greg Maxted, The Harahan Project: “The idea I liked a lot was Riverside Drive, adding a bike lane and parallel parking, and removing the parking lots and adding more green space.” As for the bridge project and the church, Maxted said the design utilizes Virginia Avenue for access and will not impact the church.

Virginia McLean, Friends For Our Riverfront: “I think what he had to say about Bass Pro Boulevard was a strong and good suggestion. If they would listen again they might have a chance of developing that little part. But if nobody listens now and they go ahead with their large sign and lights, then I don’t think there is any possibility of mixed-use going in there.”

While it is true that downtown has a lot of plans on the shelf, it also has a lot of riverfront projects costing many millions of dollars. Most of the projects since 1980 have expanded public parkland and amenities and deemphasized cars. A partial list includes:

Mud Island River Park, now entering its fourth decade and closed half the year. It has had two full-service restaurants in addition to a snack bar. It has been managed by the city and the Riverfront Development Corporation. At various times, it has had paid concerts, longer hours and a longer season, free concerts, a swimming pool, kayaks, paddle boats, air-boat rides, a museum, playground, overnight camping, and free admission.

Tom Lee Park was expanded to more than double its acreage, with a broad sidewalk at the edge of the river from just south of Beale Street to the top of the hill at Ashburn-Coppock Park. The sidewalk was extended south behind the Rivermont apartments to Martyr’s Park, which has the highest viewpoint of the river in Memphis.

A lighted sidewalk on the west side of Riverside Drive above the Cobblestones Landing.

The Bluff Walk from Beale Street to the South Bluffs, including a pedestrian bridge over Riverside Drive and staircases to walkways across the road to Tom Lee Park.

Henry Turley

Greenbelt Park on Mud Island, with a lighted sidewalk above the flood plain and paths and benches on the grass near the river, and room for several special outdoor events including a bike race.

Harbor Town was developed as a walkable residential community that now has thousands of residents.

The A. W. Willis Jr. Bridge opened Mud Island to private development. The bridge has protected sidewalks on each side.

Mud Island River Park is accessible by bike from the bridge or the sidewalk above the monorail, which can be accessed by elevator. Bikes are allowed in the park.

A landscaped median and crosswalks were added to Riverside Drive to make it more pedestrian friendly.

The Main Street Trolley goes north and south on the pedestrian mall. Cars are banned. The Riverfront trolley line carries passengers from Auction Street to the train station.

A pedestrian bridge was built to connect the University of Memphis law school with the park north of it.

Bike lanes on Front Street.

Photo-0014.jpg

New projects or additions to what urban experts call “the built environment” are often premised on the idea that people would walk and bike more if they only had more places to do it. I am unable to associate myself with this thesis. Most people bike for recreation, not to get somewhere for a specific purpose. And we love our cars. There is no better illustration than the bike racks and parking lots at Rhodes College and the University of Memphis, the very demographic that is supposed to be hot for bikes. One is packed, the other isn’t.