Chick-Fil-A – Memphis Flyer

Chick-fil-A billboards joke about saving cows by eating more chicken, but if all goes as planned, the Atlanta-based company will also save a historic building in Midtown.

Chick-fil-A bought the Cumberland Presbyterian Church on Union Avenue for $1.3 million last week after a months-long battle by the Memphis Heritage Society to save the Gothic structure.

Though Chick-fil-A originally planned to raze the building, restaurant officials have worked out a deal with Memphis Heritage that will preserve the building’s tower and part of its facade.

“The area near the tower and facade facing Union would be an outdoor eating area, and the building itself would be north of that. Parking would be around the side and to the back,” said June West, director of the Memphis Heritage Society, who assisted the restaurant’s architects with the new plan.

Chick-fil-A’s vice president of real estate Erwin Reid said plans are not finalized, but the company’s goal is to save the building’s facade.

“We felt like it was the right thing to do,” Reid said. “We want to work with them as best we can since we hope those same folks will be our customers.”

Built in 1951 as the international headquarters of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the building is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Cumberland building has been on the market for several years because the church relocated its archive and office space to Cordova.

After West heard of Chick-fil-A’s plans to buy and raze the building, Memphis Heritage members began an e-mail and phone campaign to Chick-fil-A.

“The people of Central Gardens and other Midtown neighborhoods wrote these e-mails saying, we love your product; we want you here. Just try to work this out,” West said. “I think the positive reinforcement assured Chick-fil-A that this was worth the effort.”

Architects for the fast-food restaurant met with Memphis Heritage in May and worked out the new site plans.

“If this was another corporation, I don’t think they would have worked with us,” West said. “Chick-fil-A is community oriented, and they held true to that mission by talking with us and making this happen.”

Reid said construction should begin in two to four months. The restaurant is expected to open in early 2009.

A “For Sale” sign stands prominently in the front lawn of the Cumberland Presbyterian Center on Union, and the future of the structure hangs in the balance.

Chick-fil-A plans to purchase the site to make way for a new drive-through restaurant, and Memphis Heritage has launched a campaign to encourage the fast-food franchise to renovate the building rather than demolish it.

The building, which is the denominational headquarters for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, was built in 1951. The church decided to sell the building in 2005 and put the property on the market in February 2006.

“Obviously, some people weren’t happy with it, but the delegates who represent the church felt it was [right],” said the Reverend Robert Rush of Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s General Assembly. “It was almost a unanimous vote.”

The church already has purchased two buildings off Germantown Road and plans to move in after August 1st.

“We are selling the property,” Rush said. “And we have no control over it after it is bought.”

Henry Stratton, a real estate broker with Colliers Wilkinson & Snowden, says the building is currently under contract, but the Chick-fil-A deal is not finalized.

“The church will take the building down regardless,” Stratton said. “The building has nowhere near the value as the property does without it.”

Stratton said it would be costly to renovate the building. The walls are poured concrete, and there are only two restrooms, which are not compliant with the ADA.

Code enforcement administrator Allen Medlock said Chick-fil-A applied for a building permit last December, but the permit has not been issued. No one has applied for a demolition permit.

“They will have to have health department approval, approval of landscape design, a demolition contractor, engineers … lots of approval before they can do anything,” Medlock said, “and they will have to go through a rigorous plan review process.”

Memphis Heritage director June West says Chick-fil-A recently contacted her and agreed to send vice president Erwin Reid to meet with Memphis Heritage and a group of local architects and designers to investigate possible adaptive reuse.

“Mr. Reid expressed that Chick-fil-A did not want to have a negative impact on the Midtown neighborhood,” West said. “He is still very concerned about the difficulty of adapting the building to meet their purpose, and he made no promises.”