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Lawmakers Revisit West Tennessee Wetlands Development

Tennessee lawmakers are revisiting plans to roll back state regulations that protect nearly half a million acres of Tennessee wetlands from development.

For months, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has elicited feedback from developers and conservation groups, at odds over state wetland policy, in order to achieve consensus.

Thursday’s meeting of the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee demonstrated how little agreement has been achieved thus far.

Allowing unchecked development on Tennessee’s wetlands — which serve to absorb floodwaters and replenish aquifers — could lead to flooding that will cost taxpayers “millions and millions of dollars down the road,” David Salyers, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), told lawmakers.

“There’s about seven million Tennesseans that hope we get this right,” Salyers said “There are future generations that depend on us to get this right.”

Developers, seeking to gain from building boom tied to Ford plant, push for weaker wetland rules

Salyer’s agency has proposed doubling the area of wetlands that can be developed without a state permit from a quarter-acre to half an acre. The agency has also proposed reducing costly payments from developers tied to the area of wetlands they propose to disturb. And it has proposed streamlining red tape.

TDEC’s recommendations followed the efforts earlier this year by Collierville Republican Kevin Vaughan, to significantly roll back wetland protections. Vaughan’s bill ultimately failed, but could be revived when the legislature reconvenes in January.

Developers who testified Thursday criticized TDEC recommendations for not going far enough to remove onerous hurdles that drive up project timelines and increase costs.

“We’re not looking at a broad redo of wetlands across the state…we’re not looking to damage the hunting lands that are out there. We’re not looking to create floods,” said Keith Grant, a West Tennessee developer, who noted that Tennessee currently has stricter protections over small and isolated wetlands than 24 states and the federal government.

Connecting the dots between Tenn.’s home builders and bill to deregulate construction on wetlands 

“Why would Tennessee be more stringent in regulating wetlands than our federal government when regulation lowers property owners values and increases housing costs for tax paying citizens of Tennessee?” he said.

Conservationists, however, noted the increase in frequency of drought and flooding Tennessee has experienced in recent years, making the natural safeguards that wetlands provide even more vital.

“This is not the right time to turbocharge the hardening of our landscapes, but if we remove our wetlands protections that is exactly what will happen,” said George Nolan, director of the Tennessee office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

There is no action expected on state wetlands policy until the Legislature reconvenes in January.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.

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Opinion The Last Word

If We Lose the Oak Court Mall

When it was announced that the Oak Court Mall was to be auctioned in December, I was saddened but not surprised. Malls in general have been on a slow death march for years, and every shooting at Oak Court has made it more of a ghost town than it already was. No amount of marketing lipstick was ever going to return it to its former beauty-queen status. And if not repurposed, it will be torn down like the Mall of Memphis and others throughout the country. Amazon has destroyed the retail landscape, and the pandemic helped to make office space less necessary, so those two adaptive reuse options are off the table.

Whatever will replace the mall is guaranteed to harm the environment. Massive amounts of pollutants spewing into the air as it’s razed, thousands of truckloads to remove the debris, causing gallons and gallons of diesel to be emitted, and a landfill devoted to what is an unnecessary exercise in demolishing a perfectly good building. And it is almost certain that anything resembling green space will be destroyed in the name of increased density.

What I am proposing would save Oak Court and create prime real estate that developers would rush to buy: Move White Station High School to the mall and tear its campus down for residential use. This solution would allow both entities to reach their highest and best use.

As a bonus, developing the WSHS campus would not run afoul of the usual neighborhood association concerns related to height, density, and traffic. That’s because on its west are two high-rise apartment buildings; on its south, commercial development and a church; and on the north, Pecan Grove Condominiums. I’m certain there isn’t a single developer who would miss the endless rounds of neighborhood meetings that delay their projects.

Pecan Grove residents would have few concerns if a thoughtful configuration were created along their southern perimeter. Examples could include things such as making the main entrance run along the northern edge where the parking lot is now, and locating a dog walking area there. In other words, no tall buildings towering over their homes. On the east where the current football practice field lies might make a good location for green space, a pool, tennis courts, clubhouse, etc., so that the owners in Wellington and the lone house behind the eastern edge of the property could be assured of the same privacy as residents of Pecan Grove.

As for traffic, I can attest that having once picked up my own children from WSHS, there will be no grieving by the residents at the Embassy, who would love not having traffic blocked twice a day for 180 days of the year, not counting baseball and basketball games.

What I am not suggesting is another zero lot development or one of single-family homes. What I am envisioning is a Lexington-style complex that would answer the need for one-story homes that offer a garage. If one wants to downsize and remain in East Memphis, there are few options. Zero lot homes might reduce yard maintenance, but there are still gutters to be cleaned, trim to be painted, and stairs to be climbed. Yes, there are plenty of condominiums available, but almost none with garages. And since many of the developments are two stories, you’re back to the stair question.

Downsizing at my stage in life, however, doesn’t mean living in 1,200 square feet and two bedrooms. So I’m hoping that were it to be developed, more square feet would be part of the plan

Many questions remain about the existing anchors of the mall, but there are plenty of adaptations elsewhere in the country that could be used as models. Perhaps the upper parking deck adjacent to Dillard’s could be resurfaced for a baseball field, while the area closest to the tracks, if there were room, could be turned into a football stadium where games could actually be played on campus, with no residents to be bothered by lights. And unlike the current site, there is ample parking for students and faculty. The existing food court could function as a cafeteria, and since the mall interior is already green, gray, and white, no loss of school identity would occur.

And with the ubiquity of school shootings, proper design decisions could make the existing mall virtually impregnable.

So here’s to preserving the mall. And building my old-age dream home.

Ruth Ogles Johnson is an occasional contributor to the Flyer.

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News News Blog News Feature

Mysterious (and Abandoned) Cooper-Young Church Targeted for Development

An abandoned Cooper-Young church could get a new life as a house if it meets the approval of city officials next month. 

The old stone church sits at 775 Tanglewood, tucked away in an off-the-beaten-path part of the Midtown neighborhood between York and Elzey. 

(Credit: Google Maps)

Memphis-based developer Griffin Elkington Investments LLC hopes to renovate the abandoned structure. The company plans for the building to be a house with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, dining room, and a kitchen. 

(Credit: Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development)

The company is seeking approval for the project from the Memphis Landmarks Commission in an application filed this month. Leaders of that board are slated to hear the case and make a decision on it at its next regular meeting on July 28th. Comments from the public to be included in the hearing are accepted until July 22nd. Send comments to margot.payne@memphistn.gov

Few details can be gleaned from the project’s application. The outside would apparently be fixed up and the inside gutted to make way for the new rooms. 

According to information from the Shelby County Register of Deeds, the old church was sold in 2020 by Ceylon Mooney to M-Town Properties for $85,000. M-Town sold the church and another lot close to it to Elkington in March 2022 for $165,000. 

 Memphis magazine, our sister publication, ran down the church’s history in a story from April 2021. In it, Memphis columnist and historian Vance Lauderdale said, “constructed almost exactly a century ago, this little church has served as home to almost a dozen congregations and more pastors than I could name (though I’ll mention some of them).”

“Cedar Grove Baptist Church opened its doors on Tanglewood in 1920. The early years are a bit confusing. The city directories don’t list a minister. Sometimes they spell the name as two words and other times as “Cedargrove.” And they can’t even agree on the precise location of the property, many years listing the street address as 783 Tanglewood, which would have placed it smack in the middle of the old Beltway Railway, which at one time ran alongside the south wall of the church.

(Credit: Lily Bear Traverse)

“Even more confusing? Those same directories sometimes claim the church was located on the north side of that rail line, and at other times, they say it was on the south side. I seriously doubt the church, or the railroad, moved back and forth over the years, but I can’t make sense of the inconsistencies with the address.

”Although the tracks were pulled up decades ago, that same railway crosses over South Cooper, just a block to the east. In fact, it carried trains along the well-known trestle that’s decorated with silhouettes of Cooper-Young landmarks.”

Read more about the history of the church at 775 Tanglewood here at the Memphis magazine site. 

Categories
At Large Opinion

View From a Boat

Someday, my baby, when I am a man

And others have taught me the best that they can

They’ll sell me a suit, then cut off my hair,

And send me to work in tall buildings …

— John Hartford

I’m tempted to quote T-Pain: “I’m on a boat, mother … .” But I’ll spare you. I was on a boat on my vacation, though, a funky single-masted sloop owned by a sailing co-op my son belongs to in Rockaway Beach. We went out one evening with eight locals for a sunset sail in Jamaica Bay. The only sounds were gulls, congenial conversation, and the occasional snap of the mainsail. As the sun fell to the orange horizon, we took pictures. I noticed when I enlarged the photos that you could see the entire skyline of Manhattan below the setting sun, far and wee in the distance.

It brought to mind a story I’d read in The New York Times earlier in the week called “A Full Return to the Office? Does ‘Never’ Work for You?” The current return-to-office rate for office workers around the country is 43 percent, but in New York City, recent data puts the number of workers who have returned to the office five days a week at 8 percent. Most of the buildings in that impressive skyline are half-full at best.

At-home workers cite Covid fears, the cost of commuting, gasoline prices, childcare, and the inability to concentrate in a cubicle/desk situation as reasons to continue working remotely. Management fears that if their workers stay home their organizations will lose the benefits of cooperative brainstorming, a teamwork ethic, and, yes, a lack of direct oversight — not to mention that companies continue to have to pay for their office facilities whether they’re used or not.

But it’s clear the pandemic has unmasked a myth: that people need oversight to be productive. Different organizations are trying different ways forward. Some are experimenting with three-day-a-week office hours or flex scheduling around meetings, school schedules, etc. Others are downsizing office space to a few meeting areas and shared workstations.

It’s all in flux, but one thing seems certain: The office out-migration is going to greatly impact the nation’s cities, where commercial real estate has traditionally been a driver of business, employment, income, and tax revenues. Full Downtown office buildings mean full restaurants, full bars for after-work happy hours, full parking facilities, and bustling retail. Now, maybe not so much.

But in a weird way, the work-from-home trend may favor a city like Memphis. For years, we’ve marveled at Nashville’s building boom, its Downtown seemingly permanently decorated with a half-dozen cranes attached to under-construction office towers. But if you’ve been to Downtown Nashville at night lately, you’ve seen a congested, noisy, tourist hell-hole. Housing prices are skyrocketing. A recent piece in the Nashville Post reported that “6 percent of homebuyers moving to Memphis in the first quarter were from Nashville, twice the rate of the same period in 2021. In April, the typical home in Nashville sold for $455,000, compared to $280,000 in Memphis.” Welcome to Bluff City, cowpokes.

Downtown Memphis is anything but overbuilt. We’ve still got the finest 1970s skyline in America. Plus a pyramid. Sterick Building, anyone? But maybe we got lucky. Nashville, New York, Austin, and all those other “it” cities are going to have to figure out what to do with all those shiny “big empties.” Not us. And let’s not forget that thousands of Memphians don’t have the privilege of working from home. Warehouses, factories, hospitals, retail cash registers, bars, grocery stores, delivery trucks, etc. don’t exist without people leaving their homes and clocking in. Without these essential workers, everything breaks down. The Memphis economy is filled with those kinds of jobs. Which, it turns out, is a good thing in the eventual post-pandemic world.

So, maybe the future is livability and affordability. Maybe the future is funkiness and soul and big trees and big water rather than tall, gleaming — empty — buildings. Maybe it’s finally our turn. Maybe we’ve been there all along, patiently waiting for the world to find us — out there on the horizon, far and wee in the distance.

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News News Blog

The “Tower Project” Would Bring New High Rise to the Pinch

The Tower Project Group

A new, 30-to-45 story tower is proposed for the Pinch District in an $180 million project that would re-shape the city’s skyline.

Memphis City Council members are set to hear a proposal from The Tower Group Project on Tuesday. The group’s new project, called “The Tower Project,” is a thin, glass, high-rise building to be built on vacant property in the Pinch.

The property for the project is now owned by the city. The group will ask the council’s approval to buy it and get other approvals necessary to develop it.

The Tower would feature about 85 independently owned condominiums, a “chic style” hotel called The Beckford, 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, a rooftop lounge, “high tech sky conference rooms, a state-of-the-art, interior tourist lobby/plaza, and all of that would be centered on a subterranean interior parking structure.” 

“The Tower Project will invigorate the Pinch District and remain within the city’s current
planning dynamics,” reads a letter to the council from The Tower Group Project. “We will also provide additional housing diversity that complements the eclectic make-up of the area.


The project will create both construction and longterm employment opportunities. This development will also encourage use of multimodal transportation options and activate the streetscape and river side area.”

The Tower Project Group

The structure will be engineered and designed by the HOK architectural firm, with that group’s Miami office serving as the lead. The project’s lead architect will be Kennieth Richardson, a native Memphian who now lives in Miami. The group’s letter says Richardson has “previously designed, coordinated, and built 40 percent of the modern towers in Downtown Miami.”

The Tower Project Group

The Beckford Hotel will face Main Street, and will consist of seven to 10 floors of The Tower Project. A quick Google did not yield any results for other Beckford Hotel-branded properties. The letter says, “the Beckford Hotel is our luxury hotel brand for the Tower High Rise building project.” It was not immediately clear if the Beckford brand is new for The Tower Project but the proposal letter describes it a a new, luxury five-star hotel.”

”Residents and visitors alike will be drawn to the project by the glass tower anchoring the city and river view as well as the skyline of the tower,” reads the letter. “Locals and tourists will be encouraged to explore the commercial and public spaces by the unobstructed glazed building and architectural accent lighting.

The Tower Project Group

“Entry to the hotel facility along N. Main St. will be harmonious but yet strikingly distinguishable from the commercial and condominium entries.”

The project is slated to create 300 construction jobs. The hotel will bring 55 full-time employees. Overall, the project would create 65-125 “total living wage jobs with annual incomes ranging from $35,000-$180,000,” according to the proposal.

If the team can get the land and approvals, construction would begin on or before October 2021. The project would take 30 months to complete.

The proposal is slated to be heard during the council’s executive session at the end of Tuesday’s committee hearings.

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News News Blog

City Planners Host Public Meetings on 3.0 Plan


There are six public meetings coming up for residents to meet with city planners and learn about how the Comprehensive Memphis 3.0 plan will affect their neighborhood.

The times and locations for the meetings are listed below. 


After delaying the vote on Memphis 3.0 several times since March, the Memphis City Council voted last week to hire a consultant to assess the financial impact the plan could have. The consultant has until mid-September to present their findings to the council. That’s when the council will take the second of three votes on the 3.0 ordinance.

In May, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland signed an executive order to ensure Memphis 3.0 would guide all city decisions on the administrative side, excluding land use. The council still has to approve the plan before it can impact land use.

The 3.0 plan is meant to be a guiding document for investments and development in the city over the next 20 years. The plan identifies citywide and community “anchors,” walkable mixed-use activity hubs, as places with the greatest opportunity for growth and improvement. The plan also identifies the degree of change needed for each anchor. This means the anchor will either be nurtured, accelerated or sustained.

Acceleration anchors signify a greater degree of change is necessary for the area. These changes will rely on a mix of private and philanthropic resources, as well as some public resources, according to the document.

Here’s a quick look at what the key acceleration anchors and recommendations are for each council district in the city. To figure out which district you reside in, visit this site.

District 1

O.T. Marshall Architects

Rendering of library at new Raleigh Town Center

Raleigh makes up most of District 1. The anchor chosen for acceleration is the former Raleigh Springs Mall and surrounding neighborhood. In 2018, construction of the Raleigh Town Center at the site of the old mall began. The town center will feature a walking trail, green space, and skate park, as well as a new library and police precinct. Memphis 3.0 recommends that the 30 acres of the site not included in the project be developed in the future. The plan specifically suggests the following for the area:

• Incentivizing small and minority-owned businesses to locate to the area

• Incentivizing facade and landscaping improvements to the surrounding commercial shopping centers

• Developing mixed-use infill to make the area more dense and reduce the number of vacant properties

• Further development of the remaining 30 acres of the former Raleigh Springs Mall

• Installing traffic-calming measures along Austin Peay

• Increasing the frequency of buses along Frayser-Raleigh Road and Austin Peay to every 30 minutes

District 2

District 2 contains the eastern-most edge of the city. The key anchor there pegged for acceleration is the intersection of Ridgeway and Winchester. The priorities in this district include reducing blight through adaptive reuses of vacant properties, increasing connectivity, and improving pedestrian safety. Specific recommendations for the anchor area include:

• Incentivizing mixed-use development near the Hickory Ridge Mall that includes cultural amenities

• Conducting a Winchester Corridor Study to take advantage of the economic viability of the area

• Identifying improvements to underutilized public land

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses on the portion of Winchester within the district to every 30 minutes

District 3

The southeast corner of Memphis makes up District 3. The anchor chosen for acceleration there is the intersection of Mendenhall and Winchester. The plan suggests supporting local business associations, art venues, and cultural organizations. Other priorities include increasing the number of high-quality housing options near anchors, safety improvements, and reducing blight. Here the plan specifically suggests the following:

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses on the portion of Winchester within the district to every 30 minutes

• Incentivizing mixed-use development that includes cultural amenities

• Facade improvements, such as installing street furniture, trees, and public art

• Increasing density

• Conducting a Winchester Corridor Study to take advantage of the economic viability of the area

• Creating green infrastructure in underutilized parking facilities, such as planting trees and flowers

District 4

City of Memphis

Current view of the intersection of Lamar and Airways, a District 4 anchor

In District 4, which sits near the middle of the city and comprises Orange Mound, Castalia Heights, and parts of Cooper-Young, the acceleration anchor is the intersection of Lamar and Airways. Some of the priorities for the district include improving pedestrian safety with traffic calming infrastructure, engaging community groups to initiate change, creating affordable commercial rent, and promoting the history of the Orange Mound neighborhood. The specific recommendations for the anchor neighborhood include:

• Encouraging mixed-use, mixed-income development at Lamar and Airways

• Implementing tools to support affordable housing

• Increasing cultural identity around the anchors with public art and programming in public spaces

• Creating attractive connections between neighborhoods

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses to every 15 minutes along Lamar and every 30 minutes along Park and Kimball

District 5

District 5 covers much of the Poplar corridor and surrounding areas. One of the anchors chosen for acceleration here is the intersection of Poplar and Truse. The goals are to support neighborhood redevelopment and encourage private market activity, support local minority and women-owned business, and to create affordable housing options. Specially, the plan suggests the following:

• Assessing parking and potentially consolidating parking

• Increasing the cultural identity around the district’s anchors

• Installing public art and implementing public programming

• Improving the streetscape with trees, lighting, and pedestrian amenities

• Implementing a 15- or 20-minute interval bus line for Poplar

District 6

Self + Tucker Architects

Rendering of traffic calming configurations, public art, and public right-of-way beautification

The southwestern corner of the city makes up District 6 and is comprised of portions of South Memphis, Westwood, and Whitehaven. One of the anchors targeted for acceleration is the intersection of Neptune and Walker. Priorities include identifying financial resources for housing and home repairs, blight removal, and increasing transportation options. The specific recommendations for the anchor area include:

• Supporting multi-modal transportation options

• Encouraging housing development for diverse income levels

• Establishing partnerships with local institutions and small developers for infill projects

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses to every 30 minutes along Mississippi Boulevard

District 7

District 7 is made up mostly of the Frayser neighborhood in North Memphis and the northern portion of Downtown. One of the anchors set to be accelerated is the intersection of Frayser Boulevard and Overton Crossing.

Some of the priorities for this area are promoting pedestrian-oriented infill, creating mixed-use development, installing traffic-calming measures, such as bike lanes and landscaped medians, and addressing the abundance of blighted, vacant properties. Specially, the plan suggests the following:

• Integrating green spaces in commercial lots to provide pedestrian refuges

• Supporting affordable housing

• Developing neighborhood gateways

• Installing public art and implementing public programming

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses on Frayser Boulevard and University Street to every 30 minutes

Self + Tucker Architects

Proposed infrastructure improvements near the Frayser Plaza

District 8

Super District 8 is made up of Districts 6 and 7, as well as the majority of Districts 3 and 4. The key anchors for acceleration identified here are Lamar and Airways within District 4. Recommendations for the entire super district include housing rehab in areas such as New Chicago and Soulsville, infill development at Raines and Elvis Presley, and promoting pop-up shops and other commercial activity near Danny Thomas and A.W. Willis. Specific recommendations include:

• Addressing motorist and pedestrian safety hazards at the Lamar/Kimball/Pendleton intersections

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses along Lamar, East Parkway, and North Watkins to every 15 minutes

District 9

Super District 9 comprises Districts 1, 2, and 5, as well as a small portion of Districts 3 and 4. The key anchor here for acceleration is the intersection of Park and Getwell. Some of the priorities for the super district include encouraging community events at Audubon Park, connecting public spaces to anchors, and promoting walkability. Specially, the plan suggest the following:

• Increasing the frequency of incoming buses on Getwell to every 30 minutes

• Redeveloping key economic corridors to support business development

• Incentivizing mixed-income development

• Improving multimodal infrastructure to employment centers and high-volume bus stops



Learn more about the Memphis 3.0 Plan here

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News News Blog

Convention Center Hotel Planned for Plaza East of City Hall

Townhouse Management Company/Lowes Hotel & Co

Proposed luxury apartments at 100 N. Main

The city’s new convention center hotel is now planned for the city-owned plaza directly to the east of City Hall, Doug McGowen the city’s chief operating officer announced Tuesday at a Memphis City Council committee meeting. 

The hotel is being developed by Townhouse Management Company in partnership with the Lowes Hotel & Co. The plans originally called for converting Memphis’ tallest building at 100 N. Main into the hotel, but representatives with Lowes said the plaza was the best option to create a hotel with a vibrant campus around it.

The convention center hotel is slated to rise 26 floors and house 550 rooms, as well as 55,000 square feet of meeting space. A 1,200-spot parking garage is planned for 80 N. Main next door. The plans also include a restaurant, cafe, and three bars.

McGowen said the convention hotel will be “world class and once again give Memphis the chance to host a significant number of meetings and events.”

“It’s a one-time opportunity,” McGowen said. “We must have the deal closed by end of year and the hotel must be open by year 2023.”

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The hotel “will be big,” developers said, designed to stand out in city’s skyline, “announcing that Memphis is open for business.”

The goal is span economic development over a two-block area, leading to a “broad revitalization in this portion of Downtown,” developers said. In addition to the hotel, luxury apartments, 30,000 square feet of commercial space, and 65,000 square feet of hotel amenities are planned for 100 N. Main.

Townhouse Management Company/Lowes Hotel & Co

Entire site plan

Jonathan Tisch, CEO of Loews Hotels said when a convention center hotel gets constructed, “all boats rise,” other economic development is spurred, and areas become 24-hour neighborhoods. A hotel, along with commercial and residential space, is the “holy trinity,” he said.

The plan was recommended for approval by the council committee, and the full council is set to vote on the issue in two weeks. An up vote will allow the project to move forward in the approval process to be designated as a “quality public use facility” within the Downtown Tourist Development Zone. The State Building Commission also has to okay the plan.

Categories
News News Blog

Overton Square Hotel Slated to Open in 2020

Loeb

Rendering of hotel at Cooper and Trimble

Plans for a boutique hotel in Overton Square moved forward Monday, after developers submitted the plans to the Office of Planning and Development.

Developed by Loeb Properties in partnership with LRC2 Properties and MMI Hotel Group, the hotel is slated for what’s currently a 1.3 acre parking lot to the north of Hattiloo Theater.

The hotel will be designed for Marriott’s boutique soft brand, Tribute Portfolio, built to match Overton Square’s “unique architecture and high-end finishes that incorporate local historic imagery.”

Tribute Portfolio hotels are “robust in personality” and designed for “travelers seeking fresh travel experiences that reflect their own unique individual point of view,” according to Marriott’s website.

Loeb Properties says the hotel here will have “expressive design moments, vibrant public spaces,” as well as food and beverage services that include a rooftop bar overlooking Overton Square.

Hotel developers anticipate the hotel will enable a regional performing arts district to form around Playhouse on the Square, Hattiloo Theater, and Ballet Memphis

Last year, Loeb Properties was awarded a $6.1 million tax break over 15 years by the Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County to construct the hotel.

Plans submitted to EDGE priced the project at a little over $24 million. Construction of the seven-story, 109-room hotel could begin as early as December, wrapping up in early 2020.

Loeb

Loeb

Categories
Cover Feature News

Bright Ideas

Every great innovation starts with a seed of an idea. To that end, we asked nine Memphians this question: If you were given carte blanche to make whatever changes in Memphis you thought were needed, what would you do?

They talked about education, race relations, music, poverty, and crime, but, most of all, they talked about the possibility of what could be.

Rachel Hurley

Local blogger and Internet radio host

WUMR 91.7 FM is the radio station run by the University of Memphis. At present, it has an all-jazz format. I may be going out on a limb here, but I have doubts that the station is very popular among the school’s students.

If I had the power, I would change WUMR to a station with a more eclectic format. I would keep some of the programming but would update the majority of it to music genres more popular with the school’s student demographic.

I’ve been told time and time again that the lack of a college radio station with any kind of finger on the pulse of the local or national independent music scene hinders us, not only in bringing acts to the area (college radio playlists are often used to forecast the popularity of musicians before they book their tour), but it leaves the entire region to be influenced only by the bland, uninspiring, over-programmed corporate radio that crowds our dials now. Shouldn’t we expect a little bit more from our university station?

This city screams to the world at every opportunity that we are the “birthplace of rock-and-roll” and “home of the blues,” but it rarely works toward instilling the pride that should come along with that into its own citizens.

Maybe our student population is a good place to start. Every time I come across a Daily Helmsman (the U of M’s student newspaper), I see 18 stories about the Tigers, but rarely do I see three words written about any type of music going on in Memphis. The median age of the people I come into contact with at local rock shows is 30. The 18- to 24-year-olds who should be filling these shows seem to be uninformed about the great venues and local talent that flood this city.

There was a study released not too long ago that revealed three major growth markets in Memphis. One was distribution, another was biotech, and the last was music.

A well-programmed, well-connected station run by students with a passion for our homegrown music could have an exponential effect. When it comes to the business of music in our fair city, Memphis needs to go back to school.

Mario Lindsey

Assistant category manager, AutoZone

I think it would be a good idea to have affluent people, especially those who move back into the inner city — Uptown, South Bluffs, Harbor Town — send their children to public neighborhood schools.

If they put their kids in public schools, maybe it would influence other children who go to those schools and increase test scores. I talked to a friend about this, a parent of a middle-schooler, and she said you’d be asking parents to sacrifice their kids and put them in bad elements.

I agree that it may initially have a negative effect on their child, but at some point you have to realize the only way to improve these failing schools is to improve the students who go there. One of the ways to do that is bringing in better students, who can influence the other kids. We also need a requirement to teach basic financial education. We don’t do enough to teach kids in school about bank accounts, balancing a checkbook, credit reports.

Schools also need to teach kids how to be a parent. If you have a young mother who never learned how to be a mother, when her children have kids, are they going to know how to be a parent?

Finances, parenting, and household upkeep were once taught at home, but these days, children aren’t receiving these things.

I believe we need consolidation, but if the city cannot get the suburbanites to agree, the city should withdraw from Shelby County.

Something else we need is a cause. I mean that on two different levels: The black community needs a cause. Once upon a time, when black folks were treated like second-class citizens, we were forced to work together to overcome injustice.

Though we have many problems now, there is no unifying cause that brings the black community together. You could say the same thing for the whole Mid-South.

I don’t have that many white friends that I can call up and say let’s go hang out. When I was working on the Herman Morris campaign, I met some folks I could probably have created friendships with, but I didn’t pursue it. That’s just human nature. I understand it, but we have to overcome our prejudices to learn from people from other cultures. I just wish there was something we could talk about, because we’re all on the same side of something as Memphians. This city is a city of division, and that’s a shame.

Something that might work is if the Grizzlies were making a championship run. The Grizzlies have a rare opportunity that no other one entity in this city has. Grizzlies crowds are the most diverse in the city. It’s amazing to see.

It’s like a rare moment where we come together as a community. I want the Grizzlies to do a better job of marketing, and hopefully, they’ll make the right choice in the draft.

A lot of affluent white folks, they were big fans of Shane Battier. Shane Battier wasn’t as popular with black fans. We liked Bonzi Wells, Stromile Swift, Jason Williams, and James Posey. We need a player that everybody can get behind, kind of how Derrick Rose, CDR, and Joey Dorsey were for the Tigers.

I think that everybody is concerned with the Grizzlies moving away and hating on the owner. The fact is, if more people went to the games, it wouldn’t matter who the owner is because they would spend money on the team because they’re making money.

Richard Janikowski

University of Memphis professor,

criminologist behind MPD’s Blue Crush initiative

Across the nation, including in Memphis, concern is increasing about a rise in violent and gang crime involving young people. Law enforcement is actively responding with new proactive initiatives, including the Memphis Police Department’s Blue Crush strategy, creation of the Real Time Crime Center, and implementation by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office of Data Smart policing.

by Justin Fox Burks

Rachel Hurley

However, while we must address criminal conduct through aggressive, focused law enforcement, we must also take care not to assume that law enforcement can by itself “solve” the problem of crime. Policing initiatives may suppress criminal behavior in the short-term, but long-term crime reduction requires a comprehensive strategy targeting community building and the healthy development of our youth.

Juvenile crime is not an isolated event. Most often, the roots of crime start during a child’s early years. When it happens, it is the culmination of a process that has gone on for a long time — a process rooted in our families, schools, neighborhoods, and society.

As my colleague Leon Caldwell has observed, we often look at a child as something needing fixing, when we should instead be looking at our “village” and trying to understand what in it needs fixing. The young people committing crimes are the same youth who are failing in school, truant, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, hanging out with antisocial peers, and alienated and isolated from the values and institutions of society. The conditions that foster these behaviors, including neglect, abuse, and poverty, are our responsibility. Children can’t fix the village, but we can.

All children are born equal, but all children are not born with equal opportunities. We can and must do something to rectify this inequality.

We must make a commitment to every child having strong early years by ensuring access to parenting, education, home visitation, early childhood education, nutrition, health services, and a safe home and community. Research by Syracuse University on a comprehensive program providing these services to pregnant mothers and children to age 5 revealed that by age 15, only 6 percent of the children in the group receiving these services had juvenile records. In contrast, of a comparison group of children not having access to the program, 22 percent had juvenile records and 10 percent had become chronic offenders by age 15. Additionally, we know the intervention programs that are needed: after-school activities, youth development, wraparound case management, prevention of child abuse and domestic violence, and good jobs and decent housing for families.

Almost 50 years ago, John F. Kennedy reminded us to not ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Today, the first day of our future, the question is: Will we make a comprehensive commitment for the sake of our children to take the steps necessary to fix our village?

Martavius Jones

Memphis City Schools board member,

president and financial adviser of Jones Wealth Management Group

The first thing I would do to move Memphis forward would be to consolidate the governments and school systems of Memphis and Shelby County. Once consolidation is achieved, I would levy a commuter tax on the residents of neighboring counties who enjoy the amenities of a major city, but whose property taxes and sales taxes benefit surrounding counties instead of Memphis and Shelby County.

I would then charter a bus for the 132 members of the Tennessee General Assembly from Nashville to Tunica, Mississippi, and West Memphis, Arkansas, on any normal weekend to give the members an idea of how much Tennessee money is benefiting our bordering states. Having a first-hand account should motivate the legislators to allow gaming in Memphis.

Because gaming and other “sin industries” (namely, alcohol and tobacco) consider taxes a customary cost of doing business, I would tax casino revenues at 30 percent and mandate that 10 percent of the 30 percent is earmarked for education. The state of Tennessee would receive 10 percent, and the remaining 10 percent would be rebated to residents of Memphis and Shelby County in the form of a reduction in property tax rates.

The first priority for additional education funds would be to lower the pupil-to-student ratio by hiring more teachers and increasing teacher pay. I would extend the school day and provide more extracurricular activities.

For endorsing the plan, all citizens of Tennessee would benefit, because 10 percent of revenues would go into the state’s coffers.

Tom Jones

Smart City Consulting,

primary author of Smart City Memphis blog

At the risk of being branded for civic heresy, I’d like Memphis to adopt Nashville’s attitude. I admit that I’ve never really “gotten” Nashville, but I nonetheless grudgingly admire something imbedded in its civic culture — ambition.

I was in Nashville shortly after its school district was placed on the state’s “high priority” list. There was a palpable outrage among city leaders that such a thing could happen there, and they vowed to do something about it. Here, more than 100 of our city schools do not meet state benchmarks, but there’s a pervasive sense that that’s just the way things are in Memphis.

In Nashville, better decisions flow from this ambition and sense of purpose. Its political and business leaders simply refuse to accept second best or any suggestion that they shouldn’t set national standards. It’s hard to imagine a Bass Pro Shop inhabiting a signature building there.

When Nashville wanted to build a symphony hall, it did not append one onto a convention center so it could finagle hotel-motel taxes. Instead, it built a symphony center that is a monument to its cultural commitment. When it came time to build a new central library, it built it as a reminder of the importance of urban design — and downtown.

The magic in Nashville isn’t the result of consolidated government. Rather, the magic is found in a special strain of leadership that brings all civic resources, public and private, to the table to solve problems. And yet, Memphis needs consolidation, not because of promised savings that are unlikely to materialize, but because we need to do something to shake up the status quo and send the message to the rest of the nation that things are changing here.

We begin by being brutally honest, because troubling national indicators should inspire a new sense of urgency and a new way of thinking. We need action on all fronts. We need Highway 385 to be a toll road. We need to attack teenage pregnancy by getting serious about handing out birth control. We need to eliminate all tax incentives for low-wage, low-skill jobs. We need to find the best urban school superintendent and pay whatever it takes to get that person here. We need to get more city school students to college graduation, because they are the best predictor of our future economic success. We need to transform our riverfront from a stage set trapped in time to a vibrant magnet for talent.

We need to rationalize our tax structure. It’s simply not right that the less you make in Memphis, the more you pay in taxes as a percentage of income. It’s intolerable that city taxpayers pay a disincentive to live here and pay for programs and amenities that are regional in nature. If we move regional services to the regional (Shelby County) tax base, the Memphis tax rate can be comparable to Germantown’s.

These things don’t require that much money. They do, however, require ambition.

Phyllis Phillips

Program manager for MIFA emergency services

Maybe we need to develop a program to empower people here to help with their self-esteem and make them want to live better.

So many of the people I encounter through my work feel like they need to stay stuck in a job at McDonald’s. We need a way to make them want to get a better job, even if it means going back to school or learning life skills.

It could be a training program or an empowerment class. We could do it through churches, just to give people that extra get up and go.

Working here at MIFA, I see a lot of people who are going through a crisis because they aren’t able to pay their bills. I see a lot of hopelessness. They’re depressed. They often say they don’t know how they’re going to make it tomorrow. They need some positive reinforcement.

My other thing is high taxes. We have all this surplus money from the lottery; why can’t we use some of that surplus money for schools and taxes? The taxes are killing us here in Memphis.

by Justin Fox Burks

Richard Janikowski

My husband used to work in New York, and they had tolls. Maybe we could have a toll for those people coming into Memphis to work. If you live in Mississippi or Arkansas and you come to Memphis to work, you pay a toll.

Lucia Heros

Owner, Café Las Flores coffee

Giving children access to a great education, enriching programs, and emotional and spiritual support should be a priority for this community. So much depends on the core family unit, and yet the stability of family life seems to be more at risk than ever in our society. Taking care of our little ones now is the best guarantee to help them grow into responsible, caring, and successful adults who will in turn make this city a better place for future generations.

I am amazed by the many worthy organizations that struggle on a day-to-day basis to keep their programs afloat. Identifying these nonprofits and helping them meet their financial goals should be the responsibility of every citizen and our government. Especially in these times of economic crisis and cutbacks, let’s not lose sight of those doing the important work of helping our kids get a better head start in life.

Take the Children’s Museum of Memphis, one of the few places where families from all walks of life can bring their kids for a few hours of fun, play, and learning. Wouldn’t it be great if the museum could have greater access to funding, which would allow it to bring in more national exhibits and speakers, expand its facility, events, and programs, and bring their brand of fun learning to our schools?

Another organization changing the lives of kids in Memphis is the Exchange Club Family Center, dedicated to breaking the cycle of child abuse and teaching families how to heal from these dysfunctional patterns. What if the center had more money to provide counseling for more families and the professional support that these kids need in their time of emotional crisis? Dealing with abuse and healing those wounds as early as possible teaches kids important values of respect and safety and stops the cycle of violence that often begins at home.

Let’s be cheerleaders for our kids by supporting the dedicated leaders and organizations that are already doing this work every day. We can supplement and enrich our kids’ lives with safe and positive diversion and the programs that they need to help them have a more nurturing childhood experience. We have nothing to lose and only happy, well-adjusted children to gain!

Andrew Couch

Executive director, West Tennessee Clean Cities Coalition

When I think about Memphis, I think of a city that is okay. If you leave education, leadership, and crime out of the discussion, we’ve got a mostly all right place to live.

Our air quality isn’t perfect, but it isn’t that bad. Our water is clean(ish) when compared to other cities. Our commute times are not that bad. We’ve got loads of open space nearby, loads of parks, a giant river, easy access to great food and live music, and we’re not very far from larger cities like Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans. So what needs to change?

If I could change anything about Memphis, it would be this: I would ever so politely ask the majority of my co-inhabitants here to take another look. There is a problem with our way of life, and it has nothing to do with global warming, hippies, environmentalists, terrorists, or the president.

This city is becoming a dirty, sprawling, and increasingly homogenized Anytown, USA. Why do we need so many Walgreens, so many lousy identical strip malls, and so many poorly and inefficiently built homes so far out into what was once perfectly pleasant woodlands?

Why do we need these giant vehicles to lug our overweight and malnourished bodies all over the once-beautiful town that we are ruining with such lousy and culturally neutral garbage? Why is there so much litter on our streets? To quote my favorite writer, J.P. Donleavy, we’re “teaching the landscape an ugly lesson it will never forget.”

Here are a few extraordinarily simple ideas that I would like to share:

1) Stop building crap. By crap, I mean cheap, ugly, inefficient buildings that age poorly and look worse than the building you tore down.

2) Stop tearing down old buildings to build crap. See above.

3) Stop building so many parking lots. If you have to build a parking lot, put it behind the building.

Once the building is required to bear its regrettable face to the street without a parking lot to bear the brunt of the offense, you may just decide that your building looks like crap and subsequently redesign.

4) Get out of your car every once in a while. Take a bus, ride your bike, or ride in someone else’s car for a change. The Health Department has a wonderful ride-share program that works great.

5) Stop throwing trash on the ground.

My wish and vision for Memphis is one that is simple and attainable in the near-term: a town that has preserved its identity, stopped being so wasteful, and cleaned up its mess.

Divine Mafa

Owner, Divine Rags

I think the important thing is to retain young folks. They don’t see Memphis as a place they can realize the American dream, so as soon as they graduate they are thinking about leaving the city to go to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, or Atlanta.

by Justin Fox Burks

Lucia Heros

We need a government that understands how to create good jobs by bringing in the right companies and rebranding the city not just as a distribution center. When you do that, you are telling folks that we are here to ship boxes. To advertise that as the fabric of our economy is a travesty.

We could be known as the retail center of the Mid-South, where people from the whole Delta region come and do their shopping. That creates a lot of tax revenue. We’re already known for distribution; we could capitalize on that aspect.

Because the dollar is so low, I believe Memphis and Shelby County should establish its own currency to build its own micro economy and shield itself from a failing economy. Restaurants and retail businesses will accept this concept because it increases spending, pride, and awareness of the efforts of local businesses.

Faces of local legends and natural wonders of the county can be on the local currency. Local artists and students could design the currency. This is also a great way of making our resources known to tourists.

When investors come to Memphis — for whatever reason — they see dilapidated buildings. We don’t have anything that attracts people to say, “I want to invest in Memphis,” because all they see is blight.

Any city that is successful has a nucleus. It has a downtown that is functional, and then its energy begins to radiate to the surrounding areas.

We should have a homeless meter. People will always give to the panhandler, but the money goes to booze and drugs. The solution? Parking meters, in high-foot-traffic areas where panhandlers frequent. Educate Memphians and tourists to put loose change in the meter instead of handing it over to the panhandler. The money collected from the “homeless meter” will then be distributed to charities and organizations that assist with homelessness and hunger prevention.

And make sure that people who own vacant buildings have to do something to make them occupied. If you are keeping a building undeveloped in an area that’s economically depressed, you need to be accountable to some extent.

Memphians continue to be dependent on other people to come in and save them. We need to get up sometimes and do it ourselves. I’ve been in the medical field for the past 15 years. I said, I need to do something positive. I want that building. It’s a corner space. I said, I’m going to turn it into a clothing store.

Three months later, it was a clothing store. It was idea, talk, then action. Done. Now I see another vision: transforming the South Main district into a fashion district.

It doesn’t take long to transform a building. Three months from now, Memphis could be looking beautiful enough to attract investors if people are willing to do something about these ugly buildings that are sitting around here.

Categories
Opinion

A Memphis Fable

I know this couple. So do you. Let’s call them Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby.

They’ve lived together a long time, but they never got married.

Like all couples, they fight sometimes, and they worry about making ends meet. In hard times, they love to say that they have no options but to increase their expenses and borrow money from their children and grandparents. Like most couples, they also have some assets. A long time ago, their grandparents gave them 5,000 acres, which they called Shelby Farms.

About 40 years ago, Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby decided to keep half their land for parks and sell the other half to build houses for their children and make some money for current and future needs. They hired the best bankers, developers, and park planners that money could buy, and they thought it through for at least five years.

By 1973, they were ready to do the deal. The master developer would be the Rouse Company, a developer of planned communities. The local developer would be Boyle Investment, developers of River Oaks and Ridgeway Center. The banker would be First Tennessee National Corporation.

The planned community would be inside the city limits of Memphis, which would get the sale price plus an estimated $11 million a year in tax revenue. The community would include housing for 25,000 people and offices on some of the prettiest rolling country in West Tennessee. The park would be more than twice the size of Central Park in New York City, plus there would be five more regional parks throughout the city and county as part of the deal. The two local newspapers thought this was a swell idea.

The Memphis Press-Scimitar said, “The idea of a model community has many appealing features. It has been described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. … Development would produce tax revenues which could be diverted to the establishment of the 2,100-acre regional park. Using the entire acreage for a ‘total recreational complex’ would entail an expenditure which we don’t believe the taxpaying public is ready to accept.”

The Commercial Appeal said, “We favor the proposal to sell 2,900 acres of the total 5,000 acres for a model community development and retain the remainder for public use. … The remaining 2,100 acres are ample for all manner of recreational facilities.”

Of course, not all of Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby’s children agreed, because some of them were going to make out better than others. And a grandpa named Abe Plough, who ran one of the biggest companies in town and had a lot of influence, said it should all remain a park, even though he hardly ever went to one himself. But some other grandpas with big companies, like Kemmons Wilson and Wallace Johnson of Holiday Inns, thought it was such a good idea that they bid against Boyle before dropping out.

By 1974, the deal had soured. There was a bad recession, sort of like today, with trouble in the Middle East, gas rising to the awful price of 55 cents a gallon, and the price of groceries up and the stock market down. And it turned out that some of the children of Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby had larceny in their hearts and went to jail.

The plan died, but the Memphis/Shelby family kept growing. Instead of moving to Shelby Farms, the children moved to Cordova and Hickory Hill and Germantown and Collierville. Getting them there cost a lot in new roads, sewers, schools, debt, and trees.

Meanwhile, Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby still had their 5,000-acre inheritance. They decided to “invest” in a prison, some buffalo, a landfill, Agricenter International, Ducks Unlimited (a nonprofit which pays no taxes), and — most recently — a conservancy.

When the recession ended and the economy got better in the 1980s and 1990s and this decade, and the Dow went from 700 to 14,000, and the price of a nice house went from $25,000 to $250,000, and companies like FedEx built big offices in the suburbs, Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby didn’t make a dime off their inheritance. They told their children that developing part of Shelby Farms was a crackpot idea by a wayward son named Joe Cooper, which was a lie, but you know how parents can be. The graybeards and big dogs at Boyle, First Horizon, the country clubs, and The Commercial Appeal knew better but remained silent.

So today Mr. Memphis and Ms. Shelby are hurting, and they don’t have many options. But they sure had opportunities.