Tag: Downtown Memphis Commission

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News The Fly-By

Survey Finds Downtown’s Blight Hotspots

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Blight fighters fanned out across downtown Memphis on Monday to take stock of the area’s 8,300 parcels of land.

Volunteers drove slowly through every street in the Downtown Central Business Improvement District and Mud Island to assess the state of all gas stations, houses, office buildings, and vacant lots.

The Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) ordered the study. The group’s “windshield survey” last year was the first for downtown. That study found some 188 blighted properties in the six-and-a-half square mile district that spans from the Wolf River to South Main. The DMC says more than half of those properties have been improved or are under improvement.

The reason for the survey goes a bit deeper than just wanting to keep downtown tidy. The DMC helps companies finance development projects downtown in the way of payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) deals, improvement grants, and development loans.

“From the DMC’s perspective, we want to protect our investments and the investments of the commercial property owners,” said Larry Chan, a DMC planning and development analyst. “We take our active PILOTs and overlay that with a blight chart. What we don’t want is blight creeping in to where we’ve incentivized our projects.”

Toby Sells

Blighted church at 7th Street and Chelsea Avenue

Volunteer surveyors met with DMC officials last week to learn how to score the properties. Each property would get a grade from one (being the best) to four (being the worst).

If a lot was mowed, its building painted, and no structural damage could be seen, it would get a one. Alcenia’s in The Pinch was given as an example of a one.

Points were deducted for overgrown grass, litter, broken concrete, roof damage, broken windows, and more. Examples of fours included a burnt-out house, a lot that looked like a landfill, and a vacant house with broken windows, graffiti, and boarded-up doors.

Survey volunteer Tanja Mitchell is also the coordinator for Uptown Memphis. She said she has monthly meetings with Memphis code enforcement officials about numerous trouble sites. But when it comes to blight, she wonders, “When will it end?”

“There’s this perception about Memphis out there and we’re on top of [magazine lists for negative reasons],” Mitchell said. “If we don’t address the crime and the blight, there’s still going to be that perception that Memphis is bad.”

Janet Boscarino, executive director of Clean Memphis, said her group engages owners to clean up properties. If they can’t, Clean Memphis volunteers go out and help them, she said.

Boscarino said blight goes much deeper than just being an eyesore.

“If out-of-town investors are shown a piece of commercial real estate and there’s trash everywhere, they won’t invest here,” she said. “Blight has huge economic development impacts.”

The worst properties from the windshield survey will become targets for the DMC. Property grades will be overlain on a digital map of Memphis to find blight hotspots. Over the coming months, the DMC’s Anti-Blight Team will work with those property owners (and sometimes with lawyers) to get these properties cleaned up.

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News News Blog

Downtown Memphis Commission Begins Search for New Leader

Paul Morris

The Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) has released their requirements for its next president and CEO. Current DMC President and CEO Paul Morris is vacating his position to lead his family’s business, Jack Morris Auto Glass.

DHL International was selected to lead the agency’s search. According to a press release issued today, the DMC is looking for “a visionary, high-energy, downtown advocate.” The position involves managing the DMC’s staff, preparing its budget, work plan development and implementation, and “fostering positive relationships with downtown property owners, businesses, residents, public officials, the media, and the general public.”

The requirements can be viewed on the DMC’s website. Resumes and inquires can be emailed to Laura Faust at DHR International.

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News The Fly-By

Beale Board Gets Council Review

CREDIT: Dreamstime.com

Temporary managers are now running Beale Street, but a new set of permanent, Memphis City Hall-appointed overseers is on the way. 

The city owns the four-block entertainment district and had a lease/management deal with the privately held Performa Entertainment for more than 30 years. That agreement ended January 1, 2014, and the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) took over. 

The next step in the overall plan for the street is to appoint a board of directors to manage the district. That board will, more than likely, look for another private company to run the day-to-day operations of Beale Street.  

The Memphis City Council got its first look this week at a plan to organize that board of directors, called the Beale Street Tourism Development Authority (BSTDA). The plan is the work of Memphis Mayor

A C Wharton and city council co-sponsors Kemp Conrad and Edmund Ford Jr. The council reviewed the plan on Tuesday. 

The board of directors is to be comprised of nine voting members, all appointed by the mayor and approved by the city council, according to the council resolution. The board would also have two non-voting members, one to represent the mayor and the other to represent the council. The members would have to be Memphis residents and registered voters.    

Conrad said the framework for the BSTDA exists under Tennessee law. He pointed to examples in Memphis like the New Arena Public Building Authority, which oversees the FedExForum, and the Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority, which oversees Memphis International Airport.

“We are tapping into the best and brightest in our community of people that understand real estate and entertainment,” Conrad said. “But [the BSTDA] will make sure that [Beale Street] is ultimately controlled by the city, through mayoral appointments and county and city council confirmations.”

Dreamstime.com

Beale Street

The DMC took charge of Beale Street at the stroke of midnight between 2013 and 2014. Wharton gave the task to the board a little more than a month before New Year’s Eve, making for what DMC President Paul Morris called “an extremely aggressive ramp-up.” 

After adjusting to the basics of Beale Street management (things like responding to maintenance calls and collecting rent), the DMC began to develop the district. The group cut expenses and tried to reintroduce locals to the tourist hot spot through social media and events like “Lunch on Beale Street Day.”

Everything the DMC did on Beale Street in 2014 netted about $216,000 for the city’s coffers. Morris said it was the first time Beale Street operations showed a profit for the city “in maybe forever.” Also, the street became fully leased under the DMC’s watch.  

He said establishing Wharton’s Beale Street board is the right next step. Also, he said Beale Street needs a long-term “developer manager.” 

“I don’t think we should be looking for somebody to just manage day to day,” Morris said. “We should be looking for somebody to have a vision to grow Beale Street’s product and brand and get it better connected to what’s going on Downtown.”

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News The Fly-By

Part of Mulberry Street To Close For Chisca Parking

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

The restoration and planned development of the Chisca Hotel is moving along after an approved closure of a downtown street.

The unanimous approval to close Mulberry Street between Pontotoc and Dr. M.L.K. Jr. avenues came at a Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) Design Review Board meeting last week.

The street will close to allow for more parking on the service lot east of the hotel building. That lot will be redesigned and landscaped, and it will be enclosed to only allow for Chisca parking.

The refurbished hotel will include 161 apartments, as well as retail and restaurant space on the street level. The redevelopment is being spearheaded by Main Street Apartment Partners LLC.

LYFE Kitchen — a fast-casual, health-focused restaurant startup chain — will be moving into the property. LYFE is currently headquartered in Palo Alto, California, but it will be moving its base of operations to Memphis in 2015.

Members of the South Main Association objected to the Mulberry Street closure. At the DMC meeting, Ben Avant, a former president of the association, read from a prepared statement from members, some of whom were looking forward to seeing the street open again after construction was complete. Currently, the street is blocked off with construction equipment.

“One of South Main’s biggest strengths is our unique pedestrian environment,” Avant said. “Reducing this pedestrian access by closing this stretch of Mulberry will affect the surrounding blocks by further dividing the area and dominating the urban setting.”

The DMC design review board’s staff report opposed closing Mulberry Street, but it recommended approval of the design of the reconfigured lot.

Bianca Phillips

Mulberry Street, by the Chisca, will be closed.

“Closing public streets runs counter to basic urban design theory about how to strengthen the pedestrian connections and enhance the pedestrian experience,” the staff report reads.

Brett Roler, the director of planning with the DMC, said the proposal might not fall into what the board is supposed to decide.

“From [the] staff’s perspective, if you can see that it’s okay to close a street and you can see that it’s okay to configure the parking lot this way, what they’re proposing is consistent with the guidelines in terms of the design of the fence [enclosure], the size of the fence, the character of the fence, and the character of the landscaping,” Roler said. “We believe all of that to be appropriate. The question really is, ‘Is it okay to close a public street to accommodate a parking lot?'”

Roler also questioned whether or not Mulberry functions as a street anymore, which prompted later discussion from the board about tourists who navigate to the National Civil Rights Museum, partly due to Google Maps guiding unknowing tourists onto that road versus taking them down Main Street.

Terry Lynch, a partner in the development group, said the size of the reconfigured block would be consistent with the blocks in the surrounding area, like the Memphis, Light, Gas, and Water property as well as the Orpheum property.

“It’s very consistent when you do big projects like this that you include the areas around it,” Lynch said, citing the Peabody Place project among others. “In the 10 years since the FedExForum, since we spent $250 million and got a great Grizzlies team, that building looks like it was built three years ago. It looks great. But if you look around there, there hasn’t been one permit issued. There’s been no economic development. This is the first attempt that’s been made to do anything in 10 years — in this case, 20 years. We’re stepping up to the table, putting $25 million into this asset that’s going to open up South Main like you’ve never seen before.”

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News The Fly-By

Downtown Memphis Leads the County in Growth Since 2000

CREDIT: Downtown Memphis Commission

Downtown Memphis sparked and boomed over the past 14 years, according to a new report from the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), and more fireworks are on the way.

Downtown Memphis Commission

Downtown’s population grew more than any place in Shelby County from 2000 to now, the report said. The area is unmatched in the region for work and play, and it does all this in six square miles, only two percent of the county’s entire landmass. 

Downtown fell on hard times after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. in 1968. Businesses were boarded up, and residents raced to the suburbs. Signs of life returned in the 1980s; Beale Street was reopened, and some urban pioneers moved onto South Main. Progress was slow throughout the 1990s, but momentum mounted, the boom began, and that’s good news for the entire city, said DMC President Paul Morris. 

Downtown Memphis Commission

 “I really, truly believe that [the growth of] Downtown is one of the most efficient and effective ways to save our city,” Morris said. “I know that sounds like I’m exaggerating, but we strongly need new citizens in Memphis. And we need to retain the talent and the people that we have here now. Downtown is performing in that regard.”

And Downtown’s fireworks show isn’t over. The report says $294 million worth of new attractions have either just opened Downtown or are on the way. That list includes Bass Pro Shops, Beale Street Landing, and the Main Street to Main Street bike and pedestrian path. 

Downtown Memphis Commission

But a “tremendous amount of challenges” remain for Downtown, Morris said. 

“This report shows a lot of the successes, but [the DMC] spends 99 percent of our time focused on the problems,” he said. “That’s our purpose, to solve the problems, not just to celebrate the successes.”

Many blighted properties pock the city’s sprawling Downtown landscape. The DMC is trying to increase the cost of holding blighted property and decrease the cost of redevelopment. 

Downtown Memphis Commission

Downtown also shows a weak demand for office space, mainly because of competition from suburban office centers. Some of the vacant space Downtown has been successfully converted to residences, Morris said. But the Downtown market is also seeing organic growth from existing companies.

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News News Blog

Beale Street $10 Cover Charge Discontinued

beale_street.jpg

People visiting Memphis’ beloved Beale Street after midnight on Sunday mornings no longer have to worry about paying a $10 cover charge to access the street.

Paul Morris, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission, revealed in a letter to Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Wednesday that a decision had been made to no longer enforce the fee.

The fee had been enforced for the two weekends prior to Labor Day weekend, but it was not enforced over the holiday.

The $10 cover charge was introduced after a video of Memphian Jonathan Parker laying unconscious in a pool of his own blood on the street around 2 a.m. on Sunday, August 10th, went viral. The footage showed people gathered around Parker recording videos and snapping pictures of his motionless body but not seeking the assistance of authorities.

After the incident received a whirlwind of attention, local law enforcement, the Beale Street Merchants Association, and the Downtown Memphis Commission collectively agreed on enforcing a $10 cover charge to limit the potential for a similar occurrence in the future, as well as to combat overcrowding.

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News News Blog

“Rockwalk” Way-finders Approved for Memphis Music

An example of a Rockwalk sign

  • An example of a Rockwalk sign

The Downtown Memphis Commission’s Design Review Board has approved signage to be placed near historic Memphis music sites, making up an overarching way-finder project called “Rockwalk.” The 12 signs will help tourists and Memphis music aficionados find their way through downtown’s Edge neighborhood.

“I got the idea seeing people stumbling up Monroe [Avenue] looking for Sun Studio,” said Mike Todd, president of Premiere Contractors, who submitted the proposal. “It’s a lot safer to bring them down Monroe and keep them in the neighborhood.”

The sidewalk signage features historic facts and bits of trivia, along with locations like Sun Studio, Hattiloo Theatre, Sam Phillips Recording Studio, and more.

“You’re walking in the rock ‘n’ roll mecca,” Todd said.

“[Signs facing west] also include information about music and other related attractions in the Edge that hopefully will urge tourists to linger in the area and experience its richness on a deeper level,” the proposal reads. “On their return walk, the east-facing side of the signs — ‘Facts on the Edge’ — address some of the history of the buildings, businesses, and their stories of rebirth.”

The Downtown Memphis Commission’s staff report originally recommended rejection of the signs because of the “atypical nature of the request,” as the signs would be privately-owned but on public property. Other concerns included the lack of precedent that had not been set yet by the DMC and the issue of off-premise advertising since some of the signs point towards for-profit businesses.

Brett Roler, the director of planning at the Downtown Memphis Commission, said the board did not agree with the staff report’s “conservative” recommendation.

“This was a case where the approach was a little more conservative — to grant approval for the four signs that have already been constructed and then have the applicant work with the neighborhood to make sure the signs really reflect the consensus about the vision for this way-finding system,” Roler said.

The project itself has been temporarily approved for a year, but the project can be extended.

“The board felt like it was such a good idea that all 12 signs would be appropriate,” Roler added. “The board also made a point that if you only approve four signs, that’s not really enough to serve a complete way-finding function. You need more to direct people all the way through the district.”

Premiere Contractors will maintain the signs, according to the proposal submitted to the board. Now that approval has been granted, Premiere Contractors stated plans to go through fundraising tool ioby to crowdsource funding for the signs, which cost $1,250 per sign to purchase and install. Todd designed the overall signs and superintendent of the contracting company Mike Davis constructed the frames, while Justin Baker of Sign Delivery designed the graphics.

“We hope to have them up in 90 days,” Todd said.

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News The Fly-By

Bridge Project Fights For Funding

A bicycle and pedestrian project that would connect Tennessee and Arkansas has hit a speed bump.

The Downtown Memphis Commission is asking the city to invest $2 million toward the Harahan Bridge Project, which if fully funded, would connect downtown Memphis to downtown West Memphis over the Harahan Bridge. But Memphis City Council Chairman Jim Strickland wants that money to be used for basic city services, such as street repaving, instead.

Right now, the cost for the Harahan Bridge Project, also known as the Main to Main Multi Modal Connector Project, is still undetermined while the organizations wait for bids, which are supposed to come in during the summer. While project leaders are waiting for a more cost-effective design, the current estimate of the project sits around $30 million.

Harahan Bridge Project

Almost $15 million has been approved from federal funds with the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (or TIGER IV) program. The project also has $2 million funded from the private sector, while $3.8 million has been dedicated from Arkansas and Tennessee government agencies for their respective sides of the project. Shelby County has committed $1 million to the project, and the city of Memphis contributed $500,000 early on. But the Memphis City Council is still debating whether the city will fund the additional $2 million.

“If we don’t get the funding for the project, we won’t start the project,” said Paul Morris, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission. “The mayor made that very clear. No loans, cash secured.”

The one-mile bridge currently only runs freight along its tracks, but a multi-purpose path would be placed next to it, utilizing the existing “wagonway” structure that was used in the early 20th century.

Morris said the project is about recycling, not starting anew, and maintaining what the city already has.

“We’ve been searching as an organization for years for funding to do basic things like fix the sidewalks, curbs, and gutters,” Morris said. “Right now, if you walk along the Main Street Mall, you have boards covering drainage ditches that don’t work. It’s embarrassing. For years, the city has never been able to prioritize that because of the lack of funding and all the budget problems we have.”

Strickland said because the city is in a “budget crisis,” Memphis needs to make tough decisions.

“A lot of good things, in my opinion, should not get funded. We need fewer big projects because we can’t afford them,” Strickland said. “A couple of years ago, when we appropriated [around] $500,000 for the Harahan Bridge, we were told that’s all that we would need, and then they come with a request for $2 million.”

According to Strickland, the money being requested for the project could go instead toward other city services.

“It would be a wonderful amenity to have, but we have some real budget problems,” Strickland said. “When you don’t have enough money to do everything, you have to prioritize. To me, repaving is an absolute need. In our operating budget, we’re $15 million per year in debt on our pensions. We can’t pay for testing all the rape kits. Both of which are needs.”

Strickland made a motion in last week’s council meeting to divert the $2 million funding for the Harahan Bridge Project and put it toward street repaving, but Mayor A C Wharton asked to give a presentation about the project during the next city council session.

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News The Fly-By

Lawn Bowling

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Bocce has landed on South Main with a new court and an already-full tournament that are part of a larger plan to bring people and possibly new development to what was once an empty lot.

A bocce court was built last week diagonally across the square lot at Talbot and Main. The lot has been empty for years and has been mainly used as a green space for South Main dog owners. But the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) began working last year with the lot’s owner, antique auto preservers Kisber Enterprises, to lease the property for the court.

“All we really hope to accomplish is having a good time and making an amenity for the neighborhood,” said DMC President Paul Morris. “We want people to just come and enjoy South Main, one of the coolest neighborhoods anywhere.”

The bocce court was born in the DMC-hosted South Main Design Challenge that sought new ideas and plans for seven vacant lots in the neighborhood. None of those plans were promised for implementation. But construction of the court was only going to cost around $1,000 and bocce had proven its popularity in a prior DMC tournament in the empty lot next to Earnestine & Hazel’s, Morris said.

Play on the court will be kicked off with a tournament beginning Thursday at 5:30 p.m. and continuing on the next two Thursdays. Sign-up for the single-elimination tournament is already full with two-person teams with names like “Hibocce!” and “Boccee-lism.”

But anyone can use the court to play. Bocce balls will be available to check out for free at South of Beale and The Green Beetle in exchange for a credit card or a driver’s license.

The overall project is designed to “pre-vitalize” the lot. It’s a method that has used food trucks and pop-up shops in some empty areas across Memphis to help people imagine what those places would be like if they were filled with shops, restaurants, and people. For example, the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team has used its MEMShop events to pre-vitalize Broad Avenue and Overton Square, and they’ll soon be kicking off a MEMShop event in South Memphis.

“Just by way of getting people down [to the South Main lot] and interested in it, it sort of activates it in a non-traditional, commercial real estate kind of way,” said Michael Carpenter, who worked on the bocce court project and owns Memphis advertising agency Loaded for Bear. “We figured that would in turn help develop it for something more permanent.”

But before that, the hope for the court is to simply bring people and visibility to the neighborhood, said South of Beale owner and operating partner, Ed Cabigao.

“Public spaces like this will help strengthen the authentic identity of the South Main Arts District,” Cabigao said. “The bocce ball court fits perfectly within South Main’s vibe, and we’re just happy that we get to be in such close proximity.”

For more information, visit www.gosouthmain.org/bocce.

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Opinion

Blockbuster Plan for Downtown Would Declare it “Blighted Menace”

1300471705-clearbornhomes.jpg

Downtown leaders and property owners are being asked to weigh in on a blockbuster 20-year redevelopment plan that would capture $100 million in taxes and spend it on a public housing project and “Heritage Trail” by declaring all of downtown a slum.

The Flyer obtained a copy of a previously unpublicized memo from the Downtown Memphis Commission that was sent to board members and, by them, to other downtowners this month. It discusses a proposed Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) under the control of the Memphis Housing Authority and the Division of Housing and Community Development, currently headed by Robert Lipscomb. The City administration wants the input of stakeholders before the City moves forward with this plan. The focus is redeveloping Cleaborn and Foote Homes, housing projects in the southeastern part of downtown.

From the memo:

“The CRA is established “to combat slum and blighted areas that constitute a serious and growing menace, injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and welfare of the residents of Shelby County.” To provide CRA with jurisdiction to adopt and implement the Master Plan, the CRA is considering declaring Downtown Memphis to be a slum, blighted, and a growing menace.”

The proposed master plan, a 196-page document dated September 13, 2012, includes the entire downtown core, the Beale Street Entertainment District, the South Main District, the South End, Victorian Village, the Edge Neighborhood, and part of the Memphis Medical Center. It targets some 200 downtown parcels for CRA acquisition by purchase or, if necessary, eminent domain. A master developer would be hired by the CRA.

From the memo:

“To begin funding implementation of the Master Plan, the CRA would establish a Downtown tax-increment-financing (TIF) District that would redirect future property tax revenue growth generated Downtown over the next twenty years from the city and county to the CRA. It is projected that over twenty years the TIF would redirect $102,751,238 of city and county property taxes to the CRA. The bulk of this revenue would be generated in the out years, with the first five years generating less than 1.5% of the projected revenue.

“It is projected that 98.7% of this future, incremental TIF revenue will be generated by private properties primarily in the Downtown core outside the Focus Area of the planned improvements. The Cleaborn and Foote Homes redevelopments are expected to generate 1.3% of the TIF revenue over twenty years. PILOT roll-offs are expected to generate 44.5% of the TIF revenue, and general property value inflation is projected to generate 47.5% of the TIF revenue.”

The Master Plan includes 27 miles of streetscape improvements, 6 miles of new streets, and 17 acres of new parks. The TIF funds along with federal grant money would help support the public housing redevelopment in the southeastern section of Downtown, but the source of funding for improvements throughout the remainder of downtown is not identified, nor is a budget or schedule provided for such improvements.

An earlier plan in the Herenton mayoral era dubbed Triangle Noir focused on a much narrower area around Cleaborn and Foote Homes.

The memo asks several questions, including:

How will needed improvements in the rest of Downtown be paid for?

What happens to ongoing private development initiatives if the CRA officially adopt this new, largely unfunded Master Plan for Downtown?

What are the lost opportunity costs of borrowing against and spending twenty years of property tax growth in Downtown Memphis?

If the next twenty years of property tax growth in Downtown Memphis is pledged to pay for the public housing redevelopment project in the southeast corner of Downtown, then how do other important Downtown plans and projects get funded over the next twenty years?