Tag: Friends for Our Riverfront

Categories
News News Blog News Feature Uncategorized

Court Decision Clears Construction for Downtown Art Museum

Credit: Memphis Art Museum

Construction on the new Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Downtown can continue “full steam ahead” after a court ruling Friday. 

Shelby County Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson denied a request from Friends of Our Riverfront (FOR) to stop the build. The group has long contended that land at the top of the bluff, where the new museum is being built, is public.

“Neither the city nor Brooks owns this property,” the group has said. “Memphians have an easement to use the property as a public promenade and the city is the trustee. This means that the city can use this land only for the specific purpose of a riverfront greenway.” 

With this, the group sued the city and the Brooks in September to halt construction. The court ordered the group to post a bond of $1 million to offset damages to the project should it be temporarily halted. FOR urged the court to waive the bond. The Brooks and city officials asked the bond to be set at $5 million. 

The group never posted the bond. So, the judge dismissed its request to stop construction. 

“This victory paves the way for us to bring Memphis one of the greatest cultural institutions in the country,” Brooks Chief development Officer Melissa Whitby said in an email to museum members. “This achievement would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our community, patrons, and partners. We are deeply grateful for your trust and commitment throughout this journey.”

Credit: Memphis Art Museum

FOR made no immediate public comment on the decision. In a Facebook post Thursday, the group said, “hard to believe a huge Soviet-style building that blocks the riverfront is actually good for anybody, Brooks included.”

The group has long fought projects along the bluff. It wants to conserve the riverfront from Big River Crossing to the Wolf River Greenway “as green space for public enjoyment, preserving its historic, natural, and authentic character.” 

Credit: Friends for Our Riverfront

The Brooks broke ground last year on the new museum at the corner of Front and Union, the site of the former Memphis Fire Services Division headquarters. The museum will have a new name, the Memphis Art Museum, and is slated to open next year. 

In her email, Whitby said the facility is expected to attract 150,000 new visitors to Memphis, generate about $100 million in economic impact, and “provide transformative experiences to more than 30,000 school-age children annually.”

“For years, our goal has been to establish for the people of Memphis one of the greatest cultural institutions in the country,” said Carl Person, chair of the museum board. “Today, thanks to the unwavering dedication of many, many supporters, we are closer than ever to making that dream a reality. This portion of our riverfront will soon be home not only to a world-class art museum, but acres of new, open, art-filled,  and accessible public space for everyone to enjoy.” 

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Brooks Museum Unveils New Rooftop Features For Riverfront Location

Credit Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

The Memphis Brooks Museum Of Art designers have unveiled the design for a free-to-access rooftop park that will be featured at the riverfront location.

According to the museum, the pathway will offer views and vantage points previously unavailable. It also stretches “nearly a quarter of a mile,” and is meant for “more than observing.”

The space, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, will also feature connecting art, architecture, the Memphis skyline, as well as views of the Mississippi River.

“A continuous pathway connects discrete pavilions scattered across the roof, encouraging visitors to explore the museum’s unique location at the intersections of river, city, and art,” said the museum in a statement.

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art executive director Zoe Kahr, said this space will “bring together every corner of our community.”

“It’s just one of the many ways we;re creating pathways into the museum and connecting with the downtown urban landscape,” said Kahr.

Museum board president, Carl Person, echoed these sentiments saying that the roof is designed to bring people together. “Nowhere else in Memphis can get you 360-degree views like this, and the roof is just one of the free civic spaces in the Memphis’ art museum,” said Person.

The rooftop will also feature paintings chosen by an international landscape architecture firm, OLIN. The paintings will feature “regional, native, and robust plants,” and “a mixture of scales, colors, and textures.”

This announcement comes shortly after it was announced that Friends for Our Riverfront filed a lawsuit against the museum and the city of Memphis. The museum broke ground on the museum facility in June 2023. According to the museum, the $180 million project is expected to open to the public in late 2025. 

In the lawsuit, Friends for Our Riverfront said that the museum’s move from Overton Park to the riverfront location is the city of Memphis’ “most recent violation.”

“What seemingly began as a consultant’s recommendation for a relatively small ‘cultural amenity’ on the river bluff at Union and Front Street has ballooned into a massive building project that covers an entire block, leaves no space for a greenway, and violates an easement that provides free access to all Memphians,” said the organization.

A Chancery Court hearing on the matter is scheduled for September 20th.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Promenade Stand

CREDIT: Georgios Kollidas | Dreamstime.com

Last week, Friends for Our Riverfront indicated its intention to fight the development of a new convention center hotel downtown, citing its location on land allocated by city cofounder John Overton as a public promenade.

Seeing only “public promenade,” my reflex was to be outraged. Are we really going to start this up again, as Riverfront Funtime Season cranks up? Good grief. I remember the battle between the FfOR and the Riverfront Development Corporation over the promenade in 2004 that resulted in the Cossitt Library, the fire station, and the hideous parking garage at the corner of Front and Monroe being “saved.”

I saw both sides, but ultimately, an ugly fire station is still useful. Though the riverwalk doesn’t connect to the promenade because of the aforementioned buildings, the path along the bluffs and network of little parks is well utilized. Some of the city’s best views originate along the riverwalk, where I spend many evenings jogging off workday stress. The proposed high-rises might have altered or even obstructed those views. This is different, though. A little history: In 1818, Andrew Jackson, in his post-War of 1812, pre-Trail of Tears era, negotiated a land deal with the Chickasaw tribe. For $300,000 (equivalent to about $5.5 million today) he and Isaac Shelby “convinced” the Chickasaw to relinquish their claim to west Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky to the United States. This was known as the Jackson Purchase. The next year, Jackson and two of his friends, James Winchester and John Overton, went in on a city together. That means we’ve got a big birthday coming up: May 22, 2019. Next time I feel like a screw-up, I’ll remind myself Memphis is 200 years old and still doesn’t have its life in order. The city’s original survey had a public landing, four public squares — Auction, Exchange, Court, and Market — and a public promenade between the Chickasaw Bluff, what is now Front Street, Jackson, and Union.

Georgios Kollidas | Dreamstime.com

Andrew Jackson

An argument can be made for protecting the city’s original public spaces, until you realize the space in question is the derelict Mud Island parking deck currently occupying the land at Front and Poplar. Last year, Denver developer Bob Swerdling proposed the location for a new convention center hotel. For now, while Swerdling arranges private financing, the hotel is just an idea. Others are reported to have inquired about submitting plans, prompting the city to issue a request for qualifications (RFQ) for “consulting services including analysis of a proposed additional convention center hotel in downtown Memphis, and the feasibility of such a hotel being successful.” The 16-page document is available at memphistn.gov.

Y’all almost got me all fired up to save a parking lot.

Mud Island is in disrepair and the north end of downtown is practically a ghost town, but I guess John Overton was just that passionate about preserving the view of the tangle of interstate ramps over the river that leads to West Memphis and beyond. Now, street lighting near the convention center is inadequate after dusk. Cars speeding off the I-40 ramp and poor visibility at garage exits create pedestrian hazards. If that’s a “promenade,” either Overton’s vision was lost a long time ago, or I don’t understand the definition of the word.

Though Winchester’s son, Marcus, was the city’s first mayor, none of the three founders lived in Memphis. Jackson, as anyone who spent their K-12 years in Tennessee can tell you, grew his fortune in cotton at The Hermitage. Overton, the Nashvillian who wrote the 1828 document outlining the promenade’s parameters, was said to have owned more than 65,000 acres of land. The fact that Memphis was home to one of the country’s biggest slave markets is not a coincidence. The city was founded so rich landowners could use the area’s resources — cotton and the river — to get even richer.

So forgive me if I’m unmoved by the notion that 200 years later, their wishes should dictate the economic future of the city, particularly if they involve preserving that space in its ugly and dangerous state. I don’t know how anyone who has seen the Convention Center in its current condition can dispute the need for an overhaul. Maintaining the city’s character and ensuring citizens come first are essential, and there are valid reasons to be concerned about a massive project. This time, opponents will need a better reason than the promenade.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphis and a digital marketing specialist.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Beale Street Landing: A Timeline

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

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

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

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

Beale Street Landing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Opinion

Beale Street Landing’s Colorful Topper

CREDIT: Riverfront Development Corporation

BSL_Phase_IV-A_sv__6_.jpg

From concept to completion, Beale Street Landing has been wrapped in controversy. Now comes a rendering of the elevator shaft atop the grassy hill atop the restaurant and pavilion atop the banks of Tom Lee Park atop the Mississippi River.

The proposal was set to go before the Downtown Commission’s design review board June 6th, but on Thursday afternoon the Riverfront Development Corporation asked for a delay.

“RDC just withdrew their signage application to DRB for this month because they didn’t have a very good depiction of what the signs would actually look like,” said Paul Morris, executive director of the Downtown Memphis Commission.

He said it could be reset for July.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of renderings that may or may not make the DRB meeting in July. The one atop (ha!) this post came from the RDC. The one below is compliments of Friends For Our Riverfront.

“The rendering is a conceptual depiction of the exterior of the elevator enclosure,” said Dorchelle Spence, spokeswoman for the Riverfront Development Corporation. “However, the exact colors and patterns of the multi-colored panels may vary from what is shown and appear more muted. The attached rendering is the architect of record’s presentation of what the elevator enclosure will look like.”

Virginia McLean of the group Friends For Our Riverfront has a different view.

“The proposed shaft/sign is a major change from the natural beauty along the riverfront in which Memphians have long taken pride and enjoyed and actually really taken for granted,” she said. “Options and alternatives to colors, materials, and lighting should be considered.”

beale_st_landing_shaft.jpg

This is the other view. Do not adjust your set.

Categories
Opinion

Smart City and Friends

Tom Jones and Virginia McLean are making the Riverfront Development Corporation irrelevant.

Jones is the cofounder and main writer for the Smart City Memphis blog (smartcitymemphis.blogspot.com). McLean is the founder and chief activist of the nonprofit Friends for our Riverfront (friendsforourriverfront.org).

They are often on opposite sides of riverfront issues, including the proposed $29 million Beale Street Landing. Jones has emerged as its most articulate and well-informed defender. McLean, equally hip to the latest ideas and trends in parks and cities, is the RDC’s most passionate and dogged critic.

Both of them run on shoestring budgets and receive no money from local government or the RDC. Jones, a former newspaper reporter, was a spokesman and policy-maker for Shelby County government for some 25 years. McLean is an heir to the Overton family that was one of the founders of Memphis.

Their websites are timely and frequently updated, and they have become bulletin boards for unusually thoughtful comments, speaker listings, and even occasional news items. When a state official weighed in on Beale Street Landing this month and delayed the project, Jones and McLean were ahead of most if not all of the news pack spreading the word and collecting different points of view.

The RDC, in contrast, often seems muscle-bound. Created six years ago to focus public and private resources and cut red tape, it has a staff of former city division directors and City Hall cronies making six-figure salaries. It also has a blue-chip board of directors including public officials and downtown bigwigs. And it is consistently outhustled, outsmarted, and outmaneuvered by Jones and McLean and their helpers.

While Jones and McLean embrace the Internet and rough-and-tumble debate in real time, the RDC’s website is outdated and trite. “Steal away to a day’s vacation in the city’s front yard,” says the home page. “Nowhere else can you feel the rush of the Mighty Mississippi as its breeze flows through your hair and its sunsets warm your soul.” The most recent “news” is a June 12th press release and a year-old item about the Tom Lee Park memorial. The description of the master plan still includes the aborted land bridge to Mud Island and pegs the total public cost at a staggering $292 million, which “will spur $1.3 billion in private investment in real estate alone” and bring “a minimum” of 21,000 new jobs and 3,400 new residential units to downtown.

Meanwhile, Jones and McLean are slugging away about the latest delays to Beale Street Landing and the next meeting of the Shelby County Commission. Within the last year, each of them helped bring national experts to Memphis for well-attended discussions of parks and citizen activism. The RDC, meanwhile, made a by-the-numbers Power Point presentation to the Memphis City Council aimed at justifying its own existence as much as informing public officials.

The RDC is not without is success stories. Its park maintenance is exemplary. Its concert series and improvements at Mud Island have made the park more attractive. Its structure involves business leaders and nonprofits in a way that government cannot, although the group’s standard claim that it saves money is difficult to prove.

But the riverfront — Tom Lee Park in particular — often seems antiseptic and sterile, like a set-piece instead of a true park. On Sunday afternoon, for example, hundreds of people came to Overton Park in Midtown to beat on drums, whack golf balls, ride bikes, pick up trash, have picnics, toss balls, exercise dogs, visit art galleries, stroll babies, and do whatever. Midtown has no development authority, but funky Overton Park is surrounded by neighborhoods that feel invested in it.

Beale Street Landing looks more and more like a bet-the-company deal for the RDC. Without a big project — the land bridge (aborted), the promenade (still stalled), the relocation of the University of Memphis law school (coming soon) — why not turn its duties back over to a reenergized park commission and city administration? The Memphis riverfront, from The Pyramid to Mud Island to the trolley to proposed Beale Street Landing, doesn’t lack for big investments. It lacks vitality, a decent public boat launch, walkable cobblestones, a skate park or something fun to watch, a working fountain next to the Cossitt Library, and enough shade and sprinklers to give tourists a fighting chance against the heat.

If those things happen, it will be because of citizens like Jones and McLean and their readers as much as the RDC.