Tag: Greensward

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We Recommend We Recommend

In Sod We Trust at the Hi-Tone

Nothing brings Memphians together like good food, good music, and an opportunity to publically demonstrate to prevent cars and car-related interests from wrecking Overton Park. This Easter Sunday, while others are parading about in their finest seersucker, hunting eggs, and driving the 240 loop in their fancy Easter bonnets, friends of Overton Park can gather at the Hi-Tone Cafe for an all-ages fund-raiser benefiting both the Overton Park Conservancy legal fund and the Get Off Our Lawn initiative to prevent overflow zoo parking on the Greensward.

Conceived by singer and multi-instrumentalist Marcella Simien, and arranged by drummer-turned-frontman Graham Winchester, In Sod We Trust is an epic, six-hour concert showcasing some of Midtown’s most creative musicians, including sets by both of its organizers.

A $10 donation at the door buys access to all the music and vending.

Bands scheduled to appear include Artistik Approach, Chickasaw Mound, Chinese Connection Dub Embassy, Dave Cousar, Faux Killas, Hope Clayburn, Marcella & Her Lovers, Southern Avenue, Tony Manard, Winchester and the Ammunition, Zigadoo Moneyclips. Participating Vendors: Dirty Cotton, Eponymous Print Co., Farmhouse Marketing, Guerilla Stone, MEMPopS, Shangri-La Records, Sushi Jimmi, and Yanni’s Food Truck.

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News The Fly-By

What’s Next for the Overton Park Greensward

CREDIT: Annabel Conrad

Annabel Conrad

Evergreen resident Brantley Ellzey directs zoo patrons away from the Greensward and into on-street parking spaces in his neighborhood last Saturday.

The week following the Memphis City Council’s decision to give control of most of the Overton Park Greensward to the Memphis Zoo was heavy on backlash but light on much else to change the game.

The move was widely criticized but not just from those booing and jeering in the city council chambers last Tuesday. Hundreds took to social media, mostly registering disgust with the move. Some were angling for a legal maneuver that could possibly reverse it.

Newspaper editors and columnists — professionals of thought and opinion prose — formalized their complaints against the move.

Memphis Business Journal editor Greg Akers called the move “appalling.” Memphis magazine managing editor Frank Murtaugh laid out parking suggestions and reminded the zoo that it “is the park’s guest, not the other way around.” David Waters, a columnist for The Commercial Appeal, said the “wayward” city council failed to mention many things to the public in its passage of the resolution and “seemed to be in a big hurry.”

As the dust settled around the issue, not much changed. The beautiful weekend weather brought scores of visitors to the zoo and, thus, scores of cars parked on the Greensward. There were, however, independent volunteers who stationed themselves around the zoo with homemade signs pointing zoo visitors to free parking in the neighborhoods just outside of Overton Park.

Chuck Brady, zoo president and CEO, said visitors should not expect big changes on the Greensward. He’s said the zoo will not use “grasscrete” (concrete that allows grass to grow through) to shore up the field but will continue to use those blaze orange cones to section off overflow parking.

“The short answer is nothing will change,” Brady said. “As we always have, the zoo will use a portion of it as a last resort for overflow parking on our busiest days, or only about 65 days per year.”

Meanwhile, the Overton Park Conservancy (OPC) has been finalizing a draft of the recommendations from its weeks-long parking and traffic study. OPC executive director Tina Sullivan said she will share the final draft with park partners first and roll it out to the public in mid-March.

Also, Sullivan said her group was gearing up for the first round of mediation with the Memphis Zoo leaders, slated to start Tuesday.

“We will never turn down an opportunity to try to come to the table and come up with solutions together,” Sullivan said. “As long as that avenue is open to us we’re going to pursue it vigorously.”

Brady has said he will drop the zoo’s lawsuit against the city and OPC if OPC will also drop its suit. Both claims were still pending in Shelby County Chancery Court as of press time.

Many of those protesting the move at city hall last Tuesday felt the city council moved too quickly, that the public did not have an opportunity to be heard on the matter. Many wondered if the move was legal. It was, according to the city charter.

Cut-off for new legislation is the Thursday morning before a following Tuesday meeting. Council members can bring a piece of new legislation at Tuesday meetings if it is in writing, as was the Greensward resolution. But there’s a catch to that.

“Only items involving extreme emergencies may be added to the agenda after the Thursday, 10:00 a.m. deadline,” reads the city charter.

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

The Best (Untapped) Parking Spots in Memphis

It’s time someone said it: The Memphis Zoo is the Kanye West of Memphis tourist attractions. The Zoo innovates. It may be controversial, but the Zoo doesn’t wait for progress to come to them. Where other institutions said, “You can’t park there because that is not a parking space,” the Memphis Zoo effectively said, “You can park anywhere you damn well please. You are a Zoo patron, and Zoo patrons make their own fates.” 

We hear you, Memphis Zoo. We have captured your innovative spirit and come up with a list of the other best (currently untapped) Memphis parking spots.

~ ~The Ultimate Best Undiscovered Parking Spots in Memphis~ ~ 

1. Elvis’s Grave at Graceland 

When are we all gonna wake up and smell the peanut butter banana honey bacon sandwiches? He’s been dead a long time. It’s high time we should be able to park on this sweet patch of land. 

Now: 

Better: 

2. The Lobby of the Peabody Hotel 

Ducks should be on a menu, not on a red carpet. What should be on a red carpet is a brand new SUV. 

Now: 

When things are right with the world: 

3. Inside the Orpheum Theater

This is a no-brainer. Downtown parking is packed. People sometimes have to walk blocks (whole blocks!) to their destination. The solution is clear. 

Current embarrassment: 

Future triumph: 

4. The FedExForum 

We grind hard. So why should we be forced to park in a neighboring garage? Why should we be made miserable, like people who don’t know our rights? 

Just look at this sad image: 

Now look at this happy one: 

Case closed. Park wild, Memphis. 

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News News Blog

Parking, Traffic Proposals Unveiled for Overton Park

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Toby Sells

Nearly 200 people gathered at First Baptist Church on Broad Avenue to hear proposals from consultant to help alleviate parking and traffic issues around Overton Park.

A smartphone app. Bike lanes. New bus routes. Pedestrian paths. A shuttle. And, yes, perhaps a parking garage for the Memphis Zoo.

These were just some of the proposals to help alleviate persistent traffic and parking problems in and around Overton Park that were unveiled Thursday evening to a large crowd at First Baptist Church Broad Avenue.

Last month, the Overton Park Conservancy picked Looney Ricks Kiss (LRK), Alta Planning + Design, and Kimley-Horn and Associates to study problems at the park and to come up with possible solutions. Team leaders said their ideas constitute a menu of choices to be picked from in the future to ease traffic and parking woes.

Steve Auterman, a senior associate at LRK, kicked off the hour-long presentation by acknowledging that the main issue (the one that likely drew the most people to the meeting) was parking on the Greensward.

“We feel confident that we can diminish or eliminate this conflict,” Auterman said. “There is not one answer. It will take multiple solutions and it’ll take time. But there are plenty of opportunities to address the situation to everyone’s satisfaction.”

Auterman and his team also laid the blame for the tense parking situation in the park at the front door of Memphis City Hall. A slide in his presentation said the “city is responsible for parking at Overton Park, not the Overton Park Conservancy nor the Memphis Zoo.” The city has  “deferred an acceptable solution” on parking there for more than two decades, read the slide. Through this, the city has created the parking problems and the tensions that exists at Overton Park today, according to the presentation. 

Here are some of the ideas from the team:

• Some of the parking solutions could be resolved through better communications with park patrons. A smartphone app could be developed to tell patrons where to park and even reserve parking within the park, much like the one that exists for FedEx Forum visitors now.

• Also, park attractions could have different pricing on different days to incentivize patrons to visit attractions on off-peak days.

• Bike lanes could better connect patrons to the park and lead them through it, thus reducing the amount of cars needed to be parked.

• Pedestrian access could be increased, reducing the amount of cars.

• Access points for mass transit could be improved to encourage patrons to take a bus to the park.

• A dedicated shuttle could run from the Overton Square parking garage to the park.

• Surface lots could be added in strategic places to add more spaces.

• Parking on the zoo’s main lot could be reconfigured to get additional parking spaces.

• Reinforce the Greensward with Grasscrete, a concrete structure that allows grass to grow through it.

This suggestion brought a chorus of complaint from the crowd, one of the only times the meeting ever became unruly.

• Build a parking garage somewhere on the existing zoo property.

This suggestion brought a smattering of applause from the crow. Still, Auterman warned the crowd that these structures are expensive and may not be palatable to neighbors around the zoo. Also, he said, the garage – if it were built – will be nice.

“If we do a parking a garage, it has to be a great experience,” Auterman said, pointing to the new garage at Memphis International Airport as an example. “If we’re going to do something, let’s do it right. This is a landscape that deserves it. It should be of a high standard befitting a civic treasure.”

The OPC will send out a new survey with some of these options to its members to begin the process of deciding what solution could emerge as a real, viable option.

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News The Fly-By

The Latest on Parking, Permits, and Sidewalks

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Here’s an update on some of the stories that we began covering in 2014 and will continue to follow in the New Year.

• Overflow parking for the Memphis Zoo will continue on the Greensward at Overton Park for a period that could stretch until 2019.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said while his “clear preference” was not to use the space for parking, the experience of this past summer made it clear to him that the Greensward “will be an important relief for zoo parking until such time as a viable alternative is realized.” 

The news came in a letter from Wharton to Tina Sullivan, Overton Park Conservancy executive director, on Wednesday, December 31st. The sentiment is a complete departure from a Wharton letter in May that said the city was committed to eliminating Greensward parking by the end of 2014.

“We were very surprised and disappointed to receive this letter from the city a few hours ago,” read a Facebook post from Get Off Our Lawn, a group organized to fight Greensward parking. “The fight for a car-free Greensward continues.”

Going forward, Wharton wants zoo and park stakeholders to work together to develop a viable plan for parking that does not include the Greensward. 

He called Overton Park a “great treasure” and called the zoo a “tremendous asset.” Wharton wrote, “The city will allow parking on the Greensward, as may be absolutely essential to zoo operations, until a plan is implemented, [or] Jan. 1, 2019, whichever comes first.”

Brandon Dill

Naomi Van Tol and Stacey Greenberg protest Greensward parking.

• Special parking permits will be issued to some residents who live around the Overton Square entertainment district but not as many as originally thought. 

The move to start a special parking permit program there surfaced in April. Residents complained to Memphis City Council Chairman Jim Strickland that Overton Square visitors were blocking their driveways and alleys with their cars and sometimes even parking in their yards. 

The program was approved by the council in August. Petitions were sent to neighbors in the proposed new parking district, an area bound by Cox Street on the east, Morrison Street on the west, Union Avenue on the south, and Jefferson Avenue on the north. A section of Lee Place North was also included. 

If at least 75 percents of residents on the individual streets approve permit parking for their street, they would be placed in the special parking district and permits would be issued to them. 

In all, only 10 permits will be issued to residents on a section of Monroe Avenue between Cooper and Cox. The council approved those permits on an unannounced agenda item during its last meeting of 2014.  

“Basically, [Restaurant] Iris agreed to pay for half of the first-year of permits for 10 permitees who live on the street,” said councilmember Kemp Conrad. “The neighbors … and Iris have agreed to basically split the north side of Monroe in the middle of the street.”

• The moratorium on forcing residents to fix their sidewalks was extended in late December.

City officials began enforcing a long-standing rule last year to make homeowners either fix their sidewalks or be hauled into Environmental Court. 

The council passed a two-month moratorium on the enforcement of the rule in May. Once that expired, a six-month moratorium was approved. 

The council approved its latest moratorium to last either six months or until the Wharton administration officials could propose a viable alternative. City engineer John Cameron said he and his office are working on the project and should present an alternative to the council in the first two months of 2015.