Tag: Henry Turley

Little Tea Shop Documentary Premieres July 10th on WKNO

Post author By Michael Donahue
Post date July 9, 2020

CREDIT: Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Suhair Lauck at her post behind the Little Tea Shop cash register. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’

The Little Tea Shop is closed for now because of the pandemic, but, thanks to Molly Wexler and crew, fans can visit the iconic Downtown restaurant on film.

The Little Tea Shop, Wexler’s documentary on the restaurant owned by Suhair Lauck, will air at 7:30 p.m. July 10th, 3:30 p.m. July 11th, and noon on July 12th on WKNO-TV. “This is the first time anyone will be able to see it,” says Wexler, founder of Last Bite Films. “Technically, this is the premiere. This is the half-hour version. The short version is 16 minutes long. The one we submitted to film festivals.”

The half-hour — actually 25 minutes — version is “more of the people who dined at the restaurant,” she says. It “really tells the history of the restaurant, and it goes in deep with the customers. They’re friends. They’re more than customers. They’re the lifeblood of the restaurant. Of course, we go in and get to know Suhair, too, and why Suhair was able to continue the legacy of The Little Tea Shop and really embrace it and make it grow.”

As for the patrons in the documentary, Wexler says, viewers will “see a lot of Memphis favorites like Henry Turley and Charlie Newman. And Pat Mitchell Worley, Mayor A C Wharton.”

Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Former Mayor A C Wharton at the Litttle Tea Shop. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’

Then there are people like Matt Dellinger, author of Interstate 69, a book about the history of the highway. “He’s a really engaging guy from Brooklyn who we interviewed because we wanted someone who wasn’t from Memphis.”

Dellinger’s story with Lauck is “incredible,” Wexler says. “About 10 years ago he was down in Memphis doing research for a book he was writing and he stumbled into The Little Tea Shop. He wasn’t feeling well. And the way Suhair and some of the other people took care of him, he made life-long bonds with people from here. Because of The Little Tea Shop.”

Asked how the documentary came into being, Wexler says, “I actually got the idea when I saw Suhair out one night and it got me thinking about the Tea Shop and how I went there with my dad when I was a kid. He was a lawyer and working Downtown. I couldn’t believe the restaurant was not just still open, but thriving. I thought, ‘That’s kind of unique. I’m curious to learn more.’”

The Little Tea Shop was founded in 1918 by Lillie E. Parham and Emily A. Carpenter as a place for their friends to eat lunch when they were Downtown. Vernon Bell bought the restaurant in the 1940s. Lauck’s husband, the late James Lauck Sr., bought it in 1982.

Lauck, who was born in Bethany, Palestine, moved to Memphis in 1967 after marrying her first husband, who lived in Memphis. She later married James Lauck, who owned The Little Tea Shop, and began her career at the restaurant.

Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Suhair Lauck in the LIttle Tea Shop kitchen. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’

After she got the idea for the documentary, Wexler began visiting the restaurant, but not telling Lauck what she was up to in case she didn’t pursue the project. “Before I ever was even going to film it, I was doing a bunch of research. Just talking to people who ate at the restaurant to find out if there was enough material there to make the documentary.”

She got together with Newman, John Malmo, and Ken Neill at the restaurant. “Matt was in town. And his relationship with all those people and Suhair was so interesting we arranged to film another day when he was back in town to get him on camera. He adds a lot to the story, I think.”

That “shows how special” The Little Tea Shop is, Wexler says. Someone like Dellinger from Brooklyn “can come in and make these amazing connections. It feels like home here.”

That’s “the root of the story,” she says. “Why is the 102-year-old restaurant so important to so many people as a connector? I think it’s the fact that it feels so comfortable. You feel so welcome.”

A lot of it “has to do with the food. But it has a lot to do with Suhair. The environment she created. I mean, there are many places you can go in Memphis and have a fine meal. You may have great conversations with people you lunch with and that’s the end of the experience. At the Tea Shop, you have a great conversation and so much more. You might meet someone that changes your life. You nourish your body, you nourish your relationships, you nourish your soul.”

And, she says, “You might have a conversation that changes Memphis.”

Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Familiar fare at the Little Tea Shop. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’

Wexler is executive producer and co-director of the documentary. Joseph Carr is producer and Matteo Servente is co-director. “Without Joseph and Matteo, the movie wouldn’t have been made because they brought years of expertise and they were very patient with me.”

As for the documentary-making experience, Wexler says, “I learned that I love making films. I hope I get to do this again. And I love getting to know people and getting their stories. When you give people this platform to share, you learn about the best of people.”

Wexler says she “probably met 50 new friends. We connected through The Little Tea Shop. There are so many neat things about people that are inspirational. There are a lot of exciting and interesting people living in Memphis whom I had the honor to meet.”

They whittled the documentary down to make the 16-minute version for film festivals, she says. “The half-hour version is more Memphis-centric. The shorter version is more universal. I’ve submitted it to about 25 film festivals.”

After the documentary premieres on WKNO, the station is “going to offer it up for other PBS stations in Tennessee and maybe the region to show it if they want to. Ideally, we’d love to get distribution for it. There are a few networks that could be a good fit.

“If it wasn’t for the pandemic, then WKNO would have had a big watch party and everything, but you can’t do that. What I’m hoping is that since people can’t go to the restaurant and everybody is missing that sense of community and all that great food, maybe this will bring them a little bit of happiness and remind them. It might make them a tad bit sad, but, hopefully, it will also make them happy. It will make them remember the good times there and, in kind, make them want to go back. They’ll feel that sense of missing that restaurant a little bit more.”

For her next project, Wexler says, “Joseph and Matteo are tossing around a few ideas, but the pandemic kind of makes it challenging. It’s a good time to brainstorm. We have one idea we’re excited about, but it’s a little challenging to move forward now.”

The new project, Wexler says, would be “very different, but still Memphis-centric.”

Courtesy of Last Bite Films.

Suhair Lauck. From the documentary ‘The Little Tea Shop.’

Tags A C Wharton, Henry Turley, Molly Wexler, Suhair Lauck, The Little Tea Shop, WKNO

Cover Feature News

Will a TDZ TCB? The Future of Memphis’ Fairgrounds

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date August 2, 2018

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

A critical decision looms on a years-in-the-making plan that could transform one of the largest pieces of public property in Memphis.

The stakes could not be higher for the city’s plan to turn the largely fallow Memphis Fairgrounds into a youth sports tourist magnet. It’s the end of the road. There’s no appeal. There’s no review-and-update process. The city either gets the money and builds a “world class facility,” or it doesn’t get the money and then, well, who knows? The plan lives or it dies.

The city wants to create a Tourism Development Zone (TDZ) around the Fairgrounds. An increment of state sales taxes would be collected in the zone to pay for the project. The problem is that legislation approved in the Tennessee General Assembly this year deadlined consideration for any and all outstanding TDZs at December 31, 2018. And the only one left to be considered is for Memphis’ youth sports idea.

The high stakes were enough to cause city officials to hone the plan, shrinking the project in scope, size, and price tag. Meanwhile, local grassroots advocates for the Fairgrounds and the Mid-South Coliseum have continued to beat the drum of local access to the property and for re-activiation of the building. Through it all, developers have stayed mostly on the sidelines, waiting to see if the plan gets an up or down vote before they move in.

If the city’s plan is approved by the state, the Fairgrounds could get a brand-new, multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art indoor sports building, retail shops, a hotel, play areas, and more. It’s a play to attract out-of-towners and their sports-playing children (and the tax dollars that come with them) to the city.

Justin Fox Burks

How We Got Here

The most recent moves to reanimate the Memphis Fairgrounds began in 2005, 13 years ago. Back then, the city was “eager to revitalize and re-imagine,” the Fairgrounds, as reporter Ben Popper wrote in the Flyer at the time.

“It is really the nexus between East Memphis and what is going on Downtown,” Robert Lipscomb, then-director of the city’s Housing and Community Development (HCD) division, said at the time. “I think it’s under-utilized and potentially has much greater value. Our job is maximizing that asset.”

That year, Lipscomb formed a special Fairgrounds Redevelopment Committee to envision the Fairgrounds’ future. The architectural firm Looney Ricks Kiss drew up six proposals for the site.

The group picked an option with “large green space, small-scale retail, and 40-plus acres for sports and recreation.” The plan did not include Libertyland, the Mid-South Coliseum, or the Mid-South Fair. The committee’s selection decision came on the same day leaders decided to close Libertyland, citing several years of financial losses.

Retail, green space, sports, and recreation. Sound familiar?

But then-Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton told the Memphis Business Journal‘s Chris Sheffield at the time he wasn’t in a hurry to get anything done “given the nostalgia and fond memories and public importance of the property. There’s nothing wrong with going through a laborious process,” Wharton said in 2006.

Laborious, indeed. Two years later, John Branston, writing for the Flyer, described the scene at the Fairgrounds this way:

“The stadium and the Children’s Museum [of Memphis] still draw crowds, but the rest of the property is demolished, abandoned, or underused. Libertyland amusement park, part of its roller coaster still standing, is closed. So is the Mid-South Coliseum, home to concerts and basketball games … before giving way to The Pyramid and then FedExForum.

“Tim McCarver Stadium was demolished a few years ago,” Branston wrote in 2008, “long after it was replaced by AutoZone Park. The annual Mid-South Fair is moving to Tunica, Mississippi, next year. Fairview Junior High School is blighted and has about 300 students. The main feature of the Fairgrounds on most days is several acres of asphalt parking lots.”

Those comments came in Branston’s story about a new group heading up a new push to, finally, finally, finally get something done at the Fairgrounds. It included a heavy-hitting bunch of names: Henry Turley, CEO of Henry Turley Co.; Bob Loeb, president of Loeb Properties; Archie Willis III, president of Community Capital; Mark Yates, now-Chief Visionary Officer of the Black Business Association of Memphis; Jason Wexler, president of business operations at Memphis Grizzlies; Elliot Perry, retired pro basketball player; and Arthur Gilliam Jr., president of Gilliam Communications.

Called “Fair Ground,” the idea was to make the Fairgrounds a common area for all Memphians to meet, play, and mingle. At its core, Fair Ground would have transformed the sleepy area “into a combination of sports complex, renovated stadium, park, and retail center.” Sound familiar? A big difference, though, was that Fair Ground also promised a “network of new public schools” good enough to rival private schools.

In 2007, the city applied for its TDZ with the state and the Salvation Army Kroc Center bought a parcel of land to build upon. But by 2009, Lipscomb was referring to the Fair Ground deal with Turley and his folks in the past tense. He said they couldn’t come to an agreement. He pivoted quickly to a Plan B, in which Lipscomb tapped former Memphis City Council member Tom Marshall to design a plan that centered on — wait for it — sports, recreation, and retail.

That $125 million plan was ultimately panned, though the city did add that formal TDZ request to its quiver. A 2009 Flyer headline read, “The Fairgrounds: Big, Complicated, and Leaderless.”

Come 2013, another plan — this one with a $233 million price tag — centered on (surely you guessed it by now) sports and retail. By 2014, Lipscomb was reported selling the plan to the Shelby County Commissioners in a Flyer story by Jackson Baker. Some commissioners worried the TDZ would “cannibalize” future sales tax from Cooper-Young and Overton Square and that the scheme would siphon funds (maybe $1 million to $2 million every year) from Shelby County Schools.

“But it hardly seemed to matter as Lipscomb, at his super-salesman best, seemingly had the members of a commission largely revamped by the election of 2014 treating Lipscomb’s propositions like ‘candy in the palm,'” Baker wrote.

Lipscomb, who Baker described as “the city’s veteran Svengali of urban planning,” said the buildings that would rise on the Fairgrounds would be “world class,” helping to raise “a great new city right before our very eyes.”

Commissioners loved it. Van Turner congratulated Lipscomb. Terry Roland called it a “world-class deal,” and only Steve Basar and Walter Bailey seemed cautious.

That was November, but by December, commissioners shelved a vote on Lipscomb’s plan, hoping to bring a compromise plan of their own.

In January 2015, Lipscomb told city council members he’d bring his plans to state officials in February. But public concerns crept into Lipscomb’s plans, fears that Fairgrounds neighbors and local stakeholders were being left out the conversation. Lipscomb vowed to get more people involved. That was February.

To get there, the Urban Land Institute, a third-party group of of city planning professionals, had a look at the plan. Their $184-million recommendation included sports and retail, natch, but also more improvements to Tiger Lane, a park with a lake, a surf park, a “Coliseum stage,” and more. That was in June.

In August, Lipscomb said he’d take the new plan to state officials in October. But when allegations surfaced that Lipscomb had raped a young man, his grand plan for the Fairgrounds was stalled, to say the least. Memphis Mayor Wharton fired Lipscomb immediately.

The Plan’s “New” New Era

Jim Strickland was elected Memphis mayor in October 2015. He hired Paul Young, former director of legislative affairs for Shelby County government, as director of HCD. Plans for the Fairgrounds weren’t really discussed much for two years.

In 2017, rather than starting from scratch, Young dusted off the recommendations from the Urban Land Institute panel (with youth sports and retail as the centerpiece, of course). But Young and the Strickland administration did something different this go-around. They began the conversation of the Fairgrounds’ future in public forums and actually used some options they got to shape the final plan. This was August 2017, and Young hoped to present his plan to state officials by the end of that year.

In November, Young unveiled the new $160-million Fairgrounds plan. It included an $80 million youth sports complex, retail and hotel space, a 500-space parking garage, $20 million worth of upgrades to the Liberty Bowl, upgrades to nearby Tobey Park, renovation of the Pipkin and Creative Arts buildings, basketball courts, a track, a soccer and football field, renovations to nearby Melrose High School, and new infrastructure to spur investment at Lamar and Airways.

But Young (some say on the advice of the state officials who’d vote on the plan) decided to have another look. Earlier this month, he brought a scaled-back, “workable” proposal to Memphis City Council members, who approved it. Almost everything (save for the $20 million improvements for the Liberty Bowl) was shaved. Two youth sports buildings became one. The parking garage was halved, basically. Off-site projects were cut out of the plan.

Courtesy of Allen & Hoshall

Why?

“As we really dove into the specifics and saw that TDZ revenues were much lower than we expected them to be, it was incumbent on us to take some time and really, really hone down the plan and try to figure out what things do we have to do to make this site activated,” Young said in an interview last week.

So, now — with more than a decade of plans, dreams, opinions, and varying degrees of political will on the project — Young and his team are slated to take their plan to Nashville later this year. If the State Building Commission doesn’t give the city the money, the Fairgrounds will stay largely the same as it is today, Young said.

Money Ball

At the very core of the new plan — and almost every plan proposed so far — is youth sports. That might not be what you think it is. It’s not your kid’s T-ball team sponsored by a local insurance agent. Youth sports is a big, sophisticated business. The teams the city wants to attract are called travel teams or competitive teams. The kids who play are elite (or at least seen that way). Not every kid makes the team. Those who do practice at private facilities, wear custom uniforms, carry custom equipment bags, get elite coaching, travel around the country to tournaments, and pay mightily for the privilege of doing so. Many parents see these teams as a path to help their child get a college scholarship and then, perhaps, to play in the bigs. In short, these parents often are monied and motivated.

How much money? According to WinterGreen Research, an independent organization that tracks the youth sports market, the U.S. market is worth $15.5 billion. There’s more.

“This is a nascent market, there is no end to growth in sight,” WinterGreen reported in September 2017. “Markets are expected to reach $41.2 billion by 2023.”

Young says the Memphis sports market is worth $120 million, without an indoor youth sports facility. The Rocky Top Sports World in Gatlinburg created $35.4 million in economic impact for that city last year, according to Young’s report. A Fort Myers, Florida, venue yielded $47.7 million. Another in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, grossed a whopping $186 million.

Critics of the city’s Fairgrounds plan have said that leaders want to build an elite facility for rich kids and their rich parents.

“It’s not for them,” Young responds. “It’s for our economy.”

Young adds that the facility would be available to locals anytime it isn’t being used for youth sports tournaments, which usually run from Thursday through Sunday.

Jamie Harmon

Reviving the Roundhouse

In 2015, some Memphis folks got together and decided they wanted the Mid-South Coliseum saved and re-opened. After years of community meetings, government meetings, tours of the building, business research, creating a business plan, media interviews, three Roundhouse Revival events, and a top-to-bottom examination of the massive building, they are still at it. They say the future of the Coliseum has never looked brighter.

“There is a wider wind in our civic sails, and we’re racking up civic win after civic win after civic win with Crosstown Concourse, the Chisca Hotel, the Levitt Shell, the Tennessee Brewery, Broad Avenue, and Clayborn Temple,” says Marvin Stockwell, co-founder of the Coliseum Coalition and a second group, the Friends of the Fairgrounds. “This seems a whole lot more possible than it did when we first started, and way more possible than it did 10 years ago.”

That enthusiasm is shared by Coliseum Coalition president Roy Barnes and Charles “Chooch” Pickard, a coalition member and preservation architect, even as the city’s new plan (and just about every plan so far) aims only to “preserve” the Coliseum. To them, preservation is at least a step away from razing the building, as Lipscomb wanted to do.

Two Saturdays ago, July 21st, hundreds of people sweated together outside the Coliseum, with 90 degrees of Memphis summer sun blasting from above and radiating back off the parking lot. Barbecue smoke scented the air, vendors sold vintage T-shirts, and a brass band covered the Meters’ classic “Cissy Strut” inside a wrestling ring.

It was the third spin of the Coliseum Coaltion’s Roundhouse Revival event, which featured music, wrestling, food, and a few public service announcements. “The Coliseum is in great shape,” read a flyer posted on a column. The group has used the events to garther input from community members and garner support for their cause.

“I just saw these photographs over here that show me that the building is in great shape,” said Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Craig Fitzhugh, at the event. “To me, now it’s a perfect-sized venue. It won’t compete. There’s not any competition for it. They could put a lot of different things in here — from music to wresting to whatever — roller derby. For the Grizzlies, this would be a great place to put their … developmental league team.”

Fitzhugh hit upon the No. 1 problem for re-opening the Coliseum, according to the Coliseum Coalition — the Grizzlies non-compete clause. With the clause, Grizzlies officials have a measure of control over the local entertainment market and local venues. The team is on the hook for any operating losses at the FedExForum (not the local government) and might perceive a revived Mid-South Coliseum as competition.

That was city council members’ central argument against Elvis Presley Enterprises’ proposed $20-million arena in Whitehaven. And it’s been a central argument against re-opening the Coliseum. Barnes thinks it’s bogus.

“There’s nothing in it … that gives the Grizzlies the ability to say, ‘Sorry you can’t re-open the Coliseum,'” Barnes says. “It doesn’t give them the ability to say, ‘You can’t have events there.'”

Only certain events are blocked by the clause, Barnes says. Stockwell says that the perception that the clause blocks any new, large-ish venue from opening is “completely false.” But there is little political will to alienate the Grizzlies, a major city brand and a major corporate citizen, Barnes says.

The Coliseum, Pickard says, should be right-sized to about 4,900 fixed seats with about 1,000-2,000 on the floor. That would make it the perfect venue for up-and-coming artists and established artists who are playing their way back down the musical food chain from arena shows.

“We’ve gone to the Grizzlies and said, ‘We think there’s a market for that,’ and they said, ‘We don’t think there is, but if there is, we can accommodate those shows,'” Pickard says. “We’re the venue for that.”

While there seems to be little movement ahead for changing perceptions on the non-compete or the clause itself, the Coliseum Coalition is moving ahead, working with city officials to allow them to clean up the inside of the building and, perhaps, hold a new event inside. They hope if the TDZ is approved and successful, funds could be found down the road to save the Coliseum.

Plan B = Status Quo

So, what if the TDZ is not approved?

Some sources the Flyer talked to said a “no” vote could be used to further punish Memphis for its removal of Confederate statues this year. Others said moderate Republicans have convinced their right-wing colleagues the deal would be an economic development win for the state. Part of that deal, too, sources said, was the satisfyingly loud outcry from Memphis Democrats over the state lawmakers’ removal of $250,000 from the city’s bicentennial celebration, which was some tasty red meat for Republicans.

In that case, political tea leaves may point to approval of a TDZ for the project. But if it’s defeated, nothing happens.

“I think the Plan B is the status quo,” Young says. “It’s what we have today. When the mayor came in, he commented that the Fairgrounds, while we’d love to see it maximized, it’s not something that had to be done at that point in time.

“I think that opinion would still ring true. It is underutilized, but it’s not necessarily having a negative impact on the community as it sits today.”

Tags AC Wharton, Bob Loeb, Henry Turley, Memphis Fairgrounds, Mid-South Coliseum, Paul Young, Robert Lipscomb, TDZ

News News Blog

1 S. Main Eviction Case Evokes Protest, New Legal Controversy

Post author By Chris McCoy
Post date April 11, 2018

CREDIT: Chris McCoy

Laura Jean Hocking

About 100 people rallied outside City Hall on Monday, April 9th, to protest the pending eviction of artists and filmmakers Christopher Reyes and Sarah Fleming from their home at 1 S. Main.

“This rally was organized because we could not stand by silently as our friends and fellow artists were so ruthlessly mistreated by the new owners of the Madison, Aparium Hotel Group,” said Joann Self Selvidge of Memphis Women in Film, who organized the rally.

Self Selvidge said Fleming was a founding member of Memphis Women in Film and “vital to the Memphis film community. … Her list of awards and accolades is too long to cover here. But unless you know her personally, you might not realize the full extent of who she is outside of her career.

“So, I want you all to stop and think for just a moment what they are going through right now, as a family. As a mom, Sarah is struggling to explain to her 3-year-old daughter why mommy and daddy are packing up all of their belongings into big boxes in the middle of their living room floor.

In this past week since the court decision was made, her 9-month-old daughter, whom she’s still nursing, got baby measles, a virus that gave her a bumpy red rash all over her body. The entire family is suffering from the stress of an eminent forcible eviction from their home, their home that they have owned for 25 years.”

Chris McCoy

Musicians Will Sexton and Amy LaVere

Citing the examples of Austin and Nashville, musician John Paul Keith said “More and more, you’re going to see groups like Aparium coming into Memphis to try to make money off of the culture we create every day.

“If you look at Aparium’s website, it’s got a bunch of stuff about how they like to partner with local creatives. Well, we see what they really do to local creatives, and their actions speak louder than words.

“We need to speak with our actions as artists and be unified. We need to make sure we don’t give them the benefit of our labor. We need to make sure they realize what they have done, and how seriously we take it.

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“And I’ll tell you who else needs to understand that — City Hall and the county commission, the mayor’s office, and the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), who gave these people a $100,000 grant.

“Not only did Aparium get a $100,000 grant to do what they did to Christopher and Sarah, a Shelby County judge awarded them $102,000 in damages, adding incredible insult to injury.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is an absolute outrage and a crime. Like Woody Guthrie says, some people rob you with a fountain pen. That’s what happened to those guys — they were robbed.”

Reyes and his mother, Vernice Kuglin, who bought the property from Henry Turley in 1993, have filed an appeal of the March 27th to vacate their home and pay Aparium Hotel Group $102,000 in damages. Kuglin, Reyes, and Fleming declined to be interviewed for this article, citing the appeal and ongoing negotiations.

The ruling hinged on the interpretation of documents related to the Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) program, which is administered by the DMC.

Article II, Section 28 of the Tennessee Constitution states that “all property, real, personal, or mixed, shall be subject to taxation,” except in the cases of property “held by the state, by counties, cities, or towns and used exclusively for public or corporation purposes.”

So, in order for governments to give tax breaks to developers looking to rebuild their city centers, the owners of the properties must surrender their titles to the DMC’s finance arm, which then leases it back to them.

Instead of paying taxes, the property owners technically pay rent to the Center City Finance Corporation (CCFC), a tax exempt entity. These PILOT leases contain a clause that gives the owners of the properties, who are technically called beneficial owners, an option to repurchase the properties from the DMC for a nominal amount. Then, the property is re-assessed and taxed at the normal rate.

“During the PILOT term, our CCRFC board is the technical owner of the property,” said Jennifer Oswalt, DMC president. “There is a $1,000 termination fee at the end of the PILOT period. This fee covers costs associated with the legal transfer of the property title. Our attorneys and the PILOT holder, or his/her attorney, monitor and execute this transaction.”

Paul Morris served on the board of directors of the DMC from 2003-2010, and then as president of the organization from 2010-2015.

“Chris Reyes and Sarah Fleming were very helpful to the Downtown Memphis Commission during my tenure there,” Morris said. “They were consultants to us as well as producers of many of the communication and marketing tools that we used to attract Downtown businesses. I got to know them as Downtown neighbors and folks that make the neighborhood better.”

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Morris is a lawyer who has reviewed all of the documents in 1 S. Main case, but he emphasizes that he does not speak on behalf of the DMC.

The PILOT program’s purpose, he says, “is to incentivize development of property and make it more valuable. The idea is, in certain cases, a property owner doing that would drive up their taxes so much that they would lose money on the deal.

“So, they wouldn’t do it in the first place. To incentivize them to improve their property, we don’t let them pay less in taxes, but we freeze their tax assessment at the pre-development level for a number of years.”

Current DMC head Oswalt says, “We have 107 active PILOTs, with an average remaining term of seven years. We cannot know the full value of the properties until they return to the tax rolls but these projects garnered over $1.3 billion in investment so far.”

Developer Henry Turley said the PILOT program has been vital to the redevelopment of downtown Memphis.

“We couldn’t have done virtually any of our products, save for the opportunities to do them with PILOTs,” Turley said. “When I added up 31 PILOT projects that I had done, including Mud Island, South Bluffs, the Cotton Exchange, Shrine Building, Paperworks … the total city and county taxes that were being paid pre-redevelopment was $190,000. The year I measured it, the taxes were over $7 million. It’s the best tool the city and county have to cause the redevelopment of the city.”

Turley first acquired the 1 S. Main property in 1986. In 1993, Reyes, then a freshly minted Memphis College of Art (MCA) graduate, and Kuglin, a pilot for FedEx, approached Turley about buying the building. But they could not secure enough financing, so Turley offered to sell them the second floor for $55,000.

“We created a condominium in the building for the purpose of selling — of conveying is maybe a more proper word,” said Turley. “I remember the lawyer [S. Joshua Kahane] shouted me down for using the term ‘sell’ — for conveying our beneficial interest in unit two of the condominium to Vernice and Chris, because we wanted to see it used as an art space and as a living space.

“When we conveyed it to them, it was totally unfinished, just exterior walls, floor, roof, and windows. We wanted to see it animated and used for the purpose it is being used for. We created a condominium for that purpose and sold our interest to them for their use and benefit.”

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After 30 years of redevelopment, such arrangements are now common Downtown.

“The Cotton Exchange Building, where I’m sitting right now, is a two-unit condominium, exactly like 1. S. Main,” said Turley. “They’re all like that.”

Under the terms of the PILOT lease, the sale — or, conveyance of the beneficial interest — was handled with a sub-lease which gave Reyes and Kuglin the option to buy the property for $1 when the PILOT lease expired, just like any PILOT beneficial owner.

At the time of the 1993 sale (or conveyance), the PILOT lease was set to expire in December 2001.

But in the late 1990s, then-DMC president Ed Armentrout spearheaded a 15-year extension of PILOT leases, with the funds earmarked for the construction of Downtown public amenities.

In 2001, when 1 S. Main’s PILOT lease was set to expire, it was instead extended. Critically, the original sublease with Kuglin and Reyes was not changed.

In 2007, Turley sold — or, conveyed his remaining beneficial interest in — the first floor of the building to the owners of the Madison Hotel, which is next door to 1 S. Main.

“We made it utterly clear to Muhommoud [Hakimian, Madison Hotel owner] that we were conveying to him our interest in the property, less that which we had conveyed to Vernie [Kuglin],” Turley said. “And we made it utterly clear to him in the public recording and discussions that Vernie had a right to buy her part of the condominium for $1 at the end of the PILOT lease.”

[pullquote-5]

Morris says that, before the current lawsuit, the question of ownership of the 1 S. Main condo was clear.

“There was no doubt in the minds of Chris or his mom [Kuglin] or Sarah or the person who sold it to them, who was Henry Turley,” Morris said. “And there was no doubt in the minds of the current owners of the Madison Hotel who, on May 3, 2016 wrote a letter to the Center City Finance Corporation in which they acknowledged that the property they were acquiring did not include the condo that Chris and Sarah occupy.”

The Aparium Hotel Group purchased — or, were conveyed beneficial interest in — the Madison Hotel and the 1 S. Main building in June 2016. In December, 2016, the PILOT extension expired, triggering the new owner’s option to get the title from the Center City Finance Corporation.1 S. Main LLC, the company Aparium Hotel Group created to administer the building, exercised its option on June 14, 2017.

Morris says that in his experience, “It’s very typical in these PILOT leases for the beneficial owner — who is technically the lessee under the PILOT lease — once the PILOT term has expired, to take many months, if not over a year to exercise their option to gain title.

“It was routine for the title holder — in those cases being the Center City Finance Corporation — to execute quit-claim deeds in favor of the beneficial owner long after the PILOT term ended.”

Oswalt said, “In this specific case, there was a sublease which included a purchase option at the end of the PILOT. It is common for PILOT holders to enter into subleases during the PILOT term.

“Such subleases are legally ‘attached’ to the PILOT lease; however the, Center City Finance Corporation/DMC are not involved in such subleases in any way. Practically and legally, these agreements are between the PILOT holder and the sublease tenants.”

On July 25, 2017, Aparium Group filed a lawsuit in General Sessions court claiming that Kuglin and Reyes were in violation of their sublease agreement and seeking to evict them.

“It struck me as unfortunately being in the wrong court,” says Turley. “It seems to be a question of title. It’s an extraordinary case to be in General Sessions court, which is typically a landlord-tenant court.”

Morris says, “What’s interesting to me about that is, this major corporation with accountants and lawyers, took six months after their lease ended to exercise their option to acquire title.

“After filing for the forcible eviction, without giving Chris any notice on July 25, 2017, on Dec. 19, 2017, they filed an application for an incentive [grant] with the Center City Development Corporation in which they represented that there were no civil proceedings pending by them. That is false. They submitted an application that contained a false statement.”

[pullquote-1]

The 1 S. Main LLC was awarded a $100,000 grant to improve the facade of the building.

“We understand the legal action was taken after the application was received by the DMC,” says Oswalt. “The grant was approved but has not been paid, as it is a reimbursable grant paid upon proof of completion in accordance with all requirements.

“The DMC’ s exterior improvement grant program is designed to incentivize property owners to improve their building facades. The Madison Hotel owners applied for and met all of the eligibility requirements for this program, which must be administered fairly and without bias by the DMC. The DMC supports positive facade improvements and we welcome investment into Downtown Memphis.”

[pullquote-6]

In court on March 27, 2018, Aparium Hotel Group’s lawyers argued that the facade improvements covered by the grant applied only to the downstairs of the property, and not to Reyes’ condo.

When the eviction ruling was handed down on March 27th, the news sent shock waves through not only the film and arts community, but also the legal community and Downtown property holders.

[pullquote-7]

“What a dreadful miscarriage of equitable justice,” says Turley.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a beneficial owner under a lease like this be divested of their title,” says Morris. “I have never seen a situation where someone who held the beneficial ownership of a property Downtown, via PILOT lease or PILOT sublease, which this is, where it is questioned whether they are ultimately the ones to regain title.

“As far as I know, no one has ever questioned that — and I don’t want to name names of other major property owners downtown who don’t own title to their properties, but everyone assumes … not just assumes, knows that they’re the beneficial owners.”

[pullquote-8]

Part of Aparium Group’s winning argument was that the sublease Kuglin and Reyes had under the PILOT lease expired in 2001, when the PILOT was renewed, and that they failed at that time to exercise their option to purchase, and thus their option had expired.

But Morris says there is no time limit to exercise the option specified in the sublease or in any other agreements.

“Looking just at the terms of the sublease in isolation, one could conclude that Kuglin had an option to gain title for a dollar as of Dec. 30, 2001,” Morris said. “But as a matter of fact, it would have been impossible for her to exercise her option at that time, because the party with whom she had executed the sublease didn’t have title.

“Title was still with the Center City Revenue Finance Corp., and pursuant to the PILOT lease extension, would remain with the Center City Finance Corp. until Dec. 15, 2016 at least.

“As we saw in this case, it stayed with the Center City Finance Corp. until June 14, 2017. What that means is, the first moment that Kuglin or Chris Reyes could have possibly gained title under the sublease, pursuant to their $1 option, was June 14, 2017.

“That was a publicly filed document, but no one gave them notice that 1 S. Main LLC had acquired the title on June 14, 2017. About a month later, they got sued. They never got a real chance to exercise their option.”

[pullquote-9]

Could this ruling set a precedent with ominous implications for other downtown property owners?

“I don’t know,” Morris said. “I think given the opportunity to present all of the facts in evidence, a judge on appeal will likely find the other way. … The implications beyond private agreements are limited.

“It’s important to note, because some people think that this was a PILOT lease, or that the DMC could have stepped in legally and done something, and that’s just not the case.

I think this is a purely private legal dispute, but it does have public implications because of the fact that the nature of the PILOT program, which is what’s involved with this as a master lease, does make the situation more complicated, and led to the confusion here.”

[pullquote-10]

Speaking at the protest in front of Memphis City Hall on April 9, Pat Mitchell of the Beale Street Caravan radio show said, “This is a watershed moment. We have a crucial choice in front of us: Do we stand by the side of artists and creatives, or do we stand with those who want to harm artists and creatives?

“This is a simple choice. If creatives are a key part of our strategy to attract businesses and investment to Memphis, we need to value creatives and who they are first. We need to keep them in their homes, keep them contributing to their city.”

Tags 1 S. Main controversy, Aparium, Christopher Reyes, Downtown Memphis Commission, Henry Turley, Jennifer Oswalt, Madison Hotel, Paul Morris, Vernice Kuglin

News The Fly-By

Central Station Plan Makes it “Central” Again

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date April 2, 2015

CREDIT: Henry Turley Co.

A hotel, movie theater, restaurant, new apartments, shops, and maybe a grocery store are coming to the century-old Central Station in a $55 million project unveiled last week.

Henry Turley Co. and Community Capital have been working for more than a year on a plan for the South Main campus that is now home to an Amtrak station, apartments, the Memphis Railroad and Trolley museum, event space, and the Memphis Farmers Market. The companies plan to bring more activity to the area by building new access to trolleys, trains, housing, entertainment, shopping, buses, and for cyclists and pedestrians.

“Our theme as we’ve moved through this process has been to make Central Station central,” Archie Willis, president of Community Capital, told members of the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s (MATA) finance committee Friday.

Henry Turley Co.

Artist’s rendering of Central Station improvements

The plan would transform the tower of the Central Station building into a boutique hotel. Willis said Friday he’s been in talks with the Kemmons Wilson Companies, which has been in talks with “major” hotel companies interested in the project.

Partners are “ready to go,” Willis said, and are awaiting approval from MATA to begin final negotiations. Willis said he expected construction on the hotel to begin in the middle of next year and wrap up by Elvis Week 2017. Hudson Hall, the event space inside the station, would become a meeting space or ballroom for the new hotel. The new restaurant would be inside the hotel.

Malco Theaters would build a movie theater on the southeast corner of Front and G.E. Patterson. The Powerhouse would be converted into the theater’s ticket counter and refreshment station, according to the plan. The theater would be a five-screen, two-story, art-house movie theater, Willis said. The building would have a modern look with glass and brick, and it would be accented with neon signage. Construction there could begin early next year with a planned opening around the end of 2016.

About 370 new apartment units would be built on the site, mainly in the big empty lot behind the station. The plan shows that a grocery store could be built adjacent to the apartment building.

The Memphis Farmers Market would be moved to the southeast corner of Main and G.E. Patterson in four new open-air pavilions. Willis said there is no firm plan yet for the Railroad and Trolley Museum, but its move to a new location would be “as good or better” than the current location in the first floor of Central Station.

To open and connect the entire campus, the trolley stop next to the Powerhouse would be relocated, maybe to Main Street. Also, a new concourse would be opened in the big wall that fronts Main Street where the wall now meets the Central Station building.

Much of the funding for the project would come from federal government grants. MATA president Ron Garrison said local entities would only need to come up with about $600,000 to draw the remaining money to fund the $55 million project. The full MATA board will vote on the project on April 27th.

Tags Archie Willis, Central Station, Henry Turley, Kemmons Wilson Companies, malco theaters, MATA, Memphis Area Transit Authority, Memphis Railroad and Trolley Museum, Ron Garrison

Cover Feature News

The Flyer Origin Story

Post author By Bruce VanWyngarden
Post date June 5, 2014

It was 1989, the best of times, the worst of times, the flyest of times. Memphis magazine publisher Kenneth Neill, a native Bostonian, had long been a fan of alternative weeklies such as the Boston Phoenix and New York’s Village Voice. Other cities around the country were also seeing weeklies pop up. Could such a publication work in a conservative Southern city like Memphis? Neill thought, “yes, it could.” Which turned out to be true, though it took some time.

Memphis magazine was owned by a group of eight or nine locals, none of whom owned a majority share. One of them was developer Henry Turley. “Ken and I were at a meeting of the Egyptians at Rhodes,” he says. “Ken said he had an idea he’d like to discuss. We adjourned to Alex’s, where he described a new idea in journalism that was being pioneered in several cities. He called it an alternative weekly. I liked the idea. I went to Nashville and saw their financially and journalistically successful project. That confirmed my instinct.”

Kate Gooch was another stockholder. “I remember many pro-forma spreadsheets showing when we would finally make money,” she says. “It took a lot longer than we thought.”

Neill says his original projection was that the Flyer would start to make money in three years. It took five. “The late Ward Archer (also a stockholder) was a mentor to me and helped encourage me through those early years,” Neill says. “He was either the most radical conservative or the most conservative radical I ever met. But his support was key.”

Other supportive stockholders included Jack Belz, Ira Lipman, and Robert Towery, most of whom still own stock in what is now the Flyer‘s parent company, Contemporary Media, Inc.

The nascent weekly was originally going to be called the Delta Flyer. Neill was an admirer of the Dixie Flyer, a hippie paper that was published in Memphis for a time in the 1970s. There is a mock-up of the cover of the Delta Flyer on Neill’s office wall. It features a picture of former Tigers basketball coach, Dana Kirk. The Delta Flyer never saw the light of day; the name was changed to the Memphis Flyer, when it was decided the editorial content would focus on Memphis, not the region.

On the night of February 15, 1989, Neill, circulation director Cheryl Bader, Steve Haley, and a couple of others drove three rental trucks on a stealth operation to put the first Memphis Flyer on the streets of Memphis.

“We had to put out the boxes, fill them up with papers, and quickly move on,” says Neill. “We had three original routes for 20,000 papers: Downtown, Midtown, and, for some reason, Hickory Hill.” The first issue featured a cover story on pollution from Velsicol Chemical’s operation in North Memphis; “Celebrity Birthdays,” by Tom Prestigiacomo; a sports column by Dave Woloshin; a column by former Commercial Appeal editor Lydel Sims; and, of course, News of the Weird, illustrated by Jeanne Seagle.

The Flyer‘s first editor was Tim Sampson, who somehow lived through the wild and wooly early years. “I think what stands out most in my mind were the, uh, interesting people that were drawn to the Flyer in those days,” he says. “I probably spent as much time on the telephone with these people as I did editing the paper. We had no email back then, so it was strictly phone communication. There was one person who thought it was my job to get them out of prison, and the calls were lengthy and daily. Then there was a very sweet young man who was convinced his father assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He called and called about it, and one day when I came back to my desk, he was there on my phone discussing it with the FBI.

“I also remember,” Sampson continues, “when Memphis first got those amphibious buses that went into the river. I made a rather cruel crack about them in the old ‘We Recommend’ column, and the owner came to the office early one morning. I was there, with only an elderly receptionist to protect me. He told me he was going to drag me outside and ‘beat my ass.’ We later got a pretty big laugh out of it.”

While Sampson and original art director Nancy Apple held down the fort editorially, ad director Jerry Swift was on the street, trying to convince businesses to put their money into the Flyer. It was a tough battle.

“During our start-up,” Swift recalls, “I went over to see the pastor of a small church in Midtown and commented about seeing their ad on the religion page in the CA. I said to the good reverend that it seemed to me that anyone reading the religion page of the CA already had a church affiliation, and if they wanted to reach wayward, heathen sinners, then I had just the newspaper for their ads.

“They bought an ad and are still with us today as, I’m quite sure, the longest-running advertiser in the Flyer. First Congo now occupies a much larger building and continues to do great work in the community. I’d like to think that we had a small part in helping them.

You can’t talk about the Flyer‘s early days, Swift says, without mentioning the paper’s infamous classified personal ads. In the days before Match.com, the Flyer personals were the city’s go-to hook-up location for men, women, and all sorts of interesting combinations thereof. If you didn’t know what SWM, SWF, GBM, DWM, etc. meant, you were missing the action.

“When we hit the street with ads that were classified as Men Seeking Men and Women Seeking Women, it created a real firestorm,” Swift says. “Many advertisers and potential advertisers were upset that we would run such ‘filth’ in the paper. We were the first citywide publication to embrace the gay community. Those little ads seem so innocuous now, but 25 years ago, we were ‘promoting homosexuality,’ and a lot of people didn’t like it. The reality is that those ads cost us more money than they brought in. But we were right to do it. It was time.”

After five years, the Flyer began making money — and making headway editorially. Neill thinks a large part of the community’s acceptance of the paper as a journalistic source came during the mayoral election of 1991 between Willie Herenton and Dick Hackett. “Jackson Baker and John Branston did a lot of in-depth reporting during the campaign,” Neill says. “The CA had endorsed Hackett early on, and we were able to talk to sources they weren’t getting to, especially in the Herenton camp. We also began sending Jackson to the national party conventions, which gave us more credibility.”

Twenty-five years on, the Flyer is still here, still free, and firmly established as part of the fabric of Memphis, a weekly must-read for 200,000 or so Shelby Countians. Much is owed to the many who’ve worked through the years at 460 Tennessee Street as editors, reporters, designers, and salespeople, as well as those in the business office, marketing department, and circulation department. Much is also owed to those who’ve put their money, their trust, and their advertising in the Flyer. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Personally, I owe a great debt to my predecessors, Flyer editors Tim Sampson and the late Dennis Freeland, for their imagination and hard work, and for setting the bar so high.

Here’s to another 25!

Tags Cheryl Bader, Dave Woloshin, Dennis Freeland, Henry Turley, How the Memphis Flyer got started, Jerry Swift, Kate Gooch, Ken Neill, Lydel Sims, Personal Ads, Tim Sampson, Tom Prestigiacomo

Cover Feature News

$outh Main

Post author By Toby Sells
Post date May 22, 2014

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Hop a trolley along South Main Street and you’ll take a trip into the past and the future. Hidden behind chain-link fencing and the fronts of antique buildings, money and energy are being pumped into the South Main district like nowhere else in Memphis. Construction is underway up, down, and around South Main, in projects large and small.

On the north end of the district, near Beale Street, a dirt patch is the promised home of The Orpheum’s Centre for Performing Arts. Down at the south end, the South Junction apartment complex is nearing completion. In between, projects valued at nearly $100 million are underway or recently completed.

Most of the projects are being built using the area’s large stock of existing buildings, many abandoned a generation ago. They’re being lovingly refurbished and repurposed by companies and developers who know South Main’s authenticity is the core of its charm.

“You know, we’re recycling an entire abandoned neighborhood,” says Henry Turley, founder and CEO of Henry Turley Company. “(South Main) was industrial. Then it was nothing. So, it’s the ultimate in recycling, when you take the whole neighborhood and bring it back to vibrancy.”

Justin Fox Burks

The Arcade

South Main’s Four Eras

Paul Morris, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission sees South Main’s history in four clear eras:

Era I — The district used to be in a separate city, a Memphis suburb called South Memphis. Rich folks lived there in single-family homes and mansions in the early 1800s, Morris says. The city merged with Memphis in 1850, and the area remained largely residential.

Era II — The trains came in the early 1900s. Union Station opened in 1912 and Central Station opened in 1914. They brought as many as 50 passenger trains a day, Morris says, with hundreds of passengers. The single-family homes and mansions were torn down and replaced by factories, warehouses, hotels, and storefronts. These are the buildings that have remained and are the bones for the new construction underway.

Era III — Rail traffic died. With few passengers and no commerce, South Main businesses dried up. By the 1950s and 1960s, the district was in decline. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the district’s Lorraine Motel in 1968 formalized its demise.

“The neighborhood was so totally and completely abandoned that nobody even cared enough to knock the buildings down and redevelop,” Morris says. “They just left them there and abandoned them. That’s good news, though, because this neighborhood today thrives on the fact that we’ve got a lot of the same buildings and the architecture that existed in the early 1900s.”

Era IV — Artists discovered those abandoned buildings in the early 1980s and South Main’s fourth era began, Morris says. Then Hollywood found the district in the 1990s and all the old buildings became a stopped-in-time backdrop for everything from Walk the Line to Hustle and Flow. “All you have to do is change out the automobiles,” Morris says.

The artists and their galleries brought a new momentum, a new reason to visit the area, and South Main was dubbed an “arts district.” That momentum spread. The National Civil Rights Museum opened at the Lorraine Motel in 1991. The trolley line opened in 1993. Central Station was redeveloped into apartments in 1999.

Today, 2,500 people live in the South Main area. The average age of residents is over 45. Property values have grown from $270 million in 2005 to $460 million. South Main is home to everything from Emerge Memphis, a technology incubator, to The Blues Foundation. “South Main is not just one thing,” says Kimberly Taylor, owner of K’PreSha, a South Main clothing boutique. “It’s a collective of things. It’s boutiques. It’s restaurants and art galleries. It’s bars, The Orpheum, and the Civil Rights Museum. It’s the compilation of all these things that just make for a great neighborhood.”

Justin Fox Burks

Future site of The Orpheum’s Centre for Performing Arts

What’s Coming Next?

Here are some of the bigger projects that will further transform the South Main district:

The Orpheum Theatre’s Centre for Performing Arts

When it’s completed next year, the two-story building will undoubtedly be the most modern-looking structure in the district. The Centre’s design sports a ground-to-roof glass facade and curves and angles in equal measure.

The building will be the new home for The Orpheum’s 19 education programs that cover students from pre-school to college. It will have classrooms and a rehearsal stage the same size as The Orpheum’s, so productions can be easily moved from one to the other. The program served 66,000 students last year, and Pat Halloran, The Orpheum’s president and CEO, said the space is necessary.

“You’ve heard the adage ‘Build it, they will come.’ This is the reverse of that,” Halloran says. “We have the audience. We don’t have the building. But we’re creating it.”

The Chisca Hotel

Crews are hard at work inside the long-vacant Chisca Hotel. Behind the chain-link fence outside, workers are cleaning up the enormous space inside.

It’s being prepared for construction crews to begin a massive renovation project that will transform what became a behemoth eyesore into a modern apartment building with retail space on the ground floor.

Project officials say the new Chisca will bring new residents to South Main and will also help connect the district to the Downtown core.

But for many, the new Chisca will finally be a proper place to honor the history that happened there.

Dewey Phillips broadcast his “Red, Hot, and Blue” radio show from the Chisca, and in 1954 he played Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right Mama.” It was the first time Presley’s music was broadcast and, some say, the first time rock-and-roll was played on the radio.

“I heard one tourist remark, ‘If we had this in our town, we’d never let it look like this,'” Morris says. “This would be the center of our town. It would be the main thing.”

Main Street to Main Street Multi-Modal Connector Project

This project will connect pedestrians and bicyclists from Main Street Memphis to Broadway Avenue in West Memphis, Arkansas, which is that city’s “Main Street.”

The project has brought construction crews to Main Street, North and South. They are tearing up and replacing old sidewalks, curbs, and gutters. The plan is to leave behind a more inviting walking and biking space for tourists, locals, runners, and bikers.

Crews will then turn the old roadbed of the Harahan Bridge into a wide, open path for pedestrians and bikers to cross the Mississippi River.

“When that bridge opens up, that’s when the floodgates will open,” says Daniel Duckworth, owner of South Main’s Midtown Bike Company. “That’s why I’m here.”

Duckworth moved his bike shop from Overton Square to South Main six years ago. The talk back then was to somehow open up the Harahan Bridge to bikers, and Duckworth wanted to be there when it did. “I just didn’t know it was going to take this long,” he says.

Once the bridge is open, Duckworth says he’ll see new revenues from renting bikes to people wanting to ride the route. His shop already attracts many touring cyclists, but the Main to Main project will literally put him on the map of a growing number of bike routes in Arkansas and Mississippi.

The project is estimated to be completed by October 2015.

Justin Fox Burks

National Civil Rights Museum

National Civil Rights Museum

Chains were broken and doves were released in April to mark the opening of the newly updated National Civil Rights Museum.

The museum now contains new, tech-fueled exhibits that can transport visitors to the cramped quarters of a slave ship or put them in the courtroom during the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. They can sing along with protestors and listen to the poetry and music from the Black Pride/Black Power era of the 1960s-1970s.

The museum also retained its iconic exhibits: the Montgomery Bus, the sit-in counter, the Freedom Rides bus, and the Memphis Sanitation Truck.

The museum attracts about 200,000 visitors to South Main each year and the renovations are expected to bring even more.

Central Station

New development is on the way for Central Station, according to Turley.

His company and Community Capital were hired by the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) to begin the next stage of development for the apartment and office complex. Turley says he’s not sure yet what that will look like.

“When people ask me what we’re trying to do, I say we’re trying to make Central Station central once again,” Turley says. “It should be a dynamic anchor for the South Main neighborhood, and it’s just not behaving that way now, and we’d like to improve it.”

Plans for the station won’t be firmed up until at least the end of the year, Turley says.

Justin Fox Burks

South Main Artspace Lofts have moved into the former United Warehouse at 138 St. Paul.

Residential Developments

Turley’s 300-unit South Junction is, indeed, the largest single residential development around South Main. But it’s far from the only one. ArtSpace Lofts will have 44 live/work spaces. The Cabinet Shop Apartments will have 25. Printer’s Alley Annex will have 22.

In all, the new developments are expected to bring 1,000 new residents to South Main. This fact gives hope to K’PreSha owner Taylor, who says retail in South Main struggles during daytime hours, unless there’s a special event.

“I think if everyone down here can sustain themselves over the next two years, then I think South Main will definitely be where it’s at,” Taylor says. “I think the increase in residents will help us get more local traffic. All the development in general will just bring more people.”

Justin Fox Burks

“Buffalo Mural”

Smaller Developments

Construction work is underway on a number of smaller projects up and down South Main Street.

Cafe Pontotoc is planned for the space formerly occupied by Carrot. A new bar concept is coming to the former Cafe Soul space at 492 S. Main. The Book Juggler bookstore opened late last year at 548 S. Main.

An updated Five Spot and another new restaurant are coming soon to the space behind Earnestine & Hazel’s, according to building owner and Memphis restaurateur, Bud Chittom. No changes are planned for Earnestine & Hazel’s, Chittom says. He’s also planning to build a youth hostel in the two-story building behind the new restaurants.

Two new retail clothing concepts are coming from the team that brought the Crazy Beautiful pop-up shop to 387 South Main over the holidays. Eryka Smith and Chad West will open a new store, Stock and Bell, in the old pop-up shop space. They’re also renovating the former Russian Cultural Center space at 509 S. Main for a rockabilly-inspired vintage shop called Red Velvet.

Perhaps the smallest development in South Main is the new bocce ball court in the once-vacant lot at Main and Talbot. The Downtown Memphis Commission built the court for around $1,000, and officials hope it will help draw future development to the space. People can play for free. Balls are available at South Of Beale and The Green Beetle in exchange for a credit card or driver’s license.

A new park and dog park are being discussed for an undisclosed location in South Main. Also, locals are working with property owners to convert the empty space behind the iconic “Buffalo Mural” into a performing arts area.

Finally, the district got an identity upgrade this year with a new logo, a new visitor’s guide, and new banners touting the area’s “legendary” status. Some of those legends can be heard on a new self-guided walking tour. Visitors can use their smart phones to scan QR codes on some buildings that will give them web-hosted tales of Machine Gun Kelly or the Whistle Brand soft drink company.

Why Now?

Chittom says South Main is still riding the wave of energy created by the folks who got there early on, especially Henry Turley, he says.

“The synergy in South Main is just remarkable right now,” Chittom says. “It was predicated on Henry. He did this. A lot of people played a role but not as big as Henry played.”

Turley began developing property in South Main after the initial wave of artists and others put down roots there. He started the South Bluffs development in 1991 after he’d finished the River Bluffs development. Turley credits those who came before him.

“They added more energy than I did,” he says. “I added more bulk, but they really got it going.”

South Main Association President Brian Douglas said the original galleries attracted foot traffic, which attracted bars and restaurants. This made the area viable for other businesses that moved in: public relations firms, architecture firms, and financial advisory firms, like his branch of Ameriprise Financial.

“It hasn’t been an increase in a single area,” Williams says. “It’s kind of been a mix of all of the infrastructure things you need to make a neighborhood great, from restaurants and bars and work, and now we’re adding housing again.”

Most agree the growth of South Main has been gradual, organic, unforced, the result of a large, loose network of residents, business owners, developers, and city officials, unlike Overton Square or the Pinch District, which have grown or will grow with the help of a single major developer.

A Memphis Original

South Main’s supporters say much of the area’s success is due to an intangible factor — its authenticity.

Sharon Stanley, an associate professor of political science at the University of Memphis, moved to South Main six years ago, after living briefly in the Downtown core. Yes, rent was cheaper in South Main, but she says what kept her there was something deeper. Downtown felt like a “show piece with a little artificial Memphis [in it] for tourists or something.” South Main was different, she says.

“It also just has — and this is probably the most overused word for anyone describing what they like about a city or a neighborhood — but I do feel like the places here have a certain character that other places are lacking, especially in the newer developments in Memphis,” Stanley says. “I feel like those could be anywhere. But Earnestine & Hazel’s can only really be Earnestine & Hazel’s.”

A new study by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) spells this out. City dwellers these days, especially younger residents, like old buildings. They want to live in them, walk around them, and socialize in them. Blocks of old buildings, the study showed, provide affordable spaces for entrepreneurs to open new restaurants, bars, and businesses. They are all looking for authenticity and are finding it in Washington, D.C.’s H Street Corridor, San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood — and South Main in Memphis. These areas perform better economically, socially, and environmentally than those with larger, newer buildings.

“That’s really one of the things that made South Main successful,” Paul Morris says. “It avoided what happened in many downtowns across America where people came in and wiped all the buildings away and started afresh to get rid of the urban blight.”

Jusint Fox Burks

Trolley goers enjoying the ride

Get on the Trolley

Memphis and South Main are well ahead of the curve of one urban trend: Cities across the country are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to begin streetcar projects.

Tucson has spent $196 million on its 3.9-mile Sun Link Streetcar project that will link its downtown and the University of Arizona. Washington, D.C., will open its $135 million, 2.4-mile H Street streetcar project this year. A 2.4-mile streetcar route will open in Seattle later this year, a project that cost $134 million. Atlanta, Dallas, Milwaukee, and many other cities have similar projects either planned or under way.

Memphis trolley cars have been rumbling up and down 10 miles of tracks since 1993.

Enjoy It
Some worry that the Memphis population won’t be able to support all of the urban renewal blossoming across town.

But Morris’ advice on South Main is to simply enjoy it. “It’s in your city,” he says. “It’s a big part of Memphis’ history and it’s going to be a big part of Memphis’ future.”

Tags Arcade, bocce ball court, Chisca Hotel, Henry Turley, Pat Halloran, Paul Morris, South Main Arts District, Memphis, The Orpheum, Train Station, Trolleys

Opinion

Fairgrounds Redo: Will Third Time Be Charmed?

Post author By John Branston
Post date September 19, 2013

The 89-page Fairgrounds redevelopment plan released this week is the third major one since 2006 so I’m taking my time digesting it.

The Looney Ricks Kiss firm did one in 2006 that, obviously, didn’t go anywhere. The RKG Associates consulting firm did a 2009 study as well as the one that came out this week. The 2009 study was pessimistic about the $125-million public/private financing proposal for a sports-oriented Tourism Development Zone. The current one is optimistic about a $233-million public/private proposal for a sports-oriented TDZ.

Same property, same qualified public use facility (Liberty Bowl Stadium), but different economy (recession then, comeback now), different mayor (Herenton then, Wharton now), different developer at risk (Henry Turley and Robert Loeb then, unnamed now), different master/enabler (a city-appointed Fairgrounds Reuse Committee then, Robert Lipscomb, head of the Division of Housing and Community Development, now) and different fate of Fairview school at the key corner of Central and East Parkway (out then, in now).

Turley’s Fair Ground plan, which I wrote about here, is not mentioned in the 2013 RKG report despite the obvious similarities. Turley got state approval for a TDZ but ran afoul of the City Council and Lipscomb, who said his fees were too high, which Turley disputed. The new plan needs state approval, and a presentation is tentatively scheduled in mid-October. After that it will also need City Council approval.

In a supporting letter, Wharton wrote that “the fairgrounds project will also serve as the central hub of the city’s family-tourism expansion through its developments at Graceland, Bass Pro at the Pyramid, and the Riverfront.” He makes no mention of the proposed Crosstown project which is less than a mile from the edge of the Fairgrounds TDZ and is seeking $15 million in public funds. The Bass Pro Pyramid is part of a separate TDZ.

In short, Memphis is betting on a whole lot more free-spending tourists coming our way.

As the name suggests, the key to a TDZ is tourism spending as opposed to local spending that would have gone somewhere else but for the new development. In a TDZ, Memphis gets to keep the incremental increase in state sales taxes above a baseline number.

The baseline number is important in determining what “new” revenue can be used to pay off the bonds. From the new report:

“The analysis by RKG Associates concludes that the projected baseline retail sales are approximately $214 million, and as a result there are ample sales tax revenues — projected at $14.3 million yearly beginning in 2016 — to support the bond payments of $11.9 million annually.”

And from the 2009 RKG report: “The estimated stream of sales tax revenue, while significant, is not necessarily new revenue. Additionally, under the assumptions of the bonding in this analysis, the projected stream of sales tax revenues is insufficient to retire $112,264,000 in bonding.”

One more negative note from the 2009 report: “By the very nature of retail there is always some degree of transferred retail sale. In the context of the Mid-South Fairgrounds, it is likely that the majority of retail sales will be transferred sales from existing merchants.”

The 400,000-square feet of “destination retail” that would bring in new money in the current fairgrounds plan is not named. Nor is the operator of the “180-room hotel/conference center.” The location would be north of Tiger Lane and south of Central Avenue. Obviously, it matters whether the retail is a destination for East Memphians or Nashvillians and Mississippians.

The report says “the Fairgrounds redevelopment is being driven by the City of Memphis as owner” and “based on the city of Memphis vision and design” the city will seek “a retail development company” for the property north of Tiger Lane and another developer/operator for the sports facilities south of Tiger Lane. There is no mention of fees.

However there is this statement:

“Using the TDZ as the vehicle for financing the Fairgrounds redevelopment and carefully calibrating a plan of redevelopment, the City of Memphis continues to build economic engines, as it has done with the redevelopment of The Pyramid into destination retail and a tourist attraction.”

Well, let’s hold that praise until after Bass Pro actually opens. As the report says elsewhere, “there is no assurance that actual events will correspond with the assumptions on which such estimates are based.”

The proposed three-square-mile Fairgrounds TDZ would include big Midtown tax generators such as the Memphis Zoo, Overton Square, Union Avenue and the soon-to-be rebuilt Kroger, and Cooper-Young. The report doesn’t flat come out and state cause and effect, but the assumption is that these things are tied somehow to the fairgrounds and the stadium and therefore their incremental tax revenues should be captured.

Again, the big question is what’s the increment? That depends on what the baseline is. The lower the baseline, the bigger the increment. In this proposal, the baseline is 2012 sales tax collections, adjusted for inflation until 2016 when the retails sales stream starts flowing to the fairgrounds bonds.

RKG’s 2013 optimism starkly contrasts with its 2009 pessimism about fairgrounds retail, which went well beyond the recession: “Approximately 80 percent of the sales that would occur at the fairgrounds would come from residents within the primary trade area. Most all of the sales activity would be reallocated sales already occurring elsewhere in Memphis.”

Fairgrounds retail, RKG said then, “would fill a void in the local market area, however it lacks highway presence and the tenant mix to be a regional consumer draw.”

That was then, this is now.

Tags A C Wharton, fairgrounds, Henry Turley, Memphis City Council, Robert Lipscomb, Robert Loeb, Tiger Lane

Opinion

Reactions to the New Riverfront Report

Post author By John Branston
Post date March 22, 2013

CREDIT: John Branston

John Branston

Memphians with a stake in the riverfront have had time to consider the six “quick fixes” for the riverfront proposed by urban design expert Jeff Speck this week. Here is some of what they had to say.

Henry Turley, developer: “I thought the quote of the night was Paul Morris (head of the Downtown Memphis Commission) saying “plan less, do more.” I have long thought there was a battle between river access and expressway on Riverside Drive. Jeff Speck hit that right. On Bass Pro, I think he hit that right too. It is turned south and therefore does not significantly impact The Pinch. Several years ago I asked the McWherter administration not to put the state welcome center in Arkansas. The idea was to develop those sites, where the parks and development sites would go together. Overall, I didn’t find much to pick at.”

Charlie Ryan, partner in Beale Street Landing restaurant. “Wow. Wow. We already don’t have enough parking. So what else can I say. It is difficult to get to the building. It’s as simple as that.”

Bud Chittom, partner in Beale Street Landing restaurant: “Once the smoke clears there will be parking at the end of the park. We’ve got to have that little parking lot.”

Burton Carley, minister of Church of the River, called “the church of None Shall Pass” in the report. “It would cost the city millions for the river walk to come across our property. We spend a lot of money maintaining it.” Carley said the church has talked with the city and railroad about doing something to help the bike path to the Harahan Bridge without putting it in front of the church, with its big windows looking out over the river. “We are not obstructionists. The renewal of the riverfront began with the Church of the River.” Nor is he alarmed by anything in the report. “What I have learned in my 30 years here is not to pay attention too much.”

Tom Jones, who introduced Speck, wrote this on his Smart City Memphis blog, which includes links to the full report. Jones has been a close observer of downtown projects for more than three decades.

Jimmy Ogle, Beale Street Landing. “Taking out parking at Tom Lee Park would be tough right now. How do you get to the park?” Ogle said he is “lukewarm” to making changes in Riverside Drive.

Jim Holt, executive director of Memphis In May: “I met with Mr. Speck. Tom Lee Park has been our home for 37 years. Part of the magic of the event is the river. Every modification has an impact. We have been flexible.”

Greg Maxted, The Harahan Project: “The idea I liked a lot was Riverside Drive, adding a bike lane and parallel parking, and removing the parking lots and adding more green space.” As for the bridge project and the church, Maxted said the design utilizes Virginia Avenue for access and will not impact the church.

Virginia McLean, Friends For Our Riverfront: “I think what he had to say about Bass Pro Boulevard was a strong and good suggestion. If they would listen again they might have a chance of developing that little part. But if nobody listens now and they go ahead with their large sign and lights, then I don’t think there is any possibility of mixed-use going in there.”

While it is true that downtown has a lot of plans on the shelf, it also has a lot of riverfront projects costing many millions of dollars. Most of the projects since 1980 have expanded public parkland and amenities and deemphasized cars. A partial list includes:

Mud Island River Park, now entering its fourth decade and closed half the year. It has had two full-service restaurants in addition to a snack bar. It has been managed by the city and the Riverfront Development Corporation. At various times, it has had paid concerts, longer hours and a longer season, free concerts, a swimming pool, kayaks, paddle boats, air-boat rides, a museum, playground, overnight camping, and free admission.

Tom Lee Park was expanded to more than double its acreage, with a broad sidewalk at the edge of the river from just south of Beale Street to the top of the hill at Ashburn-Coppock Park. The sidewalk was extended south behind the Rivermont apartments to Martyr’s Park, which has the highest viewpoint of the river in Memphis.

A lighted sidewalk on the west side of Riverside Drive above the Cobblestones Landing.

The Bluff Walk from Beale Street to the South Bluffs, including a pedestrian bridge over Riverside Drive and staircases to walkways across the road to Tom Lee Park.

John Branston
Henry Turley

Greenbelt Park on Mud Island, with a lighted sidewalk above the flood plain and paths and benches on the grass near the river, and room for several special outdoor events including a bike race.

Harbor Town was developed as a walkable residential community that now has thousands of residents.

The A. W. Willis Jr. Bridge opened Mud Island to private development. The bridge has protected sidewalks on each side.

Mud Island River Park is accessible by bike from the bridge or the sidewalk above the monorail, which can be accessed by elevator. Bikes are allowed in the park.

A landscaped median and crosswalks were added to Riverside Drive to make it more pedestrian friendly.

The Main Street Trolley goes north and south on the pedestrian mall. Cars are banned. The Riverfront trolley line carries passengers from Auction Street to the train station.

A pedestrian bridge was built to connect the University of Memphis law school with the park north of it.

Bike lanes on Front Street.

John Branston

New projects or additions to what urban experts call “the built environment” are often premised on the idea that people would walk and bike more if they only had more places to do it. I am unable to associate myself with this thesis. Most people bike for recreation, not to get somewhere for a specific purpose. And we love our cars. There is no better illustration than the bike racks and parking lots at Rhodes College and the University of Memphis, the very demographic that is supposed to be hot for bikes. One is packed, the other isn’t.

Tags Beale Street Landing, Charlie Ryan, Church of the River, Henry Turley, Jeff Speck, Jimmy Ogle, Memphis In May, Smart City Memphis

Opinion

Stadium Upgrade One Piece of Fairgrounds Puzzle

Post author By John Branston
Post date August 29, 2012

The moon in the sky was a big pizza pie over Liberty Bowl Stadium Tuesday night as hundreds of fans walked on the new artificial turf field and the giant new video board displayed a stunningly lifelike high-def image of . . . City Councilman Bill Boyd.

Actually Boyd followed a promotional Memphis video to the tune of “Green Onions,” and he was at the podium and makeshift stage to introduce a bunch of dignitaries celebrating the newly renovated stadium. The place looked great inside and out, with a fountain, colored lights, and grand entrance at the end of Tiger Lane and the new turf, freshly painted stands, and the big board over the south end zone. What a change from the cow barns and fairgrounds clutter of two years ago.

On Saturday night, the Memphis Tigers and their new coach Justin Fuente will take the field against U-T Martin, a comedown from previous openers against Southeastern Conference teams but a winnable game for a Tiger team that has won five games in three years.

For Memphis to get a good return on its investment, which was heavily leveraged by donations from FedEx, the Tigers will have to get respectable and at least half-fill the Liberty Bowl regularly, which looks doubtful until Memphis joins the Big East Conference in 2013. The other two ramrods and beneficiaries, the Southern Heritage Classic and the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, should set the bar at 50,000 butts in seats.

The stated goal of city master planner Robert Lipscomb and his team is to make the fairgrounds a 365-day facility for ordinary Memphians as well as elite athletes. A worthy aspiration, long overdue, but about as possible as the Tigers going undefeated. For now, the Children’s Museum is the closest thing to a daily draw, and it is not really part of the makeover. The Kroc Center on East Parkway will give Midtown a convenient and low-cost alternative to suburban fitness centers under the direction of the Salvation Army. I’m eager to see what all will be in the mix and how Memphians respond.

The high school football field and track should continue to get regular use from the future unified school system. The Bridges Kickoff Classic matching public and private schools moved from the Liberty Bowl to MUS in 2009. The smaller stadium costs less to rent and is a better fit, but the location is far from the center of the city.

Tearing down the Mid-South Coliseum was part of the aborted Fair Ground plan of Henry Turley and Bob Loeb and is a part of Lipscomb’s plan as well. What’s the rush? Sentiment isn’t the point. The fact that Elvis once played there is as irrelevant as the fact that Gordie Howe once made a promotional visit for the River Kings. But don’t tear down a building that is safe enough to host graduations in recent years and is surrounded by parking until someone comes up with a better idea and a paying customer to make it happen. It’s not like there’s no open space to build on at the fairgrounds.

Baseball fields at the Fairgrounds would return baseball to the inner city, the foundation of the Memphis Redbirds 12 years ago. Nice to see Tim McCarver making a big donation to his old home town but baseball is not the city game. How much farther can you take RBI than the Redbirds did with ex-major leaguer and Memphian Reggie Williams giving it their best shot?

The competition for baseball tournaments comes not only from Snowden Grove and First Tennessee Fields but also from multi-field complexes in Jackson, Jonesboro, New Albany, and Batesville. The competition for festivals, outdoor concerts, and packaged pay-for-fun ala the Mud Island LuvMud benefit will come from downtown, Shelby Farms, and other venues. There is no single sports and entertainment center in Memphis if there ever was one.

A Target store, a Hampton Inn-style motel, housing, and a Tourism Development Zone to capture sales taxes were also part of Fair Ground. What’s done is done, but I think it’s too bad that someone of Turley’s talent, vision, and track record is working in Jackson, Tennessee and not in Midtown, Memphis. Is the city as developer a real deal or pie in the sky? We will see.

Tags fairgrounds, Henry Turley, Heritage Classic, Liberty Bowl, RBI baseball, Tiger Lane

Opinion

Weekend Report: Egypt, International Paper, FedEx, and Susan Komen

Post author By John Branston
Post date February 3, 2012

Best line of the week: “Burger King,” by developer Henry Turley to the ambulance crew member who asked which hospital he wanted to be taken to after he passed out while chairing a board meeting for Sun Trust Bank this week. He blamed his fall on cold medications and a lack of breakfast and declined an overnight stay in the hospital. He is doing fine.

The CEOs of two of our biggest companies were in the news Thursday. On CNBC, FedEx CEO Fred Smith said the U.S. economy is growing but not at a rate high enough to absorb the increase in population. He recommended that the government enhance capital investment, keep exploring fuel sources not dependent on Middle Eastern nations, and change the tax code provisions that penalize profits made abroad. Smith said 43 percent of FedEx world management team is minorities and women. And he said the Post Office “is run by a very competent man who was in Memphis last week to talk to our managers.” That would be Patrick Donahoe.

An hour later, International Paper CEO John Faraci was on a web conference for IP’s fourth-quarter and annual financial report. He said IP had its “best financial results in almost two decades.” The company, which has some 2,400 employees in the Memphis area, transformed itself in 2010, selling its land portfolio, cutting costs, and preparing the way for $1.5 billion in capital investments in 2012. I interviewed Faraci later that day for an upcoming story in our MBQ magazine. Things I didn’t know until this week: IP’s North American mills get 73 percent of their energy from renewable sources and IP is the recycler of 12 percent of all paper that is recycled.

Egypt has raised the standard for violence at sporting events with a riot that killed 74 people. My friend Mohamad Elmeliegy, who came to Memphis from Cairo, told me he was saddened but not surprised by the bad news. In a column in September he said Egypt is new to democracy and “has been governed by the military since the pharaohs.”

Don’t put your sponsors in the position of having to talk about abortion. That’s the lesson of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure turnabout this week, according to a colleague in our marketing department who is familiar with the Memphis Race for the Cure in Germantown every year. Komen had said earlier this week it would cease to fund grants for breast cancer screening to Planned Parenthood under new rules to tighten eligibility. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Komen said in a statement on Friday signed by its board of directors and its founder Nancy Brinker.

Tags Egypt, FedEx, Fred Smith, Henry Turley, International Paper, John Faraci, MBQ, Susan Komen