Tag: Livable Memphis

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Efforts Underway to Make Clark Tower Area More Walkable, Bikeable

CREDIT: Livable Memphis

Lots of consideration has been paid to making downtown and Midtown more walkable and bikeable, but now a busy, car-centric area of East Memphis is getting some attention.

Last week, Livable Memphis held MEMFix East, an urban revitalization event, in the Clark Tower/Brookhaven Circle area of East Memphis with a goal of gathering opinions from people who live, work, shop, and dine there on how to make that area more pedestrian- and bike-friendly.

Livable Memphis conducted short surveys with people at that event, and for those who couldn’t make it, the survey is now available on the Livable Memphis website.

“If you go behind the east side of Clark Tower, you can see where these businesses along Brookhaven Circle have created these back entryways to get onto the property without going up to Poplar and coming around,” said John Paul Shaffer, program director of Livable Memphis. “There’s a desire to connect these pieces that are developed separately from one another. If you look at property maps of the area, you see all these weird driving lanes that don’t go through, and you have to make weird turns. It was developed in a piecemeal way.”

Livable Memphis

Wayfinding sign from MEMFix East

Carol Gaudet works in Clark Tower, and she said she’d love to see more clearly marked pedestrian walkways. She said she often walks to neighborhood restaurants for lunch.

“In this day and age, people tend to be impatient. Pedestrians don’t necessarily have the right-of-way,” Gaudet said.

The Livable Memphis surveys complement a recent Blair Parker Design master plan that shows six kinds of pedestrian paths that could be built in and around the massive parking lot between Poplar, Mendenhall, Sanderlin, and White Station.

Shaffer said making the Clark Tower area more pedestrian-friendly may mean simple fixes, like adding more walkways to better connect the individual properties, adding wayfinding signs that help office workers identify restaurants and shops they can walk or bike to, and reconfiguring a few parking spaces that are currently blocking walkways.

“In some cases, a parking spot here or there is blocking a pedestrian entrance, so we could just move that out and make the pedestrian access more visible,” Shaffer said. “That was the case between the iBank Tower and Whole Foods. There was a parking space at the top of the new stairs by the patio. That spot got removed, and now you can see a clear path to walk to Whole Foods.”

Once the results are in, Livable Memphis will turn them over to the property owners in that area, and any changes would fall to them. Clark Tower and iBank Tower owner and president of Florida-based In-Rel Properties Dennis Udwin is completely on board with making his property more walkable.

“As an owner, I have a stewardship and an obligation to the city of Memphis,” Udwin said. “If you look at some of the things that have happened, like the Whole Foods coming in and the Houston’s, the Malco, the [Double Tree] hotel, and this restaurant area in [Brookhaven Circle]. I think it’s time to pull the area together and make it more pedestrian-friendly and cycle-friendly.

“[We can do that with] pedestrian walkways, better lighting, better signage, more landscaping. If you look at that parking lot, it’s just a mass of asphalt. It should be softened, and it can be done with color, benches, landscaping, and fountains,” Udwin continued.

Udwin said the 35-story Clark Tower has a 65 percent occupancy rate, and the 22-story iBank Tower is 85 percent occupied. He thinks making the area more walkable and bikeable could improve occupancy.

Udwin is also currently pouring about $8 million into renovations at Clark Tower that include painting the exterior and renovating the elevators, lobby, and some of the restrooms.

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Livable Memphis Will Match Funding for Crowd-Sourced Projects on ioby

Citizens who crowd-source funding on ioby.org for neighborhood improvement projects can gain additional match funding through a new grant from Livable Memphis.

The Green Up Memphis Match provides $33,000 in match funds to projects posted on ioby.org, a national fund-raising site for citizen-led, community revitalization projects. Examples of recent successful fund-raising campaigns on ioby include equipment updates for Trinity United Methodist Church’s playground, movie nights at the Washington Bottoms Community Garden, and a rock garden at the “I Love Soulsville” mural at Mississippi and McLemore.

“The Green Up Memphis Match offers funding beyond the official city park — vacant lots, median strips, and community gardens are also eligible,” said Ellen Roberds, Memphis Action Strategist for ioby. “The process is approachable, accessible, and it’s doable.”

Those with project ideas who’d like to apply for Green Memphis Match money can do so here until February 8th. Fund-raising efforts for these projects will begin in March. 

Since ioby was introduced in Memphis in 2014, more than 150 locals have raised $422,000 through ioby to fund their projects. Most projects on the site are funded with budgets until $3,000.

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Evergreen Residents Plan Improvements For Williamson Park

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

Williamson Park, an elongated 4.5 acres of greenspace with few amenities, is the latest slice of Memphis slated for an upgrade.

It’s a quiet neighborhood park tucked between Williamson and North Willett in the Evergreen Historic District, hidden from major Midtown arteries. It’s a city-owned park, but the residents of Evergreen, rather than the city, have been spearheading the park’s revitalization.

Currently, the park has a small playground and a large, empty grassy area. The neighbors want to see additional trees, playground improvements, and picnic tables.

Bianca Phillips

“Youth soccer teams practice there. Dog owners congregate every evening, and our kids play on the playground. We even hunt Easter eggs and host picnics there,” said Bethany Spiller, an Evergreen resident. “The park fosters relationships among people, and anything [we] can do to make it more enjoyable and safe, the stronger our Midtown community becomes.”

Sarah Newstok, a special projects coordinator for Livable Memphis, is excited about the possibility of using this project as a blueprint for communities across Memphis that want to revitalize their own neighborhood greenspaces.

“We want to create a how-to guide,” Newstok said. “We want this to be a pilot for other projects, so that other neighborhoods that might not have the same resources can follow these steps.”

Newstok said that it makes more sense to tackle greenspace improvements as a whole plan, rather than piecemeal. The partnership that formed between Evergreen residents and community space planners “gave us an opportunity to see what a public/private partnership would really look like.”

Livable Memphis and the crowd-funding website ioby (which stands for “in our backyards”) partnered with Evergreen residents to implement upgrades to the park.

With help from the Hyde Family Foundations, the planning project for Williamson Park was funded in less than 24 hours after it was announced through Livable Memphis. The planning process was led by landscape architects at Ritchie Smith Associates.

Some of the Hyde funds will also cover the cost of planting trees. Newstok is hopeful that some of the funds for other improvements will come from the city.

Tentative plans for the park were unveiled during Livable Memphis’ annual Summit for Neighborhood Leaders, which took place this past Saturday.

The presentation of the Williamson Park Mini-Master Plan was but one segment of the summit. The larger focus — “Engaging in Your Parks and Green Spaces in Memphis” — drew residents from all over the city who have a similar desire to create community spaces in their own neighborhoods.

Janet Hooks, the city’s director of Parks and Neighborhoods, was encouraged by the support for the Williamson Park project and noted that small projects could be a watershed moment for neighborhoods.

“If you see a park that’s run-down, the mindset is that the people living in the area don’t care or are not involved,” said Hooks, adding that, “Private ownership has a domino-effect on a neighborhood. When people are engaged, that suggests to me that we’re on the right track.”

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Grassroots Projects Get Funding Through ioby.org

CREDIT: Tolitsayala | Dreamstime.com

Bats may have a scary reputation as blind bloodsuckers, but a few residents in the East Buntyn community actually want the winged mammals in their neighborhood. And after crowd-sourcing on ioby.org, they’ve raised the funds to build 10 bat houses (and one tower for Chimney Swift birds) in the East Memphis neighborhood.

Tolitsayala | Dreamstime.com

Residents of the East Buntyn neighborhood are building bat houses.

They’re hoping the $2,000 project will bring mosquito-eating, plant-pollinating bats and birds back to their neighborhood after years of roost disturbances and habitat loss have pushed them out of the area. The “Bring Back Bats and Birds to Buntyn” is just one of 67 projects in 17 zip codes being funded after a spring match funding campaign on ioby.org.

Ioby stands for “in our backyards,” and the site is used to crowd-source civic projects across the country. The website has had a Memphis presence for a couple years, but between March 30th and April 15th, ioby.org offered up $50,000 in match funds for Memphis projects that fund-raised during that period. Livable Memphis got involved, too.

“Livable Memphis was so excited by all the projects that we decided to put in additional dollars, and we still have some match funds that didn’t get spent out [during the matching period], so we’ll get to spend those on projects throughout the year,” said Ellen Roberds, creative placemaker at Livable Memphis.

Another of the funded projects will place 24 seats at Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) bus stops around the city. They’re focusing specifically on stops that don’t have bus shelters. To qualify for a bus shelter, a stop must have more than 50 riders per day. But some smaller stops still serve a large number of people but lack seating.

“The plan is to look at stops where fewer than 50 people board every day but still have enough people who board that it would be useful for people to have seats,” said Emily Trenholm, executive director of the Community Development Council of Greater Memphis. Trenholm is the project coordinator for the bus stop seat project.

Project Backboard

Project Backboard makeover at Charjean Park

Some other projects funded during the matching period include Project Backboard, which will use $6,125 to restripe and paint goal posts at 15 inner-city basketball courts, $3,125 for enhancements at the DIY Altown Skate Park at Lamar and Rozelle, and $6,000 to install new trail markers through Overton Park’s Old Forest.

Another group raised $1,195 to create a rock garden and “labyrinth green space” under the new “I Love Soulsville” mural at Mississippi and McLemore. And $5,761 was raised to throw a community party called Roundhouse Revival at the Mid-South Coliseum on May 23rd. A $410 project will provide helmets for young bicyclists.

“There’s a group that wants to put in herb gardens in vacant lots and eventually use the herbs to make tea,” Roberds said. “Vegetable gardens are pretty labor-intensive, but herbs are perennial and don’t require as much work.”

Although the matching process is over, some projects, such as the basketball striping project, are still working to raise some additional funds. And ioby.org accepts new Memphis projects all the time.

“We encourage people to start small,” Roberds said. “The best projects are the ones that are visible to the public and can be built upon.”

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Bicycle Crossing Light Planned for Hampline

Earlier this month, a bicyclist was killed after being hit by a vehicle just a block west of Sam Cooper and Tillman, the same intersection that, in about a year, will boast the city’s first bicycle-only traffic light.

The special traffic signal for cyclists is part of the planned Hampline bicycle path stretching from Overton Park to the Shelby Farms Greenline.

Zachary Walls, 40, was hit and killed by a vehicle driven by 50-year-old Solomon Johnson. Johnson stayed on the scene but was arrested for driving on a suspended, revoked, or canceled license. The scene of the accident was closer to Lipford, about a block from the traffic light at Tillman, so it’s hard to know whether the completed Hampline and its planned bike traffic signal could have made his route safer.

But Livable Memphis Program Director John Paul Shaffer believes the planned bike path will improve bicycle and pedestrian safety overall.

Artist rendering of the Hampline along Tillman

“Sam Cooper right now screams ‘You’re not safe no matter what happens,'” Shaffer said. “Getting across Sam Cooper is terrifying sometimes.”

Once complete, cyclists will approach the Sam Cooper and Tillman traffic signal, and a sensor in the street will detect the bike. An extra traffic signal with red, yellow, and green lights projected through a cutout of a bicycle will tell cyclists when it’s safe to cross.

Part of the Hampline is already constructed. It begins at Overton Park and crosses East Parkway onto an existing sidewalk along Sam Cooper that leads to Broad Avenue. From there, the path travels down Broad’s existing bicycle lanes.

In the past few months, city crews have erected flexible bollards along Broad between Hollywood and Collins to separate the lane from the parking area. Before those were installed, drivers would often park cars partially inside the bike lane. City Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Kyle Wagenschutz said crews are still putting the finishing touches on that stretch of the Hampline project.

“They’re about 85 percent done. They can only operate on days when it’s warm enough to put the paint down,” Wagenschutz said.

But for now, the Hampline ends at Collins. That’s because that first stretch of the Hampline was paid for through city funds, but the rest of the project — the lane from Collins to Tillman, the bicycle traffic signal at Sam Cooper and Tillman, and the north-south stretch of lane from Tillman to the Greenline — will be funded using federal money.

The designs must be approved by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the federal government before that part of the project can move forward.

“If the design approval process goes smoothly, we’ll be able to bid the construction for those [final] phases sometime in 2015, but whether or not the physical construction begins before next winter, I don’t know at this point,” Wagenschutz said.

From Collins west to Tillman and from Tillman south to the Greenline, the lane will be buffered from traffic with a concrete median, some of which will be planted.

“I think there’s even a rain garden in one spot. It just depends on how wide they are as to whether or not the curbs have plantings,” said Shaffer, whose organization raised $72,000 for the Hampline’s design through the crowd-funding website, ioby.org.

Despite the recent bicycle fatality near the Hampline’s path, Wagenschutz said bicycle accidents have actually decreased since 2008. Most years, the city only has one or two accidents. So far this year, there have been two, both within the past month. The city doubled the miles of bicycle infrastructure by 2010, and that number is projected to double again by 2016.

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Crowdsource Fund-raising Website ioby.org Launches $50K Match Fund for Memphis Projects

The folks behind ioby.org, the crowdsource fund-raising website for civic projects, are hoping to spur up to 20 new projects across Memphis, and they’re putting some money behind that wish.

Through their new “discover ioby” campaign, ioby.org has set aside $50,000 to match dollars raised for small civic projects for Memphis. The funds will be available between April 11th and 15th. To qualify, project ideas must be submitted to ioby by March 6th, and fund-raising campaigns must be launched by March 30th at the latest. At least 20 percent of the total project funds must be raised by April 11th to be considered for matching dollars.

Livable Memphis will be administrating the match grant, and they’ve set up a couple of free information sessions. The first meeting is tonight (Monday, February 23rd) at 5:30 p.m. at the Frayser Community Development Corporation (3684 North Watkins). And there’s another meeting on Saturday, February 28th at 10:30 a.m. at the Uptown Resource Center (314 A.W. Willis). More meetings will be scheduled in the coming weeks.

The under-construction Hamp Line bicycle path leading from Overton Park to the Shelby Farms Greenline was one of the city’s earliest successful ioby.org projects. Memphis Civic Solar, a Memphis Bioworks project to install 1.5 megawatts of solar energy spread across 30 different municipal buildings, was also funded through ioby.org.

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Grocery Store May Replace Blighted Apartment Property On Tillman

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

A blighted apartment building at the corner of Sam Cooper and Tillman may be the Binghampton neighborhood’s solution to its food desert problem.

The building, which sits on the southeast corner of the intersection, has been deteriorating for years, but until a few months ago, 22 of the 24 apartment units were occupied.

“We acquired the building about three months ago,” said Robert Montague, executive director of the Binghampton Development Corporation (BDC). “It was fairly full, but we gave people some relocation assistance.”

Bianca Phillips

This blighted apartment building on Tillman will soon be demolished.

Some of those residents, whom Montague described as mostly singles and couples, were relocated into apartments owned by the BDC, which over the years has acquired and rehabbed a number of properties along Tillman and the surrounding neighborhood. Others moved into other properties owned by the former landlord of the building at Sam Cooper and Tillman.

“The building had just deteriorated to the point where people shouldn’t have to live there anymore,” Montague said.

He said the previous owner had been cited by the Memphis Fire Department because the building wasn’t in compliance with building codes.

“The owner wasn’t economically able to address those [problems], so he agreed to sell to us. We’re addressing those problems by removing the property,” Montague said.

It will cost about $380,000 for the BDC to demolish the property, and it should be done within a month, Montague said. Eventually, the BDC hopes to replace it with a full-service grocery store. They’re currently working on getting commitment from a grocery anchor.

“We think the traffic pattern and accessibility really lends itself to a viable grocery store that would provide food access and about 70 to 80 new jobs. It would just really be a symbol of change and hope for the neighborhood,” Montague said.

If and when the grocery store is constructed, it would fall in the path of the planned Hamp Line bike lane, which will connect Overton Park to the Shelby Farms Greenline via a two-way cycle track that will run east on Broad and south on Tillman to the greenline’s western entrance.

“I think having something that raises visibility and provides a destination for trips along the Hamp Line would be good,” said John Paul Shaffer, program director for Livable Memphis.

Shaffer said construction on the Tillman segment of the Hamp Line is expected to begin in the spring.

“There are a number of synergies that are coming together to help Binghampton get stronger and stronger including the Hamp Line that will come right past this site,” Montague said.

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MEMFix Program Sets Sights on Edge District

If the city’s MEMFix program is a day spa for neighborhoods, the Edge District is next on the list for a massage.

The district, located inside a quarter-mile radius around the Marshall and Monroe intersection between downtown and Midtown, is scheduled to host the next MEMFix neighborhood revitalization festival on October 18th. Last Saturday, a “build day” was held  — one of many planned over the next few weeks — to clean up the area with the help of 20 volunteers.

Volunteers prepare the Edge District for MEMFix fest.

During the “build day,” the volunteers cleaned, weeded, and built furniture and planters that will be used during the event but may stay after the crowds have dispersed. Volunteers also began cleaning vacant buildings that will be used for the event’s pop-up shops.

The MEMFix program launched in Crosstown in the fall of 2012 when the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team held a one-day neighborhood festival with DIY bike lanes, pop-up retail shops, and public art to kick-start revitalization in the area. Since then, the mayor’s team also launched an off-shoot program, MEMShop, offering short-term leases to pop-up businesses willing to set up in long-vacant storefronts in up-and-coming areas.

Subsequent MEMFix events have been held in Soulsville and on the Highland Strip near the University of Memphis.

MEMFix: Edge is a joint effort by Livable Memphis, the City of Memphis, and the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) to reimagine the district as they have done with other neighborhoods.

“It’s the perfect storm of natural things bubbling up from new businesses moving in or existing businesses,” said John Paul Shaffer, the new program director for Livable Memphis. “It’s got a rich part in history. It’s started to get a lot of attention from the DMC. It’s the missing link between downtown and the Medical District that just looked to us as the perfect opportunity.”

Shaffer previously worked on “New Face for an Old Broad” in 2010, an urban revitalization experiment predating the mayor’s MEMFix program that focused on bringing attention to the Broad Avenue Arts District. The “New Face” event inspired the MEMFix series.

Livable Memphis applied for a $40,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for the Edge’s MEMFix event, and it’s also working with DMC funding. In addition to putting on the Edge event, the organization is working on writing an instructional guide to running events like MEMFix.

Shaffer said the Edge District could use some street improvements, in particular, something tangible and permanent that could come out of the temporary event.

“Obviously, anything we can do there to make it a friendlier pedestrian environment is something we’d like to accomplish,” Shaffer said. “We’re hoping to do some [sidewalk] bump-outs and create some plaza-type spaces in the street. MEMFix itself is a more temporary event, but we want to leave behind some actual physical improvements.”

Like the other MEMFix projects, Shaffer is optimistic about the Edge District and the effect the event will have on the neighborhood.

“I think there’s a lot of momentum in the neighborhood anyway,” Shaffer said. “This will bring more eyes to the neighborhood and raise its visibility. That’s the whole purpose of this — get people to realize what a hidden treasure you have in these neighborhoods.”

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City Still Working Towards Complete Streets

At a meeting hosted by Livable Memphis yesterday, city officials, members of the Active Transport Alliance (ATA) and community members presented strategies to get the most out of Memphis roadways.

Through a program called Complete Streets, Livable Memphis and the Mid-south Complete Streets Coalition are working to safely accommodate all users of public roadways. After the Active Transport Alliance was hired to take a tour around Memphis, they found a number of ways Memphis can improve city streets, including the use of raised crosswalks, more bike lanes, more sidewalks and more transit shelters. Members of the Memphis Bus Riders Union recently complained about the lack of overhead shelter at bus stops at a Livable Memphis meeting at the public library last week.

Last January, Mayor A C Wharton issued an executive order for establishing complete streets in Memphis. The order called for the city of Memphis to “create an attractive, vibrant public realm that supports the diverse qualities of neighborhoods and provides a robust, balanced transportation network that is safe, financially responsible, serves all users, and considers multiple modes of transportation.”

Members of Livable Memphis also discussed the plan for a Mid-South Regional Green Print, a project currently being coordinated by The Memphis and Shelby County Office of Sustainability. The Mid-South Regional Green Print would be a network of parks and open space, trails, transit routes, bike paths, and more that will connect the whole region. To learn more about the Green Print, visit www.midsouthgreenpring.org.

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New Management

CREDIT: Chris Shaw

When Livable Memphis hosted a meeting last week to discuss what qualities bus riders would like to see in a new Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) general manager, they found that most riders agreed on one thing: They want a manager who rides the bus.

MATA is currently seeking a replacement for retired long-time General Manger Will Hudson, who started as a bus driver in 1964 and worked his way up to president and general manager. Hudson announced his retirement in November.

In the meeting at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, bus riders also expressed grievances about routes ending in the afternoon before most bus riders clock out for the day and the lack of 24-hour bus routes.

“The bus route that I need stops running at 3 p.m. every day,” one woman said. “Who the hell gets off work at 3 p.m. every day?”

Others complained about the lack of seating and overhead shelter at many city bus stops, as well as a lack of information for non-English speaking bus riders. 

Many echoed concerns that the above-mentioned problems wouldn’t be solved unless a general manager “with a working-class background who has spent their life riding the bus” is chosen, as one member of the audience said.

Chris Shaw

“It’s important for the new leader to have experience riding so they can directly face the challenges that riders encounter,” said Shahin Samiei, secretary of the Memphis Bus Rider’s Union.

Samiei said they also want a manager who will do what it takes to secure public funding for MATA: “We need a leader who is willing to stick their neck out to advocate for public funding. We’ve been seeing cuts for more than five years now from the Memphis City Council, and we need someone who will fight for the dollars needed to run the MATA system effectively.”         

Hudson has said that his successor’s biggest hurdle will be that of securing funding. There is no dedicated source of funding for MATA, and route cuts are common as both the federal government and the city trim their own budgets.

To help choose the next manager, MATA has enlisted KL Executive Search based out of Washington D.C. K&L will compile all input from the meeting last Thursday, as well as input given from the Bus Rider’s Union in previous meetings. From there, the company will present MATA with a list of appropriate candidates. Tom Fox, a MATA employee for more than 20 years, is currently serving as interim president and general manager.