Tag: mud island

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News News Blog

The Forge Memphis to Bring Zipline Experience to Mud Island

The Forge Memphis rendering (Courtesy DCA)

The Forge Memphis has recently introduced a $10 million private investment into Mud Island.

The project “will require no incentives from any governmental bodies.”

According to The Forge Memphis, the project is “an aerial adventure course with accompanying programming and activities designed to deliver unique year-round activities for adventurers of all ages.

The project was presented to Memphis City Council on Tuesday, August 9th, and according to Doug Carpenter, founder of Doug Carpenter and Associates (DCA), “takes very little footprint off of Mud Island.”

“I think that it leaves so many open opportunities for other people, organizations, and  businesses to join us in activating Mud Island … I think that’s an area that people are really impressed with, the amount of activity we can generate with as little groundspace that we have to take.”

Carpenter said there was originally an idea to put a zipline across the Mississippi River. After hiring a firm to do a study on the area, Carpenter also asked for a study on Mud Island.

“Mud Island has been looking for a solution,” Carpenter said. “It’s a really unique piece of property and requires unique responses. The feasibility of a zipline across the Mississippi River did not work out, but the Mud Island potential was really large.”

Katie Elizabeth Carpenter joined Doug and Frank Ricks, principal and founder of LRK, an architecture firm based in Memphis, as a co-founder to develop a business plan. In the process, the team met Jeremie Bacon, founder of The Forge Adventure Parks.

Doug said that for the last two-plus years, the team has been designing, redesigning, and evaluating how they could “be a positive catalyst for the reemergence of Mud Island.” 

“Our design team has created a course that is really remarkable in an urban setting,” Doug said.

The Forge Memphis will include a Skybridge zipline tour, an aerial challenge course and climbing areas, and a food and beverage operation in the current Gulf Grill space.

According to the press release, the Skybridge tour will include two ziplines, with the first carrying guests “500 feet from the top of the Skybridge over the Wolf River Harbor toward the Memphis skyline, connecting with a custom-built tower and elevated rope bridge.” The second will “carry guests almost one quarter of a mile over the Wolf River Harbor at speeds up to 50 miles per hour, landing near the Mississippi River model’s Gulf of Mexico.”

(Rendering courtesy DCA)

“It’s really a remarkable zipline experience over the Harbor, where you have views of the city, day and night. Then you have views of Arkansas, and the flood plains, and the mighty lights on the bridges,” Doug said.

Doug added that behind the Gulf Grill is a depressed area that will have two to four climbing elements that will “blend in with the treescape there.”

The planners also hope the project activates Mud Island with music festivals, races, summer camps, and other programming.

“It’s a public space, so we want it to be a public space. We love the Riverwalk, it’s quite frankly one of the coolest things around, and we want more people to experience that. Our grand vision is that at any time, if you went on Mud Island with no prior knowledge, you would find something interesting to participate in, to watch, and to listen to,” Doug added.

There is also room for educational programming for school groups on topics such as water conservation and water ecology, says co-founder Katie Elizabeth Carpenter.

“It’s more than just a zipline. I think that’s something really important that we want to emphasize. There’s lots of opportunities for programming and activations outside of the adventure aspect,” Katie Elizabeth explained.

“It’s not just entertainment, there’s an educational component. It’s really important for us, in Memphis, to provide that to people who quite honestly, may not have had those experiences outdoors, in this kind of environment,” Doug added.

The Forge Memphis anticipates a nine- to 10-month construction period with hopes of a grand opening in the summer of 2023. 

While Doug said the next steps are to execute a lease agreement with Memphis River Parks Partnership and the City of Memphis, the other components of the business plan have been accomplished.

“We have designed and engineered plans for all of it, and we will be privately funded. We are asking for zero subsidies from the city, or the state … or any of those bodies. We truly are a lease agreement away from executing the plan. Once that’s done, that will start the construction calendar essentially.”

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News Blog News Feature

New Sign, City Slogan Headed for Mud Island

A rendering of the proposed installation. Courtesy the City of Memphis

A new, Instagram-ready art installation could come to Mud Island soon.

Last month, the city of Memphis parks department asked the Downtown Memphis Commission for permission to build the temporary installation. The project would bring a huge black-and-yellow, billboard-like art installation that reads: “We have no time for things with no soul.”

The installation would be 46 feet high and 40 feet wide. Before the billboard would be a trail of 54 flags and three short platforms for seating. The sign would face east, easily visible from Riverside Drive. It would be erected close to the new “Memphis” sign recently placed on Mud Island.  

The installation would be erected before the Memorial Day opening of Mud Island and would remain until the end of November, according to the city’s application. 

Here’s a look at some images from the application:

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News News Blog

Mud Island Dog Park Opens Saturday

CREDIT: City of Memphis

City of Memphis

Mud Island’s first dog park is set to open Saturday, September 8th at 9:30 a.m.

The near-$500,000 park sits in the Mississippi River Greenbelt Park directly south of the A.W. Willis bridge.

The new dog park spans 1.3 acres, housing separate fenced off sections for large and small dogs, water fountains, and benches. The space will be open every day from sunrise to sunset.

Mud Island Dog Park Opens Saturday

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Opinion The Last Word

Promenade Stand

CREDIT: Georgios Kollidas | Dreamstime.com

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

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

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

Georgios Kollidas | Dreamstime.com

Andrew Jackson

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Music Music Blog

Mud Island Announces Alabama Shakes Concert

Alabama Shakes

Alabama Shakes-the 2016 Grammy Winners for Best Rock Song, Best Rock Performance, and Best Alternative Album-will be playing Memphis on Friday, July 15th at the Mud Island Amphitheater. Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster.com as well as all Ticketmaster locations on Friday, February 19th at 10am. You can also purchase tickets by calling 800-745-3000. Watch the video for “Dont Wanna Fight” -the 2016 Grammy Award winner for Best Rock Song-below. 

Mud Island Announces Alabama Shakes Concert (2)

Mud Island Announces Alabama Shakes Concert

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1396

Neverending Elvis

“Elvis did not leave the building,” according to Lehigh Valley Live reporter Rudy Miller. “And that’s what got Herbert Stewart into trouble.” Stewart, an Elvis fan from Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania, filed an insurance claim stating that he’d been burglarized. According to Stewart’s report, the thief took $6,900 worth of Elvis-related memorabilia, including photographs and records. When all of the allegedly missing items were later discovered in Stewart’s home, his attorney issued a report explaining that his client had multiple personalities. In this unfortunate case, the “thief personality” robbed the “victim personality” and stuffed Elvis in the closet.

Cameo Appearance

Memphis made a cameo in this week’s installment of the comic strip Sally Forth. In the strip, Sally and her husband Ted are visiting Ted’s family and sleeping in his childhood bedroom. A poster on the wall advertises an R.E.M. concert in Memphis Sept. 13th, 1986 on “Mudd Island.”

That’s no typo. Mud Island is spelled with two D’s in the original poster.

Believe it!

The URL for The Tennessean‘s story about GOP lawmaker Glen Casada, who wants to round up Syrian refugees in Tennessee and remove them from the state, says almost as much as the story. For much of last week, the content could be accessed at http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/17/can-you-believe-this-asshole/75936660/.

Categories
Music Music Features

The New King of Memphis

CREDIT: Cole Wheeler

Yo Gotti gave local hip-hop fans the concert they deserved this past Sunday night at his annual birthday celebration. Known for guest appearances and multiple surprises, Yo Gotti and Friends Birthday Bash at Mud Island Amphitheater didn’t disappoint, with Nicki Minaj, Meek Mill, O.T. Genasis, Dej Loaf, Shy Glizzy, Snootie Wild, Wave Chappelle, Zed Zilla, and Monica making guest appearances, in addition to DJ Paul and La Chat of Da Mafia 6ix joining forces with Yo Gotti on stage for the first time. Those following the Memphis rap game know that DJ Paul and Yo Gotti were once considered enemies, with Yo Gotti calling out Three 6 Mafia on his smash hit “That’s What’s Up” from the 2006 album Back 2 Da Basics. All beef seemed to be squashed when DJ Paul appeared on stage to do the classic Three 6 Mafia club jam “Who Run It,” alongside Yo Gotti, as confetti shot out of cannons and fireworks exploded over the Mississippi River. Later, Yo Gotti called the on-stage performance “a victory for the whole city,” and residents of every section of Memphis cheered loudly in appreciation of the unity the performance symbolized between two of the biggest rappers the city has ever produced.

Cole Wheeler

DJ Paul

When asked about holding the event at Mud Island, Yo Gotti (whose real name is Mario Mims,) said that a much larger venue was mandatory for this year’s bash.

“We’ve done the Orpheum and the Cannon Center, and we sold them out so quick that I knew I had to go somewhere bigger,” Mims said.

“I felt like there were thousands of people who were getting left out, and if you looked around tonight, you saw that we were top-to-bottom, and this place is twice as big as the other venues.”

The rapper also acknowledged that he’s come a long way since his days of playing all-ages clubs and places like the Plush Club.

“When I was coming up, I just wanted to perform anywhere. When I first heard my music in Denim & Diamonds, I was really excited about it,” Mims said.

“The first time I ever performed at Cactus Jacks or The Premier was very special to me. I have always loved to get on the stage. It seems like Memphis rappers have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get some recognition, but if you keep grinding, it will happen for you.”

Lil Boosie received one of the strongest receptions of the night (along with Monica), and after a few songs, Yo Gotti (who calls himself the King of Memphis), joked that Memphis might actually belong to Louisiana-based Lil Boosie. Other highlights included O.T. Genasis doing his mega-hit “CoCo,” Monica’s amazing vocals, and Nicki Minaj appearing on stage seemingly only to take selfies and wave to her fans, who were all collectively losing their minds. Backstage at Mud Island, Cîroc and Patrón seemed to be the drink of choice, along with enough blunt smoke to choke Snoop Dogg. Each rapper had an extensive entourage, who seemed to each have their own separate mini-entourages as well.

Lil Boosie might have had the biggest entourage of them all, with 30 or so people pouring out of a tiny dressing room before joining him on stage for multiple songs. Behind the stage sat Yo Gotti’s white Lamborghini, though sadly it did not become a part of his performance in the same way it did at his Cannon Center Birthday Bash the year before. When asked how he will manage to top this year’s festivities, Mims said he’s already started planning.

“Im just going to keep grinding, keep trying to make it bigger than it was the year before. We don’t have Summer Jam in Memphis anymore, so this is the new Summer Jam.”

Cole Wheeler

Dej Loaf

Writers Notebook:

• O.T. Genasis had the best style of the evening, rocking a Day-Glo motorcycle jacket and at least three seriously impressive gold chains.

• Rappers really do drink as much Patrón as they say they do.

•Monica might have reached the peak of her career in the ’90s with hits like “The Boy is Mine” and “For You I Will,” but her vocal performance Saturday night was spine-tingling. She’s also sold over 10 million records, so there’s that, too.

•Yo Gotti’s hype men deserve a bonus for keeping the crowd thoroughly crunk throughout the evening, as they rarely stopped moving during the show’s five-hour duration.

• After the show, Nicki Minaj went to Blues City Cafe to pick up a to-go order, and was immediately swarmed by fans. Minaj handled the fanfare with ease, taking selfies with her fans and posing for multiple photos before getting back in her SUV.

• Memphis showed that it could hang with the big dogs in terms of getting premier hip-hop talent, which is amazing for our city’s entertainment industry. Don’t be surprised if Yo Gotti’s next birthday bash is in the FedExForum, or better yet, the Mid-South Coliseum.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Museum of Terrible Ideas

A couple years ago, Flyer writer Chris Davis wrote a funny piece about Beale Street Landing, suggesting that it would be a great place to house the “Museum of Terrible Ideas.” I guess there was something about the giant corkscrew boat-landing ramp and the Lego-colored elevator shaft — and the long-delayed project’s $40 million price tag — that led him to make that suggestion.

Now that it’s built, I have nothing against Beale Street Landing. It’s a nice facility with great river views and a decent little restaurant. The Flyer even held its Best of Memphis party there last fall. So I guess the Museum of Terrible Ideas will have to find another home.

Maybe the Mid-South Coliseum could house the MTI. It’s certainly big enough, and it’s in the center of another possibly terrible idea — the Fairgrounds TMZ — a top-down project with few supporters outside of city hall.

Think of the possibities: There could be an exhibit showing how the feds once tried to put a freeway through the middle of one of the city’s great historic neighborhoods, a project that would have destroyed Midtown, the Sears Building project, Overton Park, and the Memphis Zoo. There could be an exhibit showing the thwarted plans to destroy the historic buildings of Overton Square and put in a low-end grocery store. There could be a section devoted to all our dead malls; a section honoring the former Airport Authority for its deft negotiations with Delta Airlines. Hell, there could be a whole wing dedicated to the terrible ideas of Senator Brian Kelsey.

And now there’s a new terrible idea that’s being, er, floated: water taxis. The Riverfront Development Corporation has ponied up $200,000, and gotten the feds to ante up $800,000, for a study on the feasibility of water taxis that would “ferry people from Bass Pro to Beale Street Landing and Mud Island.”

A 2013 report states: “Taxis are currently imagined as traipsing up and down the Wolf River Harbor, but the only water taxi that is likely to be effective at attracting people to Mud Island will be one that functions like a bridge, free of charge, zipping back and forth across the channel, always in sight, and never more than a few minutes away.”

This presumes that there are people who want to get to the tip of Mud Island. And that you can “zip” around the harbor. Both are out-of-town-concocted fantasies.

I have a little boat that’s docked in the Wolf River Harbor. It’s a no-wake zone, limiting boats to a speed that a casual jogger can easily surpass. If you speed up, you get ticketed by the harbor patrol, and you provoke the Asian carp to start jumping. There are kayakers and canoeists and fishermen in small jon boats. You can’t zip. A no-wake trip from Bass Pro to Beale Street Landing would take 20 minutes.

If water taxis were a good idea, someone would have started a water taxi business. It is, in fact, a terrible idea and the MTI should start clearing space now for its water taxi exhibit.

Here’s a good idea: Get the damn trolleys running before May, when Music Fest starts and Bass Pro opens and the Grizzlies are in the playoffs. Call ’em “land taxis” if it makes you feel better.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Beck Live at Mud Island May 16th

Beck, the recent winner of the 2015 Grammy for Album of the Year will be playing at the Mud Island Amphitheater on Saturday, May 16th. Beaver Productions announced the concert today, and tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster on Friday, February 20th at 10:00 a.m. Check out a video from the Grammy award winning album Morning Phase below. 

Beck Live at Mud Island May 16th

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Katie Nesling | Dreamstime.com

Katie Nesling | Dreamstime.com

Okay, so maybe I spent one too many Saturday nights riding around in a van airbrushed with a pot leaf motif to understand all this, but why do I keep seeing disturbing headlines about the FIFA World Cup. To tell you the truth, the real, honest truth, I wasn’t even sure what this was, so, yes, I did a quick Google search and learned that

FIFA stands for “Fédération Internationale de Football Association.” And all this time in the back of my mind, I thought this was a soccer championship. So is it football or soccer? Or is football in other countries what we consider to be soccer in the United States, further separating us from the rest of civilization?

Actually, it really doesn’t matter to me if it’s football or soccer. I don’t keep up with either. I used to watch New York Yankees baseball games sometimes but now that Derek Jeter is retiring, why bother? I also used to be a huge Grizzlies fan until they traded Shane Battier. Oh, I still love them and root for them and all that stuff but I’m still bitter. Very, very bitter about that trade. Plus, I have a really difficult time in FedExForum.

I have, oh, four or five hundred different neuroses when it comes to height and motion. I have nightmares about heights almost every single night. It usually involves being in a glass elevator that begins to horribly malfunction on its descent from the top floor to the lobby. It becomes detached from its main cable and swirls around the high-rise hotel in a circular motion while plummeting to the ground. Sometimes my nightmares involve driving. I don’t drive on the interstate — or anywhere else for that matter — more than 45 miles per hour. I have some kind of physical reaction to it that renders me almost to a state of vertigo. Bridges: Uh, no. No driving over even small bridges. When I go to Harbor Town, I have to drive all the way around Mud Island down Second Street into that weird sort of inner-city rural area and back around down the street along the river until I get to the entrance where the leasing office is, and then I get completely lost trying to find wherever I am going. It’s a beautiful place to be lost but it still throws off my equilibrium. But back to FedExForum and all that commotion that goes on in there. For me, there is way too much going on at one time, with all of the music and noise and lights and speakers and such. I used to do fairly well at The Pyramid but FedExForum, even with seats near the court, is sensory overload for me. And, yes, I know most people love it, as they should, and it’s just me. I went to see Elton John there a year or so ago and was in one of those private suites, but I still had to hold onto something while trying to get up to it. And, once seated, if I looked up at the very top seats in the arena, my legs turned to ice from the kneecaps down. I also recently went to a Memphis Redbirds game. A foul ball slammed into the section where I was sitting (yes, in a suite again, watching it through the glass), and I felt like a cat with one life less than the nine I was given. But it was fun. Other than almost being killed or living the rest of my life in a home for the sports-injured.

But I digress. I digress a lot. It doesn’t take a lot to make my attention span scatter all over the place. So back to the World Cup and God and murders. I keep seeing stories about places in the Middle East, where huge groups of people watching the World Cup are being attacked and killed by terrorists. I even saw one story about an Italian man who murdered his wife and two kids just before leaving to go watch the World Cup at a bar with his friends. There are tanks at the Rio de Janeiro main airport, in anticipation of angry scenes after airport workers announced a 24-hour wildcat strike. There are angry protests in Sao Paulo. And then, there is this news report from Iraq: “Shocking footage has emerged showing Sunni insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) beheading a police officer. In the clip, the militants knock on the door of the police officer’s home at night. After he answers, they blindfold him, cuff him, and behead him with a knife. After the decapitation, the militants took a picture of the officer’s head and posted it on Twitter with the comment: “This is our ball. It’s made of skin. #WorldCup.” The brutal act has sparked outrage on Twitter. 

And this is about soccer? Or is it about using soccer as an excuse to just be evil? I’m going back to ignorance is bliss on this one. Same with Twitter.