Tag: Overton Square

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Editorial Opinion

Good News, Bad News

CREDIT: Danziger

Just to let you in on something, the forthcoming September issue of our sister publication, Memphis magazine, is devoted to as complete an exposition of the charms, attractions, facts, and figures of the area comprising Overton Square south to Cooper-Young.

Meanwhile, Beale Street, one of the nation’s most visited entertainment districts ever, rocks on. And, of course, there is Graceland, once again this week, on the 36th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, the object of massive national and international attention. By the time of the 40th anniversary of the late cultural icon’s passing, the city’s $43 million redevelopment of Elvis Presley Boulevard, under way since last fall, will be complete, and it’s truly mind-boggling to try to imagine how large the incoming tourist crowds will be for that occasion.

There is more. Recent news reports suggest that the on-again/off-again concept of a restaurant at Beale Street Landing may be on again, that the stalled Highland Street gateway project for the University of Memphis has a chance of getting rolling, and that an upgraded Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel may signal a serious new beginning for an ad hoc convention complex downtown, in concert with the 2014 opening of Bass Pro Shops’ colossal new enterprise in the Pyramid.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the means of getting tourists here to discover this burgeoning gestalt of goodies (thereby contributing significantly to the local economy) has begun to shrink — and may shrink further. American Airlines and U.S. Airways are proposing to merge, thereby creating the world’s largest airline, and that prospect, while doubtless gratifying to the airlines’ stockholders, is a seriously daunting possibility for the Memphis area.

Air travel has long been contracting at Memphis International Airport, as rates have risen and the number of flights offered and destinations served has continued to diminish. Those who hoped we’d seen the worst got a shock when Delta Airlines recently announced the inevitable — that it was shutting down its inexorably shrinking hub here.

The American/U.S. Airways merger — with the inevitable further dimunition of local service that would follow — is a serious specter indeed. Luckily, it is recognized as such by the U.S. Department of Justice, which has filed an antitrust action to block the proposed merger. On behalf of Tennessee and of its major cities, in particular, state attorney general Robert Cooper has joined in that litigation. Several other states have done so as well.

Southwest Airlines is making its debut here this fall, which will help counter the recent decline in air traffic, but the American/U.S. Airways merger could quickly put things in reverse.

“While shareholders might benefit, creditors might benefit from consolidation, the fact of the matter is, consumers will get the shaft. The right option here is a full-stop injunction.” That’s what Bill Baer, assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, said about the proposed merger on Tuesday, and that’s about right.

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

No Parking Meters!

John Branston got it right in his column on the future of parking downtown (City Beat, July 11th issue). The first mistake was made years ago, when parking lots and garages opened all over the downtown area, discouraging people from continuing to make an effort to utilize the arts, entertainment, and shopping opportunities (such as they were) at that time. Why pass up free parking at a Midtown restaurant in order to pay to park near one downtown? The logic (greed) of this approach to marketing defies description. Only the merciless garage operators (who saw the potential to buy land and set up parking on it) and desperate city finance officers benefit from the system. Many of us stay “out east” and do not consider downtown options in large part due to parking issues. 

The consumer is always at the end of the line when it comes to being given any kind of break. This is just another example. I hope Branston’s column gives pause to any open-minded, civic-thinking officials before parking options downtown get any worse.

Charlie Lambert

Memphis

Grammar

I applaud Miriam Rachels’ politics (Letters, July 11th issue) — like mine, they are decidedly liberal. And though I am not privy to her ethics, I presume they are, like those of most of us, principle-based but situationally applied.

When it comes to some points of grammar, however, I split company with Rachels. To wit, her assertion that the words “politics” and “ethics” are singular nouns and therefore require singular verb agreement. I agree with Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language in its description of both words as being “construed as singular or plural.” Thus, verb agreement would be based upon grammatical context, not the fiat of Rachels.

But, in truth, who cares? Grammar is nothing more than a description of how language is used, not of how it “should” be used. When it comes to language usage, there is only one rule: Is the statement understood by the listener? All else is a only a meaningless game of social status and classification.

Mike Geary

Memphis

Overton Square

Bianca Phillips’ cover story (“Hip To Be Square,” June 27th issue) about the resurrection of Overton Square showed how much work the developers and others have done to get the square to this point in its redevelopment.

What I found disconcerting was the premise made by some that the new square will be a place for sophisticated, affluent theatergoers to dine and shop. No one knows how the square will turn out. It may just have been the times, but Overton Square back in the 1970s was a big egalitarian party where sophistication took a back seat to “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.”

How an entertainment district is embraced is entirely unpredictable and organic. The people will eventually decide what Overton Square will become.

Randy Norwood

Memphis

Two Things?

Two things have been gnawing at me for the past month. First, Chiwawa, the company occupying what used to be the Chicago Pizza Factory on Madison, has hot dogs on its menu but not Chicago-style hot dogs. Why doesn’t a company residing in a building that for years sat empty but retained the name Chicago on the outside include a Chicago-style hot dog on its menu?

You nestle a Vienna beef hot dog in a steamed poppy-seed bun and cover it with yellow mustard, bright green relish, fresh chopped onions, juicy tomato wedges, a kosher-style pickle spear, a couple of spicy sport peppers, and, finally, a dash of celery salt. Never ketchup. This unique hot dog creation with a “salad on top” and its memorable interplay of hot and cold, crisp and soft, sharp and smooth became America’s original fast food.

And second, where are the sunflowers that have always greeted passersby on the west side of Germantown Road south of the Butcher Shop in Shelby Farms? Plenty of corn stalks can be seen but no sunflowers. They followed the sun — lighting up the morning when they leaned to the east and shyly turning toward the river in the afternoon.

I hope someone can answer these questions.

Dee Billmeier

Memphis

Editor’s note: In last week’s issue, a story about Blues City Thrift store inadvertently omitted the contact information: bluescitythrift.org, 6685 Quince, Suite 110, Memphis, 38119.

Categories
News News Blog

Clothing Boutique To Open In Overton Square

Alexandra Rushing

  • Alexandra Rushing

The Attic, a locally-owned boutique selling women’s and men’s clothing and accessories, will open in the 1,300 square foot space next to Bar Louie in Overton Square this September.

Alexandra Rushing, owner of the Ivory Closet in Harbortown and Adel Amor Cosmetics (and a 2013 Memphis Flyer hottie!), is opening the store with her business partner Ben Scharff, owner of IronJaw Labs and creator of IronJaw custom mouth guards.

The shop will carry clothing and accessories by brands such as Library of Flowers, Yosi Samra, Lucky Feather, Coobie and Chilly Jilly.

The concept: “New York chic without New York prices.”

“Glamorous treasures and timeless pieces are found in everyone’s attic,” said Rushing. “Our attic is no different.”

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Hip to be Misidentified

Regarding Bianca Phillips’ “Hip To Be Square” cover story (June 27th issue) — which was an informatively nice read: My friend Tom Hayes was misidentified as Carey White in a photo caption twice — on the cover and in the photo inside. Unless he has an Oxford-shirt and khaki-pant clad twin of a different surname, then that man is definitely Tom Hayes. I know because he supervised the mural on Bari Ristorante which my team and I painted. That credit was also mistakenly given to my friend David Lynch, who “designed the image,” in consult with Lou Loeb’s visual needs for that site. We worked too hard for that cookie to just get snatched!

Anthony D. Lee
Memphis

Editor’s note: Mr. Lee is correct. Tom Hayes was misidentified in the photos with the story.

Irony
The first ironic thing I saw this week was trash being thrown out the window of a garbage truck by the driver. The second ironic thing I saw this week was Tim Sampson’s rant about grammar. After ranting about the spelling on a Superior Bonding car and incorrect grammar on website posts, Sampson wrote “by which they are supposed to be biding anyway.” Pot, meet kettle.

I used to be a purist, like Sampson, but lately I find myself leaving the letters off the end of words that should be plural while typing emails and web posts. I’m not sure what glitch has occurred in my brain to cause this, but I’ve taken to proof-reading my messages. My own inadequacies have caused me to relax my moral indignation at the foibles of others.

Steve Hiss
Memphis

Paula Deen
People should be able to make a mistake without being thrown out. The people who are making a fuss about Paula Deen saying the N-word are the ones who have issues (Editor’s Note, June 27th issue). Most of these people are carrying around garbage about something they heard about happening years ago. Paula and I lived through a lot of that garbage. This is today. The N-word is usually just a slip of the tongue. If everyone is still so upset with the word, why is it still glamorized in songs and movies? I think the word itself should die. 

Trecia Watson
Cleveland, Mississippi

Obamacare Hypocrisy
Twenty-seven states have rejected the expansion of Medicaid that is a major part of the new health-care law. These states could have received millions of dollars from the federal government to extend health-care coverage to many more poor people in their states. It has been conservative governors, with two surprising exceptions, Arizona’s Jan Brewer and Florida’s Rick Scott, and mainly conservatives in the 27 state legislatures who have rejected the expansion of Medicaid.
This rejection is further proof of the hypocrisy of conservatives, the majority of whom claim to be Christians but who seem to have no concern for the least among us. They oppose an action that could prevent suffering and deaths among the poor in their states. 

They support a Paul Ryan budget that would decimate the social safety net that protects the poor. They would defund all of Obamacare if they could, while offering no alternative in its place, satisfied with over 50 million having no health-care coverage at all.

Conservatives proudly proclaim themselves to be pro-life but do not appear to have any compassion for anyone after he or she is born. Yet, they have the audacity to call liberals hypocrites? 

Philip Williams
Memphis

DOMA
The Supreme Court’s decision to validate same-sex marriage will thrill millions who love each other and want the same rights as every other American. It will depress millions of religious conservatives who have fought long and hard to prevent this momentous occasion. Federal benefits are no longer out of reach for married couples, no matter what their gender.

For those having trouble handling this turn of events, reread the Sermon on the Mount and learn to love one another, as the Bible teaches.

J.P. Ford
Memphis

Categories
News News Blog

Cardio Barre Signs Lease for Overton Square

Cardio Barre fitness class

  • Cardio Barre fitness class

Yet another fitness-related business has signed a lease with Loeb Properties for space in Overton Square.

Loeb Properties announced that Cardio Barre, which offers high-energy, no-impact exercise classes that combine dance-based barre work with light weights, will be moving into a 2,310-square-foot space on the second floor above the old Palm Court.

Cardio Barre is the third fitness-focused business to sign a lease for the Square since Loeb Properties took over management of most of the Square’s empty buildings. Others have included Delta Groove Yoga Studio, which is currently up and running, and Breakaway Running, which should move into a downstairs bay soon.

Additionally, Loeb Properties has leased space to restaurant’s Bar Louie and Local Gastropub.

Cardio Barre has franchises across the country. The Overton Square Cardio Barre will be run by native Memphian Allison Steward, a dancer and former model for Shape Magazine.

For more on Overton Square’s revitalization, check out this week’s Flyer cover story.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Dr. Phil’s Advice to Memphis

My wife and I were invited to a party in Germantown last weekend, at a house deep in a maze of winding streets named Woody Oaks, Cedar Dale, Brier Creek, and other sylvan fantasies. It was at a lovely home with a lush yard and big trees — and some interesting folks to talk to.

I struck up a conversation with a woman from Collierville. When I told her that I lived in Memphis, she regaled me with tales of how she used to live in Midtown and hung out at Overton Square back in the 1970s, “before it died.”

“Have you been there lately?” I asked. “You can’t even find parking on weekend nights.”

“Really? Where do they go?” she asked, genuinely puzzled. I started to run down the list of a dozen restaurants, old and new, the three (soon to be four) theaters, YoLo, Studio on the Square, etc., but then I thought, what’s the point? We live in two different worlds. Mine’s no better than hers, but I might as well be from Venus, for all we have in common.

Which leads me to put on my Dr. Phil face and say what has to be said: It’s time for Memphis and Shelby County to start seeing other people. We’ve tried for years to patch things up, to come to some sort of mutual understanding, but we need to admit that we have irreconcilable differences. We don’t even know each other any more.

We need a divorce for the sake of the children, if nothing else. It’s not healthy for them to see us fighting all the time. We have nothing in common. You like Dogwood Glen and Misty Pines. I like Vinton and Tutwiler. You like malls and big new houses and convenient shopping and Amerigo and Bahama Breeze. I like sidewalks, imperfect old houses, and locally owned restaurants I can walk to. You don’t mind driving everywhere. You like big yards and space between your houses. I like downtown and the river and the weirdness and stimulation urban living can bring. You like movie megaplexes and spacious parks. I like the Levitt Shell, art galleries, and funky little bars.

You fear crime. I fear boredom.

The only thing we have in common, honestly, is that we both love our kids. You want a school system that you can control out there in Bartlett, Arlington, Collierville, etc. I get that, and I approve. Go for it, with my blessing. But for the sake of our kids’ future, we need an amicable divorce. If Memphis fails, so do you. So let’s divide the assets equitably, allow each other visitation, and when we run into each other at, say, Costco or at a Grizzlies game, let’s just be nice and remember the good times.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion

Updated: City Council Approves Overton Square

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The Overton Square redevelopment proposal from Loeb Properties was approved by the City Council Tuesday.

Cheered on by a largely Midtown crowd of spectators, the Council approved funding for a parking garage and floodwater detention basin that will enable Loeb Properties to go ahead with its plans to spend $19 million redeveloping Overton Square.

The two-hour meeting Tuesday was interrupted several times by applause for Loeb Properties’ plans for a theater district including a relocated Hattiloo Theater, a black repertory company.

Approval came over the objections of council members Wanda Halbert, Joe Brown, and Harold Collins, who tried to delay the vote until next year. But supporters said the delay would effectively have killed the projects. Collins did, however, win verbal assurances that Elvis Presley Boulevard would get moved to the top of the list for capital improvements next year.

The Overton Square project includes $16 million in city and federal funds for flood control and a parking garage that will be owned by the city. The flooding problem in Midtown comes from Lick Creek, which is just west of Overton Square.

Robert Loeb said his company will spend $19 million as follows: $8.5 million for property acquisition, $5 million for rehabilitation of existing buildings, $5 million for new construction, and $500,000 to cover operating losses during construction. Hattiloo Theater will try to raise an additional $4 million and the owners of the abandoned French Quarter Inn plan to replace it with a new $10 million hotel. And Loeb said that if a grocery store were to be in the mix “then our investment would go up.”

The resolution was sponsored by councilmen Shea Flinn and Jim Strickland, who had the support of the Wharton administration and a majority of their colleagues. But it was not a slam dunk. Councilman Ed Ford Jr. said he was taking “a leap of faith” that the council would make good on promises to tend to other flooded parts of the city. Councilman Janice Fullilove did not vote on the motion to approve the project, but did get enough votes to defeat her nemesis, Chairman Myron Lowery, on a procedural vote that led up to it. And Collins was not appeased.

“I’m going to be a little bit cynical today,” he said, before showing pictures of Elvis Presley Boulevard in what he took to be a deteriorated state. “This street has needed repairs and redevelopment for decades.”

The Lick Creek flooding affects homes in a swath of Midtown from the fairgrounds to Chelsea Avenue, but the number of homes is not known. Strickland conceded that the 4,400 homes estimate that has been published several times is not in the engineering study and he doesn’t know where it came from.

An online petition supporting the project had 2025 signatures by Tuesday afternoon, and a separate show of support for Hattiloo Theater could muster more than 100 theater fans.

Hattiloo, located on the edge of downtown, hopes to become part of a Midtown theater district at Overton Square, joining Playhouse on the Square and smaller venues.

NOTE: This post has been rewritten. An earlier version incorrectly said that Councilwoman Fullilove voted for the project. (JB)

Categories
Opinion

Loeb Wants Decision on Overton Square in 2011

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Robert Loeb says his company’s redevelopment of Overton Square can move forward with or without an underground storm water detention basin, but he needs to know by the end of this year what the city is going to do.

Loeb Properties has a contract to buy the property that expires December 31st. The company proposes to spend $19 million on Overton Square. The city is considering spending up to $19 million for a parking garage, underground detention basin, and street improvements. The proposed investment has to clear the City Council, which has two more meetings this year.

Loeb said he has no preference between an $8 million detention basin and a smaller, less expensive one, but believes the smaller one — less than one tenth the size of the bigger one — wouldn’t hold enough water to do much good.

“If the funds are in there it isn’t my decision,” he said. “But it works kind of hand in hand with the garage structure.”

Without a garage, Loeb said “we’ll have low-density, surface development” and shared surface parking with Playhouse on the Square and others instead of high-density development.

Overton Square and other Midtown developments with big parking lots such as the Home Depot at Poplar and Avalon contribute to the flooding problem during heavy rains. Detention basins (the soccer field at Christian Brothers University is one example) hold water temporarily, as opposed to retention basins that retain it. The city engineering department is considering several flood abatement options for Midtown, including the one at Overton Square and another one in the Snowden School playing field. A detention basin in Overton Park on the greensward was rejected because of public opposition.

“I’d like to be a good neighbor,” said Loeb, who presented his company’s plan earlier this year at Playhouse on the Square. It included restaurants, new and renovated retail spaces, and a new home for the Hatiloo Theater.

Flooding after heavy rains is a problem for residents in Midtown neighborhoods north and south of Overton Square. The total cost to protect them against a 25-year flood is estimated at $24.3 million.

Mary Wilder, cochairman of the Lick Creek Storm Water Coalition, has followed this issue for years and is also a Midtowner in the Vollentine-Evergreen Community Association (VECA). She sent me the article here. She makes a strong case for small-scale “green” measures that, if they catch on, can have a significant impact on flood abatement.

The coalition opposes detention basins in Overton Park and supports Loebs’ project “as long as detention is part of it.” She adds that even the largest detention basin under Overton Square “is not going to solve VECA’s flooding problem” because Lick Creek picks up more water between the square and the VECA neighborhood. Wilder is frustrated that city engineers “start talking engineering to you” and have not been clear on why the cost of the proposed Overton Square detention basin suddenly went up so much. There is suspicion that Overton Park will come back in play as an alternative.

I am a shameless homer on this one. I live in Midtown, although not near Overton Square, and like driving five minutes instead of 20 minutes for dinner and a movie. I was for the Loeb-Henry Turley fairgrounds redevelopment, Fair Ground, that was rejected by the previous administration and the City Council. But the football crowd won that one, and the result, for better (Tiger Lane, Southern Heritage Classic, AutoZone Liberty Bowl) and worse (about 2000 people at the last Memphis home football game, acres of empty parking lots, nine events a year, and nothing at the old Libertyland site) is plain to see.

Low density or high density, Loebs’ development would be a nice addition to a budding “theater district” hanging on to memories of better days in the Sixties and Seventies. I’d like to see an upscale grocery store in the mix and believe it could still happen. I question how much a relocated repertory theater company brings to the party and prime space on Cooper.

A $6 million parking garage? I don’t know about that. Can’t imagine it being free for long, if ever, and pay-to-park can be a deterrent when there are alternatives. If there are a few nights when the theaters are full and so are the bars and restaurants so parking is scarce, well, we should have more such problems.

As for the financing, I think the place in Memphis for a Tourism Development Zone (TDZ) is Graceland. That’s clearly other people’s money, and Whitehaven and Elvis Presley Boulevard, as Councilman Harold Collins says, are overdue for attention. In hindsight, Whitehaven should not have hitched its wagon to Robert Sillerman’s grandiose plans for Graceland.

The Fair Ground TDZ was tied to that specific project and it’s gone now. Getting another TDZ is easier said than done. It took Turley’s considerable reputation and political skill to get the first one.

Another funding alternative is a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district. That captures the incremental growth in sales taxes and pours it back into project financing, but the proposed boundaries are bigger than Overton Square. I don’t think higher tax revenue from a pizza joint on Union Avenue or small business on Central necessarily has anything to do with new investment in Overton Square. And TIFs strike me as very similar to special school districts.

Finally, or foremost depending on where you live, there is flooding. I would be going ballistic if I lived in one of the flooded areas in the big flood of 2010 or in a house where sewage came up through the basement drain and flooded my living room and the city was slow-walking flood abatement. There’s a case to be made for bundling flood abatement and development of Overton Square, but there’s a better case to be made for doing what’s best for flood-afflicted residents regardless and paying for it out of general funds. Much as I wish the money could be taken away from boondoggles such as Beale Street Landing, that isn’t going to happen. So we will see what the city council does in December, and Loeb will make its decision after that.

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News News Blog

Overton Square Plans Unveiled

There’s still no word on which major grocery store chain will construct a 53,000-foot facility along Cooper Avenue in Overton Square.

Bob Loeb, president of Loeb Properties, told the crowd gathered in the standing-room-only public meeting at Memphis Heritage Tuesday night that the city must first commit to building a two-level parking garage in part of the massive parking lot between Cooper and Florence.

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Once the city commits, Loeb believes the mysterious grocery will follow suit. Loeb said he needs a commitment from the city by June 30th. He estimates the parking structure will cost $5 million, and it also includes a detention basin to curtail problems with the flooding of Lick Creek. The parking structure would accommodate patrons of all businesses in the area.

Most of Tuesday’s public meeting focused on the new design of Overton Square. The proposed grocery store would be pulled up to Cooper Avenue, a decision that falls in line with the recently-passed Midtown Overlay plan. It would most likely feature window displays along Cooper with an entrance facing Trimble.

The plan preserves all of the buildings on the south side of Madison, with the exception of the Palm Court building that once housed an ice skating rink. Loeb said they hope to fill those buildings with restaurants and retailers.

“We want this to be a neighborhood place that’s family-friendly,” Loeb said. “It’d be good if we had some [businesses with] live music, but we’re not trying to compete with Beale Street.”

The plan also accounts for streetscape improvements and preservation of the curving alley between buildings. The cut-out area at the intersection where cars make right-hand turns from Madison onto Cooper would be reclaimed to make the intersection safer for pedestrians.

The design, prepared by architectural firm Looney Ricks Kiss, is in stark contrast from the plan proposed last year by Sooner Investments, which called for tearing down the old buildings on the south side of Madison to make way for a grocery store. Memphis Heritage and Midtowners organized against that plan, and Sooner backed out. Memphis Heritage president June West said she’s happy with the new Loeb Properties plan.

“We can’t tell you how supportive we are of this project,” said June West during the meeting.

A man in the audience mumbled: “I’ve never heard her say, ‘supportive.'”

Loeb said the next step will likely be meeting with the Memphis City Council on the future of the proposed garage.

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Special Sections

Burkle’s Bakery

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In 1936, Herman Burkle moved his little bakery from downtown to Madison and Cooper, at the time a busy intersection in “East” Memphis. (Right across the street was an Esso gas station called the “East Memphis Motor Company.”) He found space in a narrow building that formerly housed the Idle Hour Billiard Parlor, squeezed into a row of businesses that included Purdy (later Purdy-Jester) Drugs, Piggly Wiggly #35, and La Vogue Beauty Salon. And there Burkle’s Bakery would remain for the next four decades.

Herman Jr. and his sister, Ruth Lee (shown here), took over the business in the 1950s. They added “restaurant” to the name, and 2125 Madison Avenue soon became a Memphis institution — a breakfast, lunch, and gathering place for everyone from bankers grabbing a cup of coffee on the way to the office to scruffy art students munching bearclaws after class.

“Burkle’s never tried to expand, to spice its menu with exotic dishes, or to move to a more populous or affluent neighborhood,” noted the Memphis Press-Scimitar. “It was satisfied to offer well-prepared bakery foods, meats, and vegetables without costly frills. And that is what has satisfied its customers, whether they are family groups or young people from the surrounding Overton Square.”