Tag: Riverfront Development Corporation

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News The Fly-By

A Look at 5 Mud Island Park Redevelopment Proposals

At least 20 different uses — from a zoo to a 400-foot fountain — have been proposed for Mud Island River Park since 1910. Various visions to improve daily attendance have failed to flourish. More than $300 million has been poured into the park, but it hemorrhages $2 million in annual operational costs.

That’s why Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) is back to the drawing board. After posting a request for qualifications, the RDC received proposals last month from five potential redevelopers with ideas for the park, ranging from a skate park to an upgraded amphitheater to a 500-room resort and spa.

RDC issued the request to “make sure the individual parties were qualified in that they had done or been materially involved in projects of this magnitude in the past,” RDC President Benny Lendermon said. ML Professional Properties, RVC Outdoor Destinations, Bass Pro Shops, Memphis Equity Brand Management, and Mansion America, LLC, now have until Feb. 24th to explain how they plan to design, develop, finance, construct, maintain, operate, and manage their proposals.

Revitalizing the underutilized Mud Island River Park is no simple feat. Though RDC is in the preliminary stages of choosing a firm, a hotel could take years to build, while the amphitheater might only take months to refurbish, Lendermon said. How the makeover will be funded is uncertain, but footing the bill mostly with private dollars rather than pulling from the city budget is crucial for the master plan.

“We are looking at a public/private partnership to bring new capital to Mud Island to both invigorate it and to pay for deferred maintenance issues that the city does not really have the funds to pay for currently,” Lendermon said. “That is our hope. We will not know if any of these ideas accomplish that goal until we receive the final proposals and begin negotiations.”

Below are selected details from each of the redevelopment firm’s proposals:

ML Professional Properties:

• Add three new bridges, and split the lanes — one for bikers and joggers and one for walkers and sightseers. One would be designed like the Nashville entertainment and pedestrian bridge.

• Develop an area called the River’s Edge on the west bank and model it after the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas.

• Construct a water park at the end of the River Walk. Turn it into an ice skating rink during the winter.

• Convert the museum into a mixed-use area like the City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri.

• Build a U-shaped fishing pier at the west side of the island.

• Build a dog park.

• Build a skateboard park.

RVC Outdoor Destinations:

• Create a new main, north entrance, and incorporate Greenbelt Park.

• Consider renovation or demolition of the Harbor Landing building with a focus on corporate events and weddings. Take advantage of overnight lodging.

• Get guests on the water with boat and kayak rentals, as wells as guided fishing and eco-tours.

Bass Pro Shops:

• Bass Pro Shops did not submit a formal proposal to the RDC by the Jan. 15th deadline. However, they requested in a letter “to still be considered a qualified development partner and have the opportunity to submit a more defined plan in the future.”

• Should they not be chosen as the master developer, Dunham asked to have “a representative on the RDC team and have ongoing involvement in the design and development process.”

Memphis Equity Brand Management:

• Build a 500-room resort hotel and spa, “which might carry the Marriott flag.”

• Construct a monorail that will stop near the hotel lobby.

• Create a parking garage to accommodate 500 spaces for the hotel and 500 spaces for visitors to the River Park.

Mansion America, LLC:

• Update the visual aesthetics of the Mud Island Amphitheater.

• Re-establish a handicap walk ramp to the seating area.

• Establish an in-house ticketing system.

• Establish an entertainment calendar including musicians, comedians, touring variety and theatrical shows, and a televised annual music event.

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News The Fly-By

Beale Street Landing: A Timeline

After years of a constantly inflating budget and mounds of public scrutiny, Beale Street Landing officially opened to the public last weekend.

The Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) managed the landing’s design and construction process, and, despite criticism over the project, its president, Benny Lenderman, believes the landing has drastically improved neighboring Tom Lee Park.

“Beale Street Landing fixes Tom Lee Park, which I have said was one of the worst waterfront parks in the nation. Now it’s one of the best waterfront parks in the nation because all that it was missing — shade, restrooms, food amenities — are now housed within Beale Street Landing,” Lenderman said.

The $44 million boat dock and public space includes downtown’s only playground, a Riverfront Bar & Grill restaurant, a gift shop, docking facilities for the American Queen cruise line and other excursion boats, an observation deck, public art, and an eco-friendly green roof that connects to Tom Lee Park.

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But long before the landing was ever conceived, many plans, some of them including commercial development on a massive scale, were proposed for the riverfront. The Flyer has compiled a timeline with a few examples.

1819 — Andrew Jackson, John Overton, and James Winchester owned 5,000 acres on the bluff where the Wolf River flowed into the Mississippi. They commissioned surveyor William Lawrence to map out Memphis with lots, public squares, a public landing, and a public promenade along the river.

1978 — The Memphis Riverfront Study from the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development recommended a “riverfront garden walkway” with a “performing arts barge, an open air marketplace, barges or piers, marine service, and a better mooring site for riverboats.”

1987 — Center City Commission plan for downtown called for improving the public promenade as a “grand civic open space,” restoring the cobblestone landing, adding amenities such as “floating restaurants and places for art,” adding “something special at the foot of Beale,” creating a Bluffwalk, and adding an aquarium to Mud Island River Park.

1996 — Mayor Willie W. Herenton came into office in 1991 with the idea that the riverfront should be an “economic engine” for Memphis. He had several ambitious plans for the riverfront over his years in office, but in 1996, he introduced some new items. He wanted to fill in the southern tip of Mud Island to create 10 acres of private development as a “theme village,” build two land bridges to convert part of the harbor into a 28-acre lake, and he wanted to cut a channel into what was left of the river’s harbor. Those changes were estimated to cost between $25 and $30 million.

1999 — The Waterfront Center, a nonprofit that assists communities in making the best long-term plans for their waterfronts, was hired to work with the public in developing ideas for the riverfront. Those ideas included free, year-round access to Mud Island River Park, slower traffic on Riverside Drive, protection of the cobblestones, better docking for river tour boats, and scratching Herenton’s idea for the lake.

2000 — The RDC was founded as a public-private partnership to oversee, maintain, and “develop where appropriate” the public property along the riverfront.

2002 — Memphis City Council approved the Memphis Riverfront Master Plan. It included a 50- to 70-acre “land bridge” dam for commercial development. Early renderings showed large skyscraper-like buildings along the water’s edge. The channel to the Mississippi River was gone, and the harbor was to become Wolf Lake. The plan also included a mention of a boat docking facility in the area where Beale Street Landing is today.

Lenderman said the board later amended that master plan and removed the land bridge with commercial development.

This 2002 master plan features new skyscrapers and a land bridge filling in the riverfront.

“There were mistakes made [with that plan]. It was a 50-year plan, but the problem is, you can’t do a public 50-year plan. Board members can’t comprehend beyond five years, and the public can’t comprehend more than a year and a half.”

2003 — At the end of 2002, the RDC announced an international design competition for Beale Street Landing. More than 170 submissions came in from 20 foreign countries and 28 states within the U.S. By October, the winning design from the RTN firm of Buenos Aires, Argentina was chosen.

“A lot of local architects and even we [at the RDC] assumed that what you needed down there was Memphis’ Eiffel Tower or something to show where the river was, and then you’d build around that,” Lenderman said. “But what our design panel of judges gravitated toward is having the river be the attraction, and they liked the design that RTN came up with.”

2005 — In June, the Memphis City Council approved the Beale Street Landing project as part of the FY 2006 city capital improvement project budget. In August, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and the RDC said it tripled the cost of all projects along the Mississippi River and the price of steel, which was to be a key component of the landing’s construction. Critics of Beale Street Landing, especially Friends for Our Riverfront, had much to say about the project’s ever-increasing cost to taxpayers.

“The first number in a city budget book was $28 million. The final number, with design and permitting and construction, was $44 million,” Lenderman. “But part of that went up $1 million in the past two years because extra money was raised for the play area from private dollars. Of that number, $29 million was city taxpayer money, and $2 million was private donations. The rest was state and federal.”

In December of 2005, the first phase of construction on the landing began with dredging out the mouth of the Wolf River Harbor, widening the shipping channel by 50 feet.

2008 — A groundbreaking ceremony was held for Beale Street Landing.

2012 — The American Queen cruise line, the first passenger boat to dock at Beale Street Landing, held an event to celebrate its headquarters moving to Memphis.

2014 — Beale Street Landing held its grand opening event on June 28th.

Future — Preservation of the historic cobblestone landing has been approved, and it has been ready for construction for about 18 months. But that part of the project has been held up by a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) requirement that “railroad crossings within 100 feet of any project they fund be improved at the same time,” according to Lenderman. He said the RDC plans to go out to bid on the cobblestone project as soon as TDOT is ready to go.

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News News Blog

Beale Street Landing Is Open

After a decade of design, planning, construction, and an ever-evolving budget, the Riverfront Development Corporation’s $43 million Beale Street Landing project officially opens to the public this weekend. The Flyer was granted a media tour today following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the landing’s playground.

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We’ll be featuring more in-depth coverage of the project’s history and budget in next Thursday’s Memphis Flyer. But for now, here’s a photo tour of Beale Street Landing.

A handful of children in bathing suits and their parents waited outside the playground this morning, as the staff and board of the RDC, Memphis city councilmembers, and others cut the park’s ribbon.

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The small playground, positioned inside a man-made island, features a giant catfish tunnel named Big John (after RDC board member John Stokes), a slide, and an interactive water park.

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Kids can turn the water on by pushing a button with their foot, causing water to shoot from the tops of large metal cylinders designed to look like reeds. The water can be turned on between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily.

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Next to the park is another small island with gardens and seating areas. RDC vice-president Dorchelle Spence said that area is designed as a “place of respite” where people can sit and watch riverboats and barges. That area will have free wifi.

Beale Street Landing’s dock, where passengers load onto the American Queen and other riverboats, is made from barges so it can rise and fall with the river. Passengers access the boat by walking or riding in golf carts (available for the disabled or elderly) down the landing’s helical ramp.

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According to Spence, the American Queen docks here 13 times a year. The Mississippi Queen docks 15 times a year, and two other boats — the Grande Mariner and the Grande Caribe — dock here four times annually. The Island Queen, a sight-seeing cruise boat, takes passengers on cruises at 2:30 p.m. daily and on dinner cruises at night.

The colors for Beale Street Landing’s elevator shaft were chosen when its designers blew up a picture of the sun setting over the Mississippi River until only pixels were visible. They tried to replicate the colors of the Memphis sunset in the shaft. Visitors can enter the building from street level or from the deck atop the grassy roof.

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The grass roof of Beale Street Landing helps retain rainwater runoff, and it connects to the rest of Tom Lee Park.

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Inside the landing’s building is a gift shop with snow globes, Elvis souvenirs, Memphis tees, and other Bluff City memorabilia for riverboat passengers. Spence said, when the building is rented out for private events, the gift shop shelving will be hidden.

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The Riverfront Bar & Grill, managed by the RDC, will have a soft opening this weekend with an official opening set for the weekend of July 4th. There’s a full bar, Southern-style menu, and outdoor and indoor seating.

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Beale Street Landing’s grand opening is set for Saturday, June 28th from noon to 7 p.m. There’s a concert finale at 6 p.m.

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Opinion

The City Budget Explained in Ten Points, Sort Of

CREDIT: John Branston

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Talk to City Council members, go to meetings, read the handouts, put a pencil to it, and here’s what I think about the budget, with one more meeting scheduled for June 25th.

1. This is complicated stuff. No wonder the council met for seven hours Tuesday. And no wonder that last-minute decisions are the new normal, as they are in Congress. On the 4.6 pay increase for city employees, the council split 6-6, with one member (Lee Harris) absent. Every member is a potentially crucial seventh vote on every big issue.

2. The once-and-for-all fix is an illusion. Shea Flinn challenged his colleagues to come out for a cover-everything-with-no-layoffs tax rate of $3.91, an increase of 80 cents over the current city tax rate. “We can all go home,” he said. No takers, even with the Heat and Spurs in Game Six. Several years ago, former Mayor Willie Herenton came to the council with a long-range fix that would have raised the tax rate a lot less than 80 cents. The council declined. But even if it hadn’t we would probably be about where we are now.

3. Putting a pencil to the 80 cent non-starter (using the property tax calculator on the Shelby County Assessor’s website), if you own a house worth $100,000 it would cost you an additional $200 a year in city property taxes. A $200,000 house would be about $400, and so on. You have to add county taxes to that. The Commission is looking at a 9 percent increase. On the $100,000 house, that’s an additional $90, or $180 on a $200,000 house, and so on. Added together, the 80-center and the 9 percenter would be about $290 for the $100,000 house and $580 for the $200,000 house.

4. To put that another way, at $580 a year, we’re talking low-end season tickets for the Grizzlies or a new washing machine every year. More than a dollar a day. Less than full-service cable television or most cell phone charges. Not saying that is a lot or a little. Just comparing.

5. Some will say the house valuations I used are too rich. You can find sources that put the “median” home below $100,000 depending on whether that is “value” or “sales price” during a particular time frame and this may or may not include foreclosure sales. According to a Kiplinger survey, Memphis is one of the ten least expensive places to live in the U.S. Kiplinger uses “median home value” whatever that is, and pegs it at $99,000. I don’t think many if any elected officials live in houses worth less than $100,000, but I know several who live in houses worth a lot more than that.

6. On the 6-6 vote on the 4.6 percent raise, Council chairman Ed Ford voted against it, along with five white council members, as he told me he would. White councilman Bill Boyd joined five black colleagues in voting for it.

7. If property taxes are a big factor in where people live then why isn’t Lakeland, which has no city property taxes yet, growing faster than Collierville, Germantown, and Arlington (where Lakeland high-schoolers go to school)? Obviously, schools and other factors come into play.

8. The biggest mistake the council can make, or one of the biggest anyway, would be cutting back on trash pickup. It’s a cliche to say that legendary big city mayors and bosses like E. H. Crump and Richard Daley, whatever their faults, got the trash picked up. Cities that work pave the streets and pick up the garbage at a minimum; broken cities don’t.

9. Tourism Development Zones (TDZs) like the one at the fairgrounds are toast, if not this year then next year or the year after. Bottom line: The tax money they funnel into big underused public buildings and capital improvements in places where people don’t live is needed more for general operating expenses in places where people do live.

10. The Riverfront Development Corporation didn’t use $317,000 in federal funds for a walkway behind the Pyramid so the feds are taking it back. The grant was issued 13 years ago. It would have built 4,350 feet of walkway from the existing walkway over the cobblestones to the bridge to Mud Island. Any marketer with a minimum of imagination could have dubbed this stretch and the adjoining Greenbelt walkway and Tom Lee Park walkway going up the hill to the lovely overlook at Martyr’s Park “The Great Mississippi Bike and Pedestrian Path.” It could have been open 10 or 11 years by now, hosting annual events ala Joe Royer’s canoe and bike races, but for the uncertainty of Bass Pro Shops in the Pyramid and the RDC being the RDC. Instead we have, in various stages of planning and construction, a boat dock for more than $40 million, a Bass Pro superstore for about $200 million, and a Main Street to Main Street Connector for more than $30 million. Probably $300 million in all, if and when it is finished. Think of all the things that could be done for $3 million, or one percent of that. Swinging for home runs has a price.

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Opinion

Beale Street Landing Restaurant Operators Bail Out

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Score another one for Beale Street Landing and the Riverfront Development Corporation.

Last week, RDC director Benny Lendermon notified board members that restaurant operator Beale and Second Inc. “is no longer interested in pursuing the lease of the restaurant space at Beale Street Landing.” Beale and Second consists of Bud Chittom, Kevin Kane, and Charlie Ryan, who also own Blues City Cafe on Beale Street. The group was the only one to respond to an RDC request for restaurant proposals.

“Based on this discovery, Beale and Second Inc. should cease and desist all actives (sic) on the Beale Street Landing premises other than specific catering services that RDC may contract with you to perform,” the memo says.

“You should turn in the keys to the premises to our manager Jimmy Ogle. Any access to the premises to remove equipment or supplies belonging to you should be coordinated with Mr. Ogle. We are disappointed that this didn’t work out but certainly understand that you have to protect your financial interests.”

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Trashed

After a wonderful Mississippi River trip on the Memphis-based American Queen, we arrived at Beale Street Landing on Sunday morning of last week. We were embarrassed for the city, as we immediately saw construction debris around the unfinished and over-budget structure. More disturbing was the massive amount of debris and trash floating in the water between the dock and the building.

We landed at river towns and cities from New Orleans to Memphis. We were greeted by proud city ambassadors and clean downtown ports in all the stops except Memphis.

The Riverfront Development Corporation has been unable to manage the development of Beale Street Landing. Further, more than half of its funding comes from the city, and an overwhelming percentage of the expenses are salaries. The president of the RDC got a raise this year, and the RDC just added a vice president who is paid in excess of $120,000.

Based on what over 300 arriving passengers and hundreds of crew members from the American Queen saw last weekend, the RDC and its staff are incompetent. I suggest that the city pull its funding and take over the functions of running the city’s riverfront.

Robert Burns

Memphis

Iraq War

Looking back on the 10-year anniversary of the Iraq war, many of us can remember the silence in the media before this war started. It was a disservice to those Americans who were willing to stand up and say that they wanted their sons and daughters that are taught to fight to be put in the right fights and the right causes. These voices were smothered by the neocons who believed the Bush administration was right to invade Iraq. No real challenge came from the media against going into Iraq. In fact, the neocons were given a free hand, and the faint voices that spoke out against the war were kept off the front pages and judged by many as unpatriotic.

Those of us who believe our country went down the wrong path have to stand up and not march behind those who are willing to fool themselves. In Vietnam and Iraq, we didn’t buy into the overstated greatness of those causes that many of us saw as trumped-up illusions.

The other side has always used patriotism to feed the illusion that we were all in it together. We love this country, and we love our sons and daughters. We don’t want them coming back in body bags, with missing limbs and damaged minds, in service to leaders looking for a selfish legacy and driven by a false ideology.

Alfred Waddell

West Dennis, Massachusetts

Sharia Law

Two of our wonderful lawmakers in Nashville have once again displayed their knuckle-dragging ignorance (Letter from the Editor, March 28th issue). Senator Bill Ketron and Representative Judd Matheny questioned why Muslim footbaths were installed.

A great question from those who help make our laws, except, as we know, those “footbaths” are mop sinks. In defense of Matheny, he denied asking about the mop sinks, saying “it’s not ringing a bell.” Perhaps it’s due to him missing a clapper. Let’s hope bidets haven’t been installed. These two might think they are drinking fountains.

Oh well, back to more important business, like destroying our public education system, putting guns in every classroom, voting against renewable energy, and allowing road kill to be eaten.

Jack Bishop

Memphis

Gay Marriage

A homosexual is one who is sexually attracted to others of the same sex. Except for a genetic variation of nature, they are virtually identical to heterosexuals. They feel the same kind of attraction to the same sex as heterosexuals feel about the opposite sex. Some argue that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but I believe (through science) this behavior has been proven to result from natural genetic variation.

Homosexuals are therefore entitled to engage in sexual behavior consistent with their genetic makeup, so long as it is between consenting adults. And, by extension, they should be allowed to marry as well.

Humans are sexual beings, as was intended by their creator, and to suggest that a genetic variation of nature somehow makes homosexuals less human is an inhuman concept.

Joe Bialek

Cleveland, Mississippi

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Opinion

Flotsam and Jetsam at Beale Street Landing

CREDIT: Memphis Flyer photo

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  • Memphis Flyer photo

If you only get one chance to make a first impression then $42.5 million Beale Street Landing could be in a tough spot this Saturday when the American Queen steamboat with 430 passengers visits Memphis and 430 more board for the return trip to New Orleans.

They might need to be issued mud boots and blinders. The project, which the Riverfront Development Corporation says on its web site (“The Truth About Beale Street Landing”) was supposed to be finished in the summer of 2011, is far from finished today.

The gift shop and main building opened last Friday, and the steamboat is scheduled to make its first visit of the 2013 season in five more days. Barring a massive cleanup operation, passengers will step on to the new floating dock and see several months accumulation of trash trapped in the backwater around the dock and cylindrical ramp.

Jimmy Ogle, newly appointed general manager for Beale Street Landing, was at the park Sunday and Monday when I visited it and said he hopes at least some of the trash can be removed before the boat lands. His first thought was using john boats, but “we can’t get them in there” so he hopes that long rakes might work instead. The big logs that washed up on the banks will remain there for a while, said Ogle and Benny Lendermon, director of the Riverfront Development Corporation, who was also at the site Monday morning. Lendermon said the new completion date is November or December of this year, with a grand opening next spring.

An eddy in the river at the southern tip of Mud Island forces water and debris back toward the dock and ramp. Lendermon said the long-range solution is a screen or boom to block debris from reaching the landing. The river is expected to rise two feet by Saturday.

I have no urge to bash Beale Street Landing. Its cost overruns, construction delays, and unusual design choices such as the “pixilated sunset” colors on the roof are a well-reported matter of record. I work near the landing and hope it works, but the RDC seems to have bitten off more than it can chew. Appointing Ogle was a good move. He is as pleasant and diligent an ambassador as any city could have.

I was walking the riverfront Sunday afternoon with developer Henry Turley. We entered the building, which was open for business and selling souvenirs from the Memphis Queen, which was taking passengers out for a cruise. We saw what any visitor will see. Signs that say “Please Excuse Our Mess While We’re Under Construction” might earn BSL some points for caring, but the reviews could be brutal.

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Opinion

The Rubik’s Cube on Top of Beale Street Landing

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I have written enough about Beale Street Landing. Like Chief Joseph, I will fight no more forever. In May, when the “colorful topper” was in its infancy, I collected renderings from the Riverfront Development Corporation and Friends For Our Riverfront. An RDC spokesperson said colors in the final product might be “more muted.”

Is this muted?
Is this good urban design for a prominent public space?
Does this make the widely-mocked-as-inappropriate Bass Pro “bait shop” logo look like the Mona Lisa?
Was this created by a child with a box of LEGOs?

You make the call.

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Categories
Opinion

Beale Street Landing: Low-water, Part 2

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

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The boat dock at Beale Street Landing has been moved temporarily to inside the downtown harbor due to low water.

“Beale Street Landing is still under construction,” said Dorchelle Spence, spokeswoman for the Riverfront Development Corporation. “One of the few remaining items from the original contract is completing the dredging underneath the docks. With the river at this very low level, it is an ideal time to do this work.”

Last week the dock was at the landing at the end of the cylindrical ramp. Normally, the American Queen steamboat would tie up there, as it did on its maiden voyage and christening earlier this year.

But low water at the site of the landing and entrance to the harbor forced the steamboat to dock instead at the north end of the Mud Island Greenbelt when it visited Memphis ten days ago.

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This week the dock sits next to the historic Cobblestone Landing just south of one of the boats of the Memphis Queen Riverboats. The Riverfront Development Corporation is working with the U.S. Corps of Engineers to get the landing site and harbor entrance dredged so the dock can go back to where it is supposed to be, as shown in this RDC rendering.

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The $40 million project is supposed to be finished later this year.

Categories
Opinion

Beale Street Landing Has a Problem (Again)

CREDIT: John Branston

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American Queen

Sometimes a picture (two of them in this case) is worth 1,000 words. The pictures above were both taken Thursday afternoon. One of them shows Beale Street Landing absent the American Queen (that’s a barge approaching it from the harbor). The other shows the American Queen, which was christened at Beale Street Landing in April but forced to dock this week at the north end of Mud Island because of low water.

This $40 million project simply cannot catch a break.

The Riverfront Development Corporation, which one year ago said in a statement about the timetable for completion of Beale Street Landing that “almost a decade of careful study and planning will soon pay off,” said in another statement this week that “additional work must be completed to accept the American Queen at the lowest possible river stage.”

At -5 feet on the Memphis gauge, the river is low but not as low (-10.7 feet) as it was in July, 1988, well within the memory of the staff and board members of the RDC. The flood of 2011 was a once-in-a-lifetime event, but this summer’s drought is a several-times-in-a-lifetime event. In other words, it was foreseeable by the designers of Beale Street Landing. We can only wonder what the RDC means and what the cost will be of the “additional work” that is necessary.

This underscores two things, one of them good and one of them not so good.

The good is Greenbelt Park, the most popular, cost-efficient, user-friendly, and versatile park on the river. In June it was the site of the Outdoors Inc. Canoe and Kayak Race and the LUVMUD 5k obstacle course race. The American Queen was able to dock at the fishermen’s boat ramp at the north end of the park and transport its passengers downtown by bus. The park is regularly used by walkers, bikers, and joggers who appreciate the shade, scenery, ease of access, and well-manicured sidewalk.

The not so good is the planned $6 million rehabilitation and development of Cobblestones Landing, which was put on hold because of Beale Street Landing. The river level fluctuation is an obvious engineering and design challenge at the cobblestones, which were underwater during the big flood of 2011 and are subject to erosion in low water.

The RDC and the City of Memphis secured approximately $6 million in local and other funds to preserve, restore and enhance the cobblestone landing. The process began in early 2008 but has stalled several times.

Still to be determined is the design and color scheme of the elevator enclosure that looks like a top hat on the grassy knoll at Beale Street Landing. An earlier rendering, now under reconsideration, is shown below.

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