Is there common ground for blacks and whites in Fair Ground?
Developer Henry Turley still thinks so, as he told a group of real estate professionals at a luncheon at The Racquet Club this week. He says he’s as committed to it as he was to HarborTown or Uptown or any of his projects, even though it is limbo with the interim mayor Myron Lowery and the Memphis City Council.
The basic vision of an amateur youth sports complex funded by $50 million in private capital and $75 million in tax rebates hasn’t changed, but Turley said he has rethought some of the parts. For one thing, he now thinks the Coliseum should be demolished and eventually replaced with a multi-sports facility.
Coincidentally, Turley was speaking a few blocks from another common ground — the Paradiso movie theater — and three days after 23 police cars were called out Saturday night to control a crowd of more than 500 teenagers and others gathered in the theater’s parking lot. He thinks Fair Ground could be a positive alternative “if we build a place so nice you have to play here.”
