Finish Beale Street Landing, review the process and let the battle on the Mississippi begin.
Over the last few months a debate has been brewing about the future of the Downtown cobblestones. The problem of the area’s deterioration has been on full display. Solutions have been presented. Problems have been revealed and changes have been made. Prices fluctuating from high to low based on different scenarios have been floated. Through all of this, the chief advocates for preserving this area have been unable to agree on a compromise. And every day the area gets closer and closer to becoming invisible history overcome by neglect.
In the next few weeks other, more interesting things will happen. The RDC will ask the City of Memphis to cough up somewhere between $1 and $8 million to finish Beale Street Landing. Sort of bugs you, doesn’t it? Almost guaranteed is that some riverfront advocates will be there to oppose it. I bet that ticks off a lot of you too. But what happens next? Is this project stopped, amended or embraced? More importantly, what happens after that decision is made?
Sooner or later the RDC and other riverfront advocates will either learn to publicly and purposefully compromise or the great battle on the Mississippi will have to be waged once and for all. The citizens of Memphis cannot continue to be held hostage by a group charged with developing the riverfront and others opposed to it. Sooner or later the City will have to declare a victor allowing us to move on to the celebratory space we all demand. Otherwise we will be stuck in this groundhog day for the rest of our lives.
Suck it up and finish Beale Street Landing
I hate to say it but we must complete Beale Street Landing. The alternative is too detrimental to our future at a time in our history where our egos are too fragile.
Beale Street Landing has been criticized based on need. It has been criticized based on design. This project’s location, size and ultimate purpose has been criticized again and again. Each time arguments were made, changes were agreed to and the project moved forward with official endorsements. Now, perhaps around $20 million later, we find out that it needs more money to be finished. This is infuriating! But whether or not we are mad isn’t the question. The question is what happens if we stop the project?
To me, this isn’t about the boat dock or the park or the restaurant or the flag poles or anything else that we could pick off of this project. This is about the surrounding property owners. This is about future development of privately owned parcels next door to this thing. This is also about future funding of new public projects. And this is about getting our heads out of our behinds and finishing what we started.
If Beale Street Landing is halted we will be out $13 to $21 million. If it is halted, the Feds will laugh us out of Washington and the State will not let us into the Capitol if we ever come asking for anything like this again. Tom Lee Park and the Cobblestones will forever be separated by a crater. Number One Beale, if it is ever relaunched, will have to change its sales photos by replacing the internationally designed park feature with a pit. AutoZone will be rewarded for its civic philanthropy with a front row view of a mudslide.
Memphians who actually use Downtown will have a visible reminder of our great mutual failure. Visitors will wonder why someone doesn’t do something grand at the foot of Tennessee’s number one tourist attraction. And Downtowners will just shake their heads at again being disappointed by all of the people who daily say they want what is best for THEIR neighborhood.
No doubt, it is fair to demand an accounting of how we got into this mess. We should know how a project started before it was fully priced, before it was fully designed and before it was finally approved. We should know how the community was engaged, who was involved and how the project evolved as a result. We should hold the RDC and the other riverfront advocates responsible for their respective roles in this situation. But stopping isn’t really an option, is it?
We need a decider
Someone needs to sit the RDC and other riverfront groups down and demand peaceful existence or a battle to the death. In-limbo should no longer be acceptable for Memphians. Let’s line up the projects, line up the issues and ring the bell. Tolerance by the public (and most importantly, by contributors) is wearing thin after a decade or two of arguing about how we should embrace the Mississippi.
While this would be progress in the form of finally moving on and efficiently getting future projects done, it will be terribly disappointing. The loser will represent an important segment of what makes cities truly successful.
The Riverfront Development Corporation is a unique catalyst for engaging the private sector, for building ambitiously inspired public amenities and for efficiently managing facilities in a way that is vastly better than past alternatives.
Riverfront advocates (like Friends For Our Riverfront) represent people who place appropriate value on our history, understand the potential of this City as it exists today and desperately want more people to experience our great public spaces.
However, most everyone else in town is divided. One group thinks they are all fools with the same stated public mission but just jockeying for control or recognition. The other group could care less if the cobblestones, Beale Street and all of Downtown quietly slides into the river.
We need a unified vision or a decision. Otherwise the group who thinks this is foolish and the group who doesn’t care will win, while all of the river lovers (and Memphians) in general will lose.
You seem to think we need to finish the thing to save our civic pride. What will it do for our pride to finish a boat dock for riverboats that are now out of business and not likely to come back? How much pride will you be able to muster, having to explaining this “Boat Dock to Nowhere“ to the tourists? Or should we, as Channel 5 suggested, rename it Beale Street Blunder?
Civic pride is a fine thing — but this is civic stupidity. Get real!
The issue with the cobblestone plan is that the RDC has already irreparably compromised the project. You see, the RDC decided by themselves with no public input on the matter, that Memphis no longer needs an authentic, working Cobblestone Landing. They even overruled their own Master Plan. So they cut the project in half — preserving the remaining cobblestones, but not restoring the historic landing. They also took some money that was intended for the Cobblestones and plowed it into their Beale Street Blunder project.
You can’t fix a plan that had the wrong goals to begin with. You can’t compromise a plan that is already compromised by half — in favor of building a monument to stupidity.
If those aren’t enough, here are eight more reasons to deny the funding.
Don’t blame the opponents, who are only trying to get Memphians to finally see some truths before it is too late. Thanks to Willie Herenton, the Riverfront Development Corporation holds our great riverfront hostage to their dreams of high-rise, multi-use development. After ten failed years, it is high time for Memphians to wake up, cancel the RDC’s contract, and take our riverfront back from the developers.
It looks like we may be destined for a real battle royal.
I understand the frustration with cost overruns and a lack of public input… regarding many projects. However, since BSL was conceived in 2002 the public has had input through public forums and about a dozen City Council procedures. Others know better than I do what type of influence was exerted through the State Historic Preservation process. As a result the project has changed (possibly for the better), been delayed and gotten more expensive. So now after so many have exerted such pressure and won the hard fought battles, why would we throw in an extremely expensive towel?
I know the project is known as the boat dock. But, I believe its design serves many other important purposes, providing an additional unique approach to the riverfront chief among them. The award winning architects selected from an international competition is exciting from an entirely different perspective. If it were embraced and then promoted for the coup it is, what is the value of the positive recognition that comes from a project like this?
Since the inception of the RDC, obvious improvements have been made to many public spaces that are being enjoyed by more people. I am probably disgruntled with them for a reason very different than some… as I expected there to actually be private development associated with their projects. I respect the RDC for their ability to cost effectively manage a number of our parks and maintain them at a level higher than I have ever seen. However, if this does not lead to private, taxable investment, then I am afraid we aren’t accomplishing what we should or permanently placing as many people in proximity to the river as we can. Additionally, it takes many different types of people living around, working near and visiting an area to animate grand public spaces. Don’t we deserve to at least pursue that a bit?
This being said, I challenge anyone to name any private developer that has profited off of anything the RDC has done. Many of their founders and board members could retire and never give the river or Memphis a second thought. To be blunt, they ain’t in this for the money. Whether or not anyone agrees with the direction, is it fair to question their desire to offer their hometown something better?
Like them or not, before the RDC no one was offering plans or projects or suggestions or funding. All we had was a bunch of people saying what somebody should do and nobody taking responsibility for doing anything.
I have been to public meetings about the cobblestones. I know changes have been made to accommodate suggestions. I applaud those who constructively participate and I thank those who have influenced improvements. Maybe it could be better. Maybe only half of it is being saved. But I’ll take half of something over all of nothing. Unfortunately, I think that may be the choice some want us to make.
Mike: We’ll have to agree to diagree when it comes to the importance of civic pride as it relates to the ability to execute.
For me, personally the capacity for us to finish a project, whether we like it or not, rather then remain in attack mode all the way to the ribbon cutting ceremony is a harmful, discouraging and embarrassing situation for our city.
Can we please put down our weapons, take a big breath and move forward for the sake of all our collective moral.
This project needs to get done and then we need to move on and do another project.
Completing BSL is not about civic pride at all. It’s about doing things right – lessons we should have learned from Autozone Park, FedExForum, the new law school, etc.
This is about about enlivening our riverfront and getting it out of the 19th century and into this one. There is no river city that we are aware of that has a riverfront as moribund as ours. It’s about capitalizing on our most important natural asset. It’s about leveraging our authenticity for competitive advantage in the future.
It’s about improving the trajectory of our city at a time when it’s going in exactly the wrong direction.
Yep, the FFOR and RDC has very different visions for what the riverfront should be. While the RDC tried to press forward with a plan that would have used private development to pay for their plans, the FFOR kept handing out wonderful ideas without one legitimate way to pay for them without using a 100% public funding scenario. In the end we have one group that thinks we need a new riverfront that pays homage to the past in a few small ways while the other group thinks we need to simply clean it up a little and everyone will come flooding down to the riverfront. One wants the riverfront to be an active place with engaging events that are relevant to the 21st century while the other group wants it to be a passive space where we can all sit back and think about what it must have been like to see riverboats along the cobblestones back in the 19th century. These two groups will still be slugging it out in 10 years while that wasteland languishes because, while the RDC compromised by eliminating the land bridge and much (if not all) of the private development it had proposed, FFOR has not yielded 1 inch. Please FFOR, stop being such hardliners and learn how to compromise. Did it ever occur to any of you that some of us might actually want a vibrant riverfront that is more than just a pile of rocks- a historic pile of rocks, but a pile of rocks nonetheless- and a giant green field (with an almost total lack of shade during our merciless summers)?
You all are amazing! You just keep ignoring the truth. I say, the boats aren’t coming. They are out of business. You pretend not to hear. We must press on, you say. We can’t admit failure. We have to build this thing, even if it is going to be an expensive white elephant.
Memphis seems to have a thing — a “trajectory” — for failure. We can’t acknowledge our failures, and so we keep repeating them.
Hook, line, and Shlenker.
Mike:
You keep ignoring the essence. We don’t care if the boats aren’t coming. You’ve got your eye off the ball. We need it regardless.
We do have a trajectory for failure when people keep emphasizing rhetoric over reason and are so fixed in their dislike for RDC that they simply are kneejerk against anything RDC is for.
This isn’t about any of that. It’s what does downtown riverfront need. It needs Beale Street Landing desperately. This has about as much to do with Shlenker as FedExForum does. It’s about aiming high, not settling for half-steps, and showing the rest of the country that we’re not a backwater, slow-moving, stuck in time river town.
Your idea keeps us stuck in 1953.
John, I know it’s convenient to blame the Section 106 process — which the RDC waited getting underway until almost everything else was done. But perhaps there are other reasons for the delays and design costs. For example, see this reader comment on the LRK bankruptcy story in today’s CA. Perhaps your “award-winning architects” aren’t the hottest on the planet. The CA reader writes:
and later on…
There are at least two sides to every story. Apparently, you only believe the RDC’s side.
“Design-build contractors offer both architectural and construction services, and can carry a job from inception to completion.
Because one firm is accountable for the entire project, this approach can often result in a less expensive design that is practical to build and causes less confusion between design and construction specialists who may not see eye to eye.”
http://www.servicemagic.com/article.show.Do-I-Need-an-Architect.14289.html
Sounds like we have a classic disagreement between the designer and builder. My brother inlaw who is a mechanical engineer gets the same grief from machinists. They actually have to implement his designs and make it work. Different mindsets that are often at odds with each other. Same thing happens with nurses and doctors etc….
All well and good, Aaron. I understand. The RDC made a choice to go this route, for reasons that seemed good at the time (2003), but in retrospect turned out to be costly.
What I object to is the cynical way they lay the bulk of the blame off on regulators in general and the state historic preservation office in particular for the delays and re-design expense in the project.
What’s more, I was paying attention to that 106 process and it was not how they have portrayed it. The dozen or so changes RDC actually made to design were largely trivial, like changing the color of paint, and adding more signage. The one significant change was to move one island several feet closer to Riverside drive — and that could have been all of about an hour to accomplish in the CAD software.
Furthermore, this blog article and others (like the CA editorial last year) are implicitly trying to blame Friends for Our Riverfront and other opponents for stopping the project in its tracks. Again, that’s cynical and simply not true. The RDC has complete contractual authority to do what they want, and they have 24/7 access to the halls of power to grease the approvals. All we opponents can do is try to expose the issues, misrepresentations, and fallacies as best we can, with volunteers and meager contributions.
Naturally, the RDC would prefer that ordinary citizens keep our mouths shut and play along, while the RDC can count on the elites (the ones who use the royal “we”) to run interference and talk down to us poor blokes who don’t understand the “essence” and the “vision.”
One more clarification before I sign off. When I say “RDC” I am not talking about the RDC board (or most of it). The board exists to give RDC a veneer of respectabiliy, and mainly shows up every few months to look at some PowerPoints and give pro-forma approvals to decisions that were already made by the insiders. Few board members know even a quarter of what I do about what’s really been going on. If they ever read my blog, it might open their eyes.
There never should have even been a 106 process. It was all politically motivated and not undertaken in good faith.
If the RDC has 24/7 access to halls of poverty and is greasing the skids, why is this project in question then?
And we notice that you and others never manage to point out the money that RDC has saved the city in maintenance, landscaping, etc., or the new additions RDC has given us, like stairway connecting bluffs to Tom Lee Park.
If you don’t think that it’s fair to paint Friends group as the people in black hats (which we happen to agree with), why doesn’t that common sense approach apply to RDC too? And we think you underestimate what the board knows and supports, and suggestions that they are mere puppets is not only inaccurate, it is demeaning.
And finally, the person you quote about the project is someone who was released by one of the companies working on Beale Street Landing, and he did not ever work on the project.
Maybe part of the problem is the message-bearer itself, the RDC. I seem to recall reading quite a bit about the high salaries, double-dipping, etc., that goes on there. When there’s a fundamental lack of trust in the message-bearer, the message sometimes gets lost.
SmartCity,
Maybe this is an inappropriate place to ask such a broad brushed question, but do you ever get frustrated with Memphis and its citizens? The talent and knowledge you are presenting is obvious, almost as obvious as the change that could occur with the same devotion if focused on a city less apathetic and hostile to change.
Glad you asked.
YOU: There never should have even been a 106 process. It was all politically motivated and not undertaken in good faith.
A: The section 106 was necessary because BSL sat right next to, and even overlapped, a historic area (the cobblestones). The SHPO report said that BSL should not be considered separately from the historic area — they should be considered together. They were right. In fact, the CR Master Plan said that the entire area should be thought of as one component, with the centerline at Union. BSL was essentially an enhancement to the cobblestone area — necessary only because the big boats were already banned at the cobblestones, and the Mud Island boat landing would be bulldozed by a land bridge.
The RDC was anxious to get BSL approved and did not want to show its hand on the cobblestones. They had long decided (contrary to the Master Plan) that the cobblestones were to be diminished and de-commissioned in favor of their shiny new object, BSL. To get around SHPO, they were able to use their political connections to have the report overruled by TDEC. The final public meeting was a complete sham. So, yes, you are correct, the process was politicized. But to RDC’s benefit.
YOU: If the RDC has 24/7 access to halls of poverty and is greasing the skids, why is this project in question then?
Don’t pretend to be naive. It’s because: (1) At long last the RDC has made a big ugly money goof they cannot easily cover up. (2) They have lost their protector (Herenton), and there is a new mayor and largely new City Council. (3) People are just getting weary of the no-results RDC and its b.s. (4) People are finally coming to the realization about some truths that I and others have been saying all along. (5) Money and priorities. We don’t need a boat dock to nowhere. And we can’t afford a $37M piece of urban art.
We don’t need an icon on our riverfront, either. We already have a recognizable one: A Bass Pro in the shape of a Pyramid.
YOU: And we notice that you and others never manage to point out the money that RDC has saved the city in maintenance, landscaping, etc., or the new additions RDC has given us, like stairway connecting bluffs to Tom Lee Park.
A: I specifically avoid talking about about RDC’s, separate management role, to keep my messages clear and focused. If the City thinks the RDC does a fine job, let them keep the contract. If not, let then let the contract be re-bid at next renewal. But let’s be clear on this: Whether or not they are good property managers has little to do with whether or not they should continue to have the exclusive development role. It won’t surprise you that I think they have proved to be incredibly incompetent in the development role. The City should have figured this out back in 2005, but by then the RDC had secured a ten-year Development contract.
And let’s not perpetuate the b.s.: In fact, the RDC has NOT provably saved the City any money. First, remember that the RDC gets to pocket every dime they can make off the riverfront. The City’s management fee may only be a little over $2M at this point, but the RDC’s total budget is more like $6-7M. Unaccounted for in this is all the off-books equipment, supplies, employees, free utilities, and whatever else the RDC “borrows” from the City. (For example, try to find even a truck on the RDC’s Form 990.) The fact is, the City isn’t paying them to manage the riverfront, they are subsidizing a private business down there on the riverfront.
Now you could argue that running the riverfront as a business concession is an efficient way to go, and I’d be inclined to agree — other policy questions aside. But comparing the RDC’s “management fee” to various rates of inflation (one of RDC’s PowerPoint slides) or even suggesting that it comprises the true cost to the City, just insults my intelligence.
Second, the stairway is actually the completion of a plan and project that began long before RDC was even a gleam in Herenton’s eye. And NONE of the small “development” projects the RDC has ever done have stemmed from the RDC’s own Master Plan — except BSL (allegedly) and we can see where that is.
YOU: If you don’t think that it’s fair to paint Friends group as the people in black hats (which we happen to agree with), why doesn’t that common sense approach apply to RDC too? And we think you underestimate what the board knows and supports, and suggestions that they are mere puppets is not only inaccurate, it is demeaning.
A: I sit in on those board meetings, which is more than you do. I know what the board is told. I know the the kind of questions they ask. It may be demeaning to say it, but the truth sometimes hurts.
What’s more, I’ve read all the minutes for the first 3-4 years of their existence — both the executive committee and the board. The decisions were and still are made by the insiders, starting with John Stokes and Benny Lendermon. What we can’t knows is whose advice they are following, if not their own. Because, you see, they do not open their Exec Committee meetings any more. They pretend they do not have such a thing. This is where they play the “private” side of their “public-private partnership” to the hilt. We do not know what developers, financiers, and other Memphis power-players Benny Lendermon gets his marching orders from by telephone. But we can guess that Mr. Lendermon doesn’t make a move regarding, say, the Promenade without a phone call to a certain developer.
If you look on my site you’ll find the story of the Scorpion and the Frog. I don’t “hate” the RDC. They are doing what God made and conditioned them to do. Like the scorpion in the fable, they can’t help themselves. It is their nature. They are, after all, wannabe developer-tycoons (and former city employees). The sad part is that they are plainly incompetent in that role. But I do not even blame them for that. They’re obviously conflicted. Their true role was to serve as puppets and tools for the real developers, who needed the cover of a public-private partnership to make a land grab on the riverfront.
YOU: And finally, the person you quote about the project is someone who was released by one of the companies working on Beale Street Landing, and he did not ever work on the project.
A: I had figured that you and Lendermon would have the guy investigated within 24 hours and report back to us. Thanks for the update. But no matter. The truth is that all the RDC got out of that design contest was a bunch of pretty pictures from some “internationally-acclaimed” urban artists. They still had to pay millions to turn the design into something they could actually build. The boat dock alone cost a small fortune to figure out, due to it’s being “unique” in the world. Now the RDC spinmeisters are trying to blame SHPO and other regulators for it all. That is total b.s.
Any more questions?
Mike:
Be careful. If you ever fall off your high horse, you’re going to break your neck.
You have lost all sense of proportion and perspective on this issue, and we have other things to talk about, so we’ll not take the time correct all the misstatements, half-truths, and warped facts in your last comment.
No more questions at all. We just hate to see someone make this big a fool of themselves.
Its pretty clear from that post that Mr. Cromer has given up on persuading people, because I can’t imagine someone thinking that screed would do the job.
Apparently he was watching the 106 in a parallel universe, one where the streets are filled with milk, honey, and cobblestones.
Good Lord this Mike guy is really messed up. He tries to use a biased source and when someone points out the truth, he blames them for uncovering his blunder. If he’s willing to use very biased sources and twist so much of his information I see no reason to trust him or his website. If anything it seems like this guy has some kind of personal ax to grind. Mike, here’s another little tidbit for you to place along with your scorpion fable- those who live in glass houses should not throw the first cobblestone.
For the sake of discussion let’s say the project should not have been started and the money invested could have been better utilized; even if that is the case, Beale Street Landing is now underway and should be completed. Our riverfront is one of the most valuable resources belonging to the city of Memphis. The untapped potential is staggering. In order for Memphis to continue building toward being a destination of choice for visitors from around the world, investments have to be made into our future and Beale Street Landing should be one of those investments.
The efforts of the RDC have been instrumental in the vast majority of the improvements along Riverside Drive that we all now take for granted. The jihad waged by Mike Cromer to disparage Beale Street Landing and the RDC in particular is taking on the appearance of being a tad bit irrational. Does he have some personal financial stake in destroying a worthy project and demeaning good people? Who are the “money people” funding Mike’s war against the project? Inquiring minds want to know, hummm.
It WON”T be the most valuable IF the only reason it is being built is to put money in a few pockets, it will be another short changed project that doesn’t serve it’s basic purpose built on the hype of one that serves regardless of it’s short-changed-ness.
Past performance is no guarantee of future performance, especially in a drastically changing economy. There seems to be no timely or dynamic communication path to redirect this project, so, consider your self “a gambler” in the absence of being heard.
Memphis.
“No doubt, it is fair to demand an accounting of how we got into this mess. We should know how a project started before it was fully priced, before it was fully designed and before it was finally approved. …. We should hold the RDC and the other riverfront advocates responsible for their respective roles in this situation. But stopping isn’t really an option, is it?”
Fair?! How about, essential?
Agreed, stopping isn’t an option. Neither is forgetting. This fiasco reminds me of the missing floor of the garage. Nobody is ever held accountable for their mistakes. No wonder the citizens don’t trust the people who are making the big money decisions.
Has anyone sought to verify the RDC’s claims that they have saved the the city boat loads of money managing the riverfront? You know, like an actual accounting?
Thank you MARY!
I was hoping I wasn’t alone in demanding accountability.
Show me the NUMBERS.
Zippy:
Is it just me or do some of the comments seem like a huge overdose of faked outrage? Awfully defensive and why all the hate for Mike who posed some legitimate questions? Yeah, he’s angry but where was this level of vitriol at Branston’s highly critical piece about the RDC’s tactics recently?
The most thoughtful people in Memphis have always had their doubts about this project despite Smart City Memphis’ cheerleading. If they don’t like what we have to say, I suggest they stop shaking their pom-poms.
Heard that!
from 29.4 million to 33 million, when will it stop?
There needs to be an audit.
Who’s idea was it to look into their armpit and come up with a plan that has pitiful little retail involved?
ONE restaurant? All the eggs in one basket, stupid.
Get some private money and get some retail.
Ever been to Little Rock’s River front area? It’s kicking butt right now.
They didn’t put all their eggs in one basket. I suggest this team talk to Jimmy Moses before doing anything else outdated and stupid.
No one is “shaking pom poms”; but we do see the need to continue the development of our riverfront, and presently the group in the best position to ensure that improvement is the RDC. Sure require an accounting, but to stop the project after the size of the current investment is insanity. The City needs to see this project through. Memphis will be much better for it.
Opponents criticize the investment and the project in total. They would have Memphis simply walk away from the investment of millions and millions of dollars with no thought to the size of that loss. Well I believe it makes much more sense to provide the small amount of additional funding and complete the project. Beale Street Landing will certainly be a catalyst to attract more and more Memphians downtown to our beautiful riverfront.
Zippy, maybe you missed it, but FFOR wants little to no retail- just check out their web page. In fact they consider any degree of permanent private development as some sort of cancer that should be prevented from intruding on the grand public space. From what I understand after talking to one of the reps of the RDC- the initial impulse was to include more retail and commercial space, but a compromise was reached in order to try and pacify some of the anti- BSL crowd. The RDC does one thing and everyone says Booo!, they try the other direction and everyone says Booo! It still amazes me anyone would want to invest themselves in town that has no idea how to achieve a set goal or can’t decide what the goal should be in the first place.
Or better yet, when they are trying to accomplish something they see as positive, there is always a crowd reminding them of how idiotic their plan is, how it is doomed to failure and how they, the crowd, could do so much better.
Like I said, move forward. Post haste.
SCM’s advocacy on behalf of the consolidation movement has been more subtle and without the hyperbole of the BSL postings although there is no doubt where they stand on that issue. Don’t believe me, read the archives. The postings are chock full of facts and data and SCM’s tone is persuasive, not ardent. Participants, even those who disagree, are treated with respect and aren’t labeled fools. You really can do better than that, can’t you?
Perhaps I’m comparing apples and oranges because how does one quantify the potential benefits of the BSL other than to suggest it will bring more people to the river?
My two cents from a faithful reader.
I can guarantee you that no retail, one restaurant, and not much else will not bring people to the river front for very long.
If you don’t have enough retail, there becomes no attraction for locals and nothing to hold tourists for long or in large enough groups to mean anything over the long run.
However, if you move towards more retail, more restaurants, you might be able to make it make sense.
No retail? What are people supposed to be attracted to, staring at the same thing all day everyday with no other attraction? Maybe you think they’ll stare at Bass Pro Shop, hahaha.
There is NO Bass Pro Shop.
What do they get from going to the new riverfront development that they can’t get anywhere else? To say they were there? Not enough.
One restaurant?
Gordon Ramsey would be yelling his head off at you. You better have one super-stellar restaurant and the employees better learn to wash their hands!
In Little Rock they go to get stuff that they can’t get anywhere else nearby, news, news station, foods, soups, bread, BBQ (that’s right), flowers, Sushi, bakery stuff cookies donuts cakes and pies, hear live music, a library, clothing stores, Africana, a museum of discovery, apartments, Arkansas stuff, and lots of other stuff. TONS of restaurants within 2 blocks, more than 11! LOTS of attractions in a really nice and opulent atmosphere. All that was before the Clinton Library!
And here we are in 2010, talking about putting zero attractions down there.
…………
It’s unfathomably bizarre.
……….
WHERE is the money that has already been spent?!
………..
Show us the receipts!!!!!
Get BSL built. I love the fact that we actually had a design competition in this town that did not involve the usual list of suspects. I’m disappointed that it has turned into such a fiasco.
RDC- post BSL, please go back and rethink the riverfront. The variables have changed- what with opposition killing the land bridge and thus eliminating much of the private financing that was going to pay for all the proposed improvements and the economy going into the drink. Memphis has real issues with short vs. long term memory. Whatever the plan may be, please drill the fact that the results could take up to 50 years to accomplish into the thick skulls of the citizenry. They will eventually get it. New Yorkers got it and the planning done in the 70’s is just now coming online, but the road was a bumpy one.
FFOR- please learn to compromise. Restoring the riverfront to the “glory days” of the late 19th century is a great goal. However, without modern and contemporary attractions, who will come to see the restored cobblestones? As always it is a balanced approach and from what I have read and seen on the websites, it appears that the RDC was proven more willing to incorporate a variety of uses and ideas than your organization. Please learn to compromise less what little desire and momentum remains to overhaul the riverfront evaporates.
Yeah, add more retail and such and it’s a winner instead of a loser, well, it could be.
Evidently I was too brutal when I posted on this topic before because it seems as though my comments were removed.
By the way, does anyone here respect “anonymous? What the hell good is a comment if the author doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to put his name behind it? THOSE are the comments that should be pulled. But I digress……
Let me try to be gentle.
The problem here is that my good friend Lendermon is too much of a gentleman and pays far too much respect to fringe kooks and groups like “Friends for Our Riverfront”.
We are all allowing the discussion of far too many meaningless issues to get in the way of doing the right thing. The right thing is to finish BSL WITHOUT ANY REGARD
for those complaining.
The RDC has the standing, connections and clout to squash these fools and it’s time to do it. At the end of the day when the ribbon cutting ceremony takes place nobody is going to remember the old farts that got trampled over along the way.
You don’t want to be the bad guy? Why not? Is being polite to bullying buffoons really delivering the results you want? You’re gonna get attacked no matter what you do. Benny! RDC…. give the sunsabitches something to really be mad about.
Win, That’s what matters. Thats what the cotton traders did. They didn’t discuss how their actions would affect anyone else. They had courage and focused on doing what worked for them. RDC, please do the same.
Grab a firm grip on the pliers, squeeze on the tooth and yank the damned thing out.
I am Tommy Volinchak and I approve this message.
If you don’t like my message e mail me and I will smack you down some more. tommy@tunemanproductions.com
Hey, you know what? I approve of this message so much that if you don’t like it you can call me 901.949.2128
Ask For Testiculus Maximus.
* RDC………. hire me as a special consultant. I will get your funding, I’ll crush your cockroaches and I won’t go to one single public hearing or meeting to do it.
* Cromer….. call me, I’ll buy lunch.
Tommy: No comments have been removed.
Zippy: We’ve not seen a market study that’s shown more retail would succeed because of our market realities. (See Peabody Place.) If we can lure some retail, we hope they’ll be in the CBID.
Mary: Are you talking about the comments or the posts themselves? We think the posts have been consistent, but we admit that Mike’s revisionist history and inability to see the mote in his own eye do test every ounce of our patience (and apparently we’ve failed).
Funny, I was just reading the Shelby County Grand Experiment posting, and thought, this is why people read the Smart City Memphis blog. Brilliant!
I was referring to both the postings and your responses to those who leave comments on any topic other than BSL.