Here are a few more comments from readers regarding downtown and the future of Downtown Memphis Commission
38103 says:
It really does seem at this point it is a waiting game to see what happens with the downtown skyline. While much attention has gone to how frustrating it is to envision its potential, it is worth noting the smaller projects underway that warrant equal importance to the overall schematic. Also, if our visual scope is broadened to include areas such as the Edge district, Victorian Village, Crosstown, Soulsville, as well as Pinch, South Main and Urban Core, it’s how these areas develop and connect to downtown as well.
Smaller projects with innovation are deserving of appreciation as it is their efforts that are playing a huge role right now.
One example is a recent read on the Choose 901 post. A young architect, only 25, developing a small area in the Edge District, with three retail spaces and living studios adjacent, if I read it correctly.
Thomas Hill says:
Other cities provide an example for Memphis to emulate. Remove the blight and restore the result with parkland. Trees, walking and bike paths. Think outside the box. Deterioration has lasted too long already. Think renaissance. Make Memphis again a beautiful city on a one of a kind bluff setting. No other city had this one in the world kind of advantage. Think renewal. Let nature prevail where commerce has failed.
Anonymous says:
I live Downtown. I moved to Memphis two years ago from another Southern state — a top three in the Fortune/Forbes states in which to live, move, or retire.
I am a native Tennessean (not Nashville, so relax), and Memphis is one hot mess. Unless Memphians have lived in other booming Southern cities, Memphis seems okay. But the reality is different. The crime, poverty, education, jobs, and blight in Memphis are staggering. And we all hear it daily.
Crime is the first order. If this is not solved, few organizations will relocate, business or otherwise. Crime must be the reason Publix Supermarkets will not build here (they are in every other major city in the state). Next is infrastructure: roads, bridges etc. Stress technology. Why has Google Fiber not yet begun in Memphis? Why not entice Amazon or Apple to build centers here? Memphis seems about 10 years behind in technology.
There are many nonprofits who are doing incredible work here. Without nonprofits, Memphis could be headed toward an almost East St Louis destiny. Invite more nonprofits for startup. Get more churches and synagogues involved. No one thinks crime, poverty, poor education, and a lack of good jobs are acceptable. Though until the Memphis culture changes (e.g. zero tolerance for crime), little else will. And the faith communities should be well-positioned to address that task.
Why not ask every celebrity from Memphis to do a PSA, inviting people to consider moving?
Mayor Strickland should be all over every platform of media, all the time. He should be the best-known mayor in America. He is the chief brand ambassador. Is he visiting other cities to see what they have done to change their cities? Detroit has been rebranded (take a peek at Chrysler, Carhartt, Shinola etc.) as a cool place to live and work. Memphis can do the same.
Memphis has incredible potential. As a new resident, the Bluff City appears to be trending upward, but very, very slowly. Memphis didn’t get into this mess since 1977. What we now see has been percolating for nearly a century.
It will take some creative thinking, wise choices, risk-taking, and a long focus.
Ray Brown says:
During the last several years, the DMC has aggressively pursued both political and legal actions in repeated attempts to resolve the issues with 100 N. Main. As you may have seen in the news, a foreclosure and subsequent auction of the property has been postponed many, many times by the Environmental Court as the lender and owner spar.
Until the court finally forces a sale, and the property changes hands or goes into receivership, neither the DMC nor the City can act. Unfortunate in some ways, but that is how private property rights work. Likewise, although the circumstances are very different, the Sterick has its own issues with private ownership that prevent any public agency from taking substantial action.
Downtowns develop incrementally. Over time, small scale developments add up to large impacts in vitality as more and more people come to enjoy and experience the unique urban qualities of a downtown. Remember that downtowns are experienced by people at street level. A bright, shiny skyline can be impressive, but that must follow from the individual interventions along the streetscape.
Although we’d all like to see downtown Memphis filled from end to end with stores and restaurants, and more importantly, people, we should take heart from the activity one can experience nightly between Union Avenue and the Orpheum, or along Third Street from AutoZone Park to Beale.
Encouraged by that activity, more and more small developers are purchasing buildings north of Union and reviving them for housing, and in some cases, small entrepreneurial retail. Admittedly it’s not the same as having an Apple store on Main Street, but each of these independent shops adds activity that is slowly spreading. It hasn’t yet reached critical mass where it begins to explode, and there are still plenty of “missing teeth” along the street, but the trend is positive and worthy of our collective support.
Big moves such as the repopulation of the Sterick are unlikely to happen soon. Nevertheless, lots of little moves made over time might add up to something better.
Marie L says:
We also live downtown. It is certainly not the best larger city downtown by a long shot, but rents in Memphis are fairly cheap. I guess the lower housing costs are because downtown is so gritty. There have been just far too many car break-ins and harassment by sketchy types while walking that we are looking to move elsewhere and that’s probably to east Memphis. We just don’t feel safe in downtown Memphis and that’s really a shame. We love our apartment but the atmosphere and environment of downtown is just too sketchy.
Andersson says:
Memphis needs to extend the trolleys out to Cooper Young. People enjoying Memphis nightlife should be able to board a tram from CY and Overton Square to get to Downtown. Ideally the trolley should take a turn from Cooper and Southern and arrive at the university. A student discount tram ticket could be popular. So now we have nightlife goers and students using the trams.
Right now the trolley suffers from not existing and having a point A but no point B. It ends in the middle of nowhere on Madison. Who would take it anywhere? Complete it to Cooper Young at least and incentivize the development of grocery stores and dense residential projects around tram stops. I would also like modern streetcars to be used on this Midtown line. Memphis needs a modern streetcar to show Memphians what is possible. Look to the future and not to the past. The old trolley’s are cute as a tourist attraction, but if we want to be a relevant city, we need modern trams.
A successful tram line would be the first step to growing public transportation in the city.
The city needs a heart. A heart is where people meet and where festivals are had. Memphis in May needs to have a month long celebration on Main Street. Set up market stalls and hold events there. The honored country should have a greater presence here. Have a (Poland/Sweden/Canada/Colombia) Festival there. Court Square is absolutely forgotten, except for Food Truck Thursdays. This could be the main attraction for these festivals.
People need to be able to live here (access to everyday needs like groceries) and they need to be able to get here (easy to use public transit). Unfortunately Memphis is prisoner to car culture, so most people can only drive downtown. If they aren’t confident they can find parking, they won’t go. Car culture has dealt a serious blow to the livability of Memphis.
So maybe start at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid. Food, shelter, and safety first.
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I would never bet on better public transit. Memphians are not going to use it unless they have no car. The trolleys show just how poor the transit authority really is. Like others said before something needs to be done about those two old skyscrapers that are so ugly and so empty. It’s embarrassing to see downtown at night with those buildings dark and empty.
It’s chicken and egg. Right now no one can get to public transit and they don’t know where it goes. How many opportunities have you encountered where it is even a viable alternative to your usual commute?
There is a stigma against buses, I don’t hold any hope that the city will ever embrace them. Taking MATA buses would add hours to commutes. Streetcars have fixed lines. People know where they are, where they go, and roughly how long it takes to get from A to B.
Currently we have a trolley line that goes nowhere. The trolleys are not even operational since they didn’t even know how bad past maintenance was until they got in for a closer look.
Don’t judge the trolleys as a failure when it is incomplete and apparently designed to fail from the beginning. It’s a bridge to nowhere.
They need to focus on creating a line that takes people where they want to go. Start with what will work.
I was told a long time ago that the Sterick is unsafe in the event of an earthquake. They had me in there to repair the nice plaster in the lobby but it never happened (for me at least.) Susan Sarandon’s law office was located in the Sterick in a movie filmed here.
The part of downtown from Monroe north seems always really empty with lots of empty stores. The Cook convention hall is in need of help. We just don’t have many conventions and it seems mostly empty every day when I park nearby. I just don’t know how you can expect more people when there is not much of a draw to bring them downtown.
That’s because the Convention & Bureau has long been led forever by the incompetent good ole boy Kevin Kane. He’s more interested in his ownership of clubs than in the CVB. He and the city have let the convention center become obsolete. No good hotels downtown to attract meetings here. Even COGIC doesn’t hold its meetings in Memphis.
In Memphis if you get a job – running the airport for example like Larry Cox or running the C&VB – they are lifetime jobs. We never bring in outside talent – because Fred Smith needs to control every hire -or experts from other cities – its always who you know not what you know.
The single biggest threat to the health of Memphis is Berlin Boyd. He is a product of the Republicans at the Chamber of Commerce. He’s unqualified, small minded, lacks any vision and is now working with other right wing council members to kill city agencies and the arts (both hated by Republicans). He has no idea what makes a city successful in 2017 – but then again neither does the Mayor or most members of the council. If we don;t counter Chamber spending w/ big city well educated leadership – like Nashvilles Mayor – we will remain as we are.
I had tried to forget about the disaster named Larry Cox who held the same job 30 years and turned our airport into nothing but a cargo hub. Yes Fred Smith “owned” Larry Cox who is now drawing over $300K per year in his retirement pension.
It really hurts the business of the entire city to have only about 83 passenger flights per day on all of the airlines combined. It’s pathetic that Memphis still only has one daily non stop flight to all of California.
You are right that Memphis rewards people like Larry Cox and Kevin Kane who never ever leave. They are stagnant and it is one of the reasons business and economic development in Memphis is so backward and so very weak. We need fresh talent and new leaders so bad.