Buildings to Cherish: the Memphis Police Station at Second and Adams

I've driven past the old Memphis Police Station a thousand times, but walks past it this fall have really opened my eyes to its beauty and power. It's a special Memphis building, a beautiful Beaux Arts corner companion to the 100 year old Shelby County Courthouse.

Unlike the Courthouse, it's empty. And since Memphis has preferred bland empty void over beautiful empty space for 50 years, we have to be vigilant.

A good use would be as hotel since the building abuts the Civic Plaza. Guests could move to and from the convention center through the Plaza, giving that public space much needed life.

A visualization of the hotel/plaza connection.

I also think, no matter the use, its front steps and wall-defined lawn could be a special mini-public space of their own.

Public Meeting About the Cobblestones

This coming Tuesday, TDOT and the Corps of Engineers will host an important public information meeting regarding Memphis' plans for Cobblestones improvement. Details:

Tues., Aug. 11 -- 5:30 - 7:30 pm
The Balinese Ballroom
330 N. Main Street, Downtown

The Riverfront Development Corporation states

The purpose of the Historic Cobblestone Landing Restoration and Walkway Project is to stabilize and restore the Memphis Cobblestone Landing and provide limited usability, connectivity and accessibility improvements.

The Friends for Our Riverfront* and the blog Memphis Cobblestones both have many questions, real problems and tons of cool side information about the Cobblestones plan.

My questions:

1. will the improvements intentionally or effectively decommission the cobblestones as a boat landing?
2. will they harm the Cobblestone's status as a National Historic Landmark?

the RDC answers my first question, listing

• Continuation of and improvements to the docking of boats

as an objective.

No muddiness there, except that it's listed as objective 5 in a prioritized list. So my filtrated question for the RDC is,

"Forget prioritized objectives -- I want to land my boat on the Cobblestones. Will I be able to do this after the improvements?"

* despite its reputation as an opponent of the RDC, the FfOR and its skirmishes with the RDC have sharpened the spotlight on Memphis riverfront. In this case, the FfOR have really publicized a public meeting that will give the RDC a chance to pitch their cobblestone ideas.

The Very Visible

You might have seen the good news that the Visible School is purchasing Frances Gassner's endangered masterpiece, the C&I Bank Building:

Beside the saving of an icon, the Visible School's purchase and move adds to the further redevelopment and reVITALization of central downtown Memphis. Within 4 blocks we'll have 2 colleges adding their students to the same street and into the urban mix. An unprecedented number of young adults on the streets of downtown Memphis during business hours.

SK8Mud

The second round of public meetings for the Mud Island River Park Land Use Study are comingup this week. The actionists from Skatelife Memphis are asking that skatepark supporters, be they skaters or not, turn out. The meeting details:

1.Memphis Botanical Gardens
Tuesday May 12th, from 5:45 - 7:15 pm
Location: Memphis Botanic Gardens, 750 Cherry Road (near Audobon Park)


2. Downtown Meeting
Thursday May 14th from 5:45 - 7:15 pm
Location:MIRP Harbor Landing, 101 Island Drive (gate security will give directions) Basically drive to Mud Island and go through the security gates. It's on Mud Island.

Plus check out the findings from the first round.

To me these reports look like the skatepark supporters are making their voices heard loud and clear. There's opposition from Park Services (fearing competition for their much anticipated neighborhood skatepark) and the Regional Chamber (for reasons unknown) to a Mud Island skatepark but every other stakeholder group appears to support or be neutral on it. And the support for it at the open meetings has dwarfed every other idea.

I don't know what will be presented on Tuesday and Thursday but I think skatepark's too big to completely ignore. But look for the machinations of a powerful and secretive cabal of NIMBY geezers if the study recommends putting the skaters under the I-40 bridge, or some other unvisible location.

Return of Main @ Jefferson

I went to the Lowenstein Building opening on Wednesday and was happy to see this great project completed.

Also cool to see its across the street neighbor, the Courtyard Marriott ascending at Main @ Jefferson. This is the visualization.


And this is the actualization, still in progress.

Hugely exciting to see the rebuilding of that corner.

I hope the local buildings can collaboratively use the new space and energy on the street.

By the way and along the way, this is what happens when you treat the street as incidental:

Don't waste the opportunity!

Light Addenda

Here's an another important question for the Triangle Noir section of my previous post:

How will this increase the prosperity and well-being of the residents of the affected public housing projects?

Also, for a progressive anti-poverty, pro-Hope VI perspective, read this blog post by Ryan Fowler, which I discovered after he left this comment.

Light

Memphis has recently publicized 2 major initiatives with huge real estate angles, Triangle Noir and the Parks Services Master Plan.

As these move forward, backward, sideways, into the shadows, under the cone of silence and back through the echo chamber, we must ask hard questions of everyone -- the public officials, the businesspeople, the citizens --- not just the politicians! -- involved with them.

For instance, re: the Parks Services Master Plan:

1. Who's on the committee?
2. What's the proportion of citizen representation to business representation?
3. How much of that is developer representation?
4. Do any of the representatives have contracts with the city?
5. Do any of the representatives have relatives who work for the city?
6. Do any of the representatives have private dealings with the Mayor?
7. Are any possible divestitures in the vicinity of major city led developments, e.g., Uptown, Fairgrounds, etc.
   

or for Triangle Noir:

1. Why is it necessary to remove anybody from the Triangle Noir? Isn't there enough space to infill?
2. Hasnt' the public housing being recently renovated? How is it dilapidated?
3. How does this improve Memphis outside of Downtown?
4. How will we pay for the elderly housing required in the rest of the city?
5. Are there enough Section 8 vouchers available to everyone scattered by Triangle Noir?
6. Will eminent domain be used?
7. If so, will takings be given to private developers?
8. Are any of the possible developers on the Mayor's host committee?
9. Who owns property in the Triangle now?
10. What are their connections to city government?
11. What will Triangle Noir do to the mix of income in downtown Memphis?
    

I don't believe the questions are cynical. They're just the type of questions that should be asked anywhere the public realm is opened to exclusive private uses. Vigilantly asked by citizens and the press, and reasonably answered by independent means, they're an antidote to cynicism.

Public-private partnerships promise revenue and/or efficiency, but they will eviscerate the public realm, subvert public power to private ends and corrupt our democracy unless we ask and get answers.

Jefferson @ Main

Some thoughts about the new Courtyard Marriott going up at the corner of Jefferson and Main

• This is what the hotel will look like.
  
  
  I think it will give great visual presence to a long empty corner.
  


• That neighborhood's after hours density is about to skyrocket. You will also have the developing Court Square Center project and the Renaissance Apartments on 2 of the other 3 corners. That's in addition to the nearby
  
  Exchange Building,
  Madison Hotel,
  Goodwyn Institute,
  Porter Building,
  Claridge House,
  Springhill Suites,
  Sleep Inn,
  Comfort Inn,
  Marriott Residence Inn,
  67 Madison,
  Shrine Building
  University of Memphis Law School
  
  providing after hour residents, tourists and students, all within a 2 minute walk of each other.
  
  
  This could be the greatest density in the city.
  
  It's an opportunity to resurrect the center of Main Street, around Court Square, with street-level opportunities that can create an active, healthy, even transforming street life in an area affected by a disproportionate number of homeless and/or panhandlers.
  
  I think to restore a healthy, safe citizen mix, the Center City Commission must explicitly architect an active Main Street life. It can't expect that it will happen as a matter of course. It should encourage businesses -- bar, bistros, coffee houses, etc -- to open and to focus on the street with placement, use and hours. For instance, with the Courtyard visualization, the Jefferson side doesn't appear to have any entrances or exits, but the Main side does have umbrellas which hints at a commercial presence. But will it be a dull smoking plaza rather than street-level business that attracts nearby residents and tourists?
  
  Pretty blank walls, deprecated smoking plazas, and business-hour sandwich shops haven't, and won't, create an active street life. They are a real waste of this unprecedented density.


• Could the Center City Commission convince the 2 grocers at the northeast corner of Jefferson and Main to upgrade their wares and make the combination (and perhaps a 3rd in the empty corner) the promised downtown grocery store rather than a suburbish, pedestrian-unfriendly, downtown-fringe supermarket?


• While the block is finally looking urban again, Memphis has had to sustain a massive grayfield at this site for nearly a quarter of a century. It's taken that long for the Main, Jefferson, Front, Court block to return to an near urban form.
  
  Speculative demolition does not magically regenerate the urban landscape -- it leeches value from it.
  

Detail from a Sinkhole

You've probably heard the good news about Amtrak service being restored to Central Station in Memphis after the sinkhole almost swallowed it.

When I saw the repair last Saturday, I noticed a little more good news.

When they rebuilt the retaining wall for the tracks, they detailed it the same way as the existing wall.

This is the wall as it's been for decades.

This is the new part of the wall, on the right, after the repairs.

They've replicated the detail, the planes and bands, of the original. Perhaps it was structurally necessary, but I doubt it. Since Memphis has had little respect for its public works architecture over the last few decades, seeing a detail as simple as this is a pleasure, and maybe a hope.

Thanks to everyone involved for getting rail service going again, and for respecting a simple, subtle detail.

Details texture Memphis.

Public and Private in an Art Town

I'm nothing if not a delayed reaction, but a week ago Friday a Commercial Appeal editorial, while advocating a worthy alternative for the Promenade, stated that the

idea represents a good compromise between the goals of the Riverfront Development Corporation, which wants to bring more vitality to that part of the waterfront, and the Friends for Our Riverfront, a citizens group that wants to preserve as much open space as possible.

This not only trivializes the difference between these 2 groups, factions, philosophies, it misstates the difference. From what I've seen both factions want vitality and open space.

The difference is how much of the Promenade will be privately developed and controlled, and how much will remain, or restored to, public use.

At core it's neither a technical nor aesthetic difference. It's a struggle between the public and the private, over the public realm. It's a central civic issue.

Not that we can't* or shouldn't compromise, but we can and should understand what we're compromising.

By the way, kudos to the Memphis Art Park for their proposal and for this audacious statement from their website:

We're an art town first and foremost.

Alright!

* maybe. There is also the legal issue, which is the public position written into an easement. It may not allow for compromise, but IANAL.

The Turnaround

Here's a couple checking out South Main last weekend.



A few feet later, the couple stopped, and turned around. They began walking back the way they came, towards Main and Calhoun.

My theory: they hit a walkability barrier. They came to the place where a street's enticements, human, visual, aural, etc., weren't strong enough for casual amblers to continue ambling. On a Saturday morning, there aren't many people on South Main above Butler, unless a special event is going on. So they turned around, right about here.

I'd think tracking, timing and interviewing turnarounds like this would be invaluable if you want to improve the street life of a neighborhood. And while looking for turnarounds, you can walk it yourself, opening yourself to the experience as a newcomer.

If you're wondering why I was stalking a couple with crappy photography, I was trying to get a picture for Sustainable Shelby.

Sculpture Garden on South Main

I love the sculpture garden that sprouted in the past week at South Main and Talbot.



It's a happy visual surprise.









I love the art and I love its setting, in a corner lot that's neither hyper-manicured nor abandoned. It has a beautiful old Tulip Poplar on the Talbot side, and bushes and small trees on the non-Main sides, to give it definition. The setting feels organically Memphis.



Congratulations to the students who put it together. They have added real economic value to South Main. The value should come back to them.

Chalk Architecture Saturday

Downtown Chalk Art Festival
all kids, adults & families welcome!

Saturday, September 6, 2008
rain date Saturday, September 20
9:30 am- 12:30 pm

Memphis Farmers Market 545 South Main Street (just west of Central Station)

New award categories! "Most Original", "Best Replica", and the "Professional Artist" and "Architecture Firm" division awards in addition to "Youth", "Team" and "Adult"
All supplies provided AND great prizes from the Art Center and Saint Francis Hospital given!

Register in advance to enter the competition, or just stop by and enjoy the other festival activities and select your "Best of Show". So make your grocery list and visit us at the market!

Several activities are on hand at no cost for kids and adults including a free style chalk area, "Balloon Man Mike", face painting, "Draw Dog" from the Art Center, and live music. Due to the generous support of our returning partners Saint Francis Hospital and the Art Center, this event continues to be free to all those who participate. Chalk provided for all pre-registered participants in the competition. Great prizes awarded in all categories.

To register and get more information go to www.aiamemphis.org or call 901.525.3818.

Completing Main Street

When the Center City Commission asked the public about returning auto traffic to Main Street, the public came out strongly against the idea.

There have been many arguments for returning traffic to Main. The CCC's retail consultant made the argument. The NEA Director of Design, Maurice Cox recommended it. His predecessor at the NEA, Jeff Speck, made it one of his 12 suggestions for Memphis.

Even if public sentiment for the pedestrian over the car is technically flawed from an urban design point of view, such sentiment is still a good, progressive sign for Memphis. And I want to point out that Speck had also suggested fixing the South Main knuckle, the walking discontinuity formed by the Main/Beale parking lot, MLG&W's mega-berm and parking garage, and the empty Chisca. I believe that the knuckle is a much greater obstacle to Main Street revitality. It cuts Main Street off from the energy of both South Main and Beale Street (which is itself auto restricted yet prospers). I don't think returning traffic without fixing the knuckle will fix Main Street.

The CCC will decide later this month what it will do. They could still open Main to traffic. At the very least, I hope the public's opposition will keep them from the more invasive, multi-million dollar projects. Maybe the opposition will lead the Commission to take Speck's specific advice and try a woonerf, a simple plan that would make the pedestrian and the car and the bike equals on Main.

Farmers Market on Front

Downtown's Memphis Farmers Market has been such a big success for downtown, I wonder if you could build on it, literally.

Presently MFM's great energy is bottled up behind the parking lot that surrounds it.


But if you moved the bus shelter to the west, about 50 feet,


so that it was flush with Front Street,


the Farmers Market could really energize Front. All without parking loss.

And with a more visible MFM home and energetic Front Street, perhaps MFM could expand its operations, slowly making it a persistent market and an incubating showcase for fledgling retail entrepeneurs. And to give it an even more permanent presence, you could build a corner office which could be a demo space for the entrepeneurs, a coffee house for the colder months, administrative offices, and an architectural advertisement for the Market.

Just thinking how Memphis can connect social energy and urban space to make more of both.

Fight Flight Blight

I read 2 days ago in the Memphis Business Journal that CCL Label was destroying their former downtown Memphis home. CCL didn't want to maintain the building, which is diagonally across from Autozone Park on Union, so they're bulldozing it.

I emailed Jeff Sanford, head of the Center City Commission, to express my opposition. He responded very quickly,

Unfortunately, there is no legal prohibition against this demolition. We are most concerned about conversion of this property to surface parking. We have conveyed our concerns to the property owner's broker. We are told the demolition is being done to reduce the increasing cost of maintaing a vacant building, and that the surface lot, which must meet certain code requirements, is an interim use until the property can be sold for a higher and better use. Small consolation although there is some hope because we are seeing considerable developer interest in this and other properties along the south side of Union west of Danny Thomas.

So this means that despite all the private and public capital invested, and the hard work of people like the CCC, a landlord can knock down a downtown building for no better reason they don't want to be bothered. After hearing over and over again from urbanists like Jeff Speck and Maurice Cox about the importance of walkability, we still have no protection from willful blightings that leave walking dead zones that inhibit commercial development (e.g., the Edge).

Without protection, downtown's development is at the mercy of speculative landlords who sustain value from their neighbors' investments even as their own cheap disinvestments subtract value from everyone else.

Meanwhile, a mile north, the CCC works on a plan to resuscitate the Pinch district, except that "one of the challenges to development in the area is 25 percent of its land parcels is comprised of vacant lots, parking lots or is home to vacant buildings, according to the CCC." The lion's share are lots created by willful, unchecked speculative destruction around the time the Pyramid was built.

We plan to fight after what we have no plan to fight before.

But fighting the blight after is expensive and slow.

Less expensive would be to fight it before, by denying demolition permits to anyone not in possession of a legitimate building permit for an approved use. A vacant lot or parking lot is not an approved use. We should add this at the very least to zoning for Memphis' South Central Business Improvement District.

At this point the destruction is at least half done. However if they want the interim use of a parking lot, they will still need a special exception that is subject to many conditions that must be approved by the City Council. I would like to remind the City Council that not only has this landlord destroyed a building on a gateway to downtown, they have fled the city taking their jobs and taxes with them. Memphis owes them nothing special.

The Core Idea

Whenever you have a limited pedestrian zone, and another, slightly distant, limited pedestrian zone, you're going to generate X pedestrians. If you connect them you'll generate 5-to-10X pedestrians. There's the incredible geometric relationship when you attach small systems into larger systems. The amount of pedestrians you generate is a geometrical outcome.

Jeff Speck, speaking to the Memphis Regional Design Center
about the walkability disconnect between
Autozone Park and Beale Street.

This was my favorite idea from Speck's talk, simple and powerful.

It should be at the center of all of Downtown's planning. It should be in every presentation that a Downtown leader makes.

Making walkable the spaces between Autozone Park and Beale Street, Beale Street and South Main, South Main and Main, and all of the above to the Bluff Walk and Tom Lee Park will produce the geometric outcome. And anything that disrupts the walkability, like the MLGW berm or the Main/Beale parking lot or the ill-advised Beale Street Landing surface parking lot, blocks that outcome.

Stop dreaming of the mythic East Memphis customer who would come Downtown if only there were convenient parking.

Start looking across the parking lot at the very many who are already here, at Beale Street, at Autozone Park, at South Main, at Tom Lee Park.

Plan how you will get them across the soon-to-be-formerly dull spaces, and how you will entertain the crowds that follow.

Where Do We Deserve an Urban Waterfront?

Wagner Place.


The Bluff and flooding have always separated downtown Memphis from the River. However, this location could very much satisfy Jeff Speck's suggestion for these reasons:

• Closest that urban downtown comes to the river.
  
  


• Smallest Bluff drop to the Riverfront.
  
  
  
• City of Memphis owns the property.
  


• No easements as with the Promenade, so it can be developed commercially.
  


• Adjacent with the Promenade so public developments like the University of Memphis Law School and extension of the Bluff Walk are perfectly complementary.
  


• Will create back-and-forth walking continuity between downtown and Tom Lee Park/Beale Street Landing/Cobblestones.
  


• It's presently a surface parking lot so (almost) any urban development is a step forward.
  


• If Memphis is serious about 2 other Speck suggestions -- fixing the 3rd St. Promenot and the Main/South Main knuckle -- we would have a continuous downtown from Autozone Park to Peabody Place to Beale Street to Main Street South Main to the Riverfront.
  


• Because the Cobblestones are a man-made extension onto the River and this site is in front of the Cobblestones, this would be very much an urban waterfront.
  


• Because it would be between the River and Autozone Headquarters/Waterford Plaza, any development would have to be the 3 or 4 story buildings that Speck used as in his presentation (example). Which for me is an advantage.
  

What are the downsides?