Wall Cities

I saw a bunch of framed prints depicting scenes of nostalgic urbanism for sale at a strip mall thrift store last week.

A European village,

a European city,

and a New England village.


I only saw one print depicting suburbanism. It was an architectural visualization* for a suburban motel. Probably a Hampton Inn.


I imagine that visualization hung on the office wall of the motel's architect, developer or owner until they couldn't look at it anymore, while the former images hung on a living room wall of a home, perhaps not far from the strip mall.

You probably won't see the motel image on a living room wall in a house close to the motel. And you probably wouldn't see brick and mortar urban village neighborhoods on the streets close to the homes where their images hung.

We all might crave beauty in our built and natural environment, but flattened wall hangings appear to be one way (along with nostalgia, knicknacks, theme parks, vacations and migration) we can ignore its absence on our streets.

*idealized. The mature if boring trees in front probably wouldn't have made it through construction. The robust stand of trees in back would already have been whacked for a parking lot or speculative clearcut for more highway commercial use. And despite a hefty parking lot, there are no cars in front of the motel.

Innovation Should Become Deloach

Why does the incredibly wide Deloach Street, just across Central from the University of Memphis, prohibit parking on its east side? The neighborhood has a huge need for parking, historically satisfied with destructive surface parking lots, yet the east side of the street is roped off.

Why?

Possibly...

• public safety. Yet the street is incredibly wide and would almost certainly allow 2 cars to pass each other simultaneously. Public safety vehicles would have plenty of room to get in and out -- if they even used that path.
  


• to avoid competition with the parking fees of nearby institutions -- the University and the University Holiday Inn.
  


• use as an arterial road. It does have traffic lights on its Central end, where Innovation Drive empties out of the University. But there are no lights where it terminates at Poplar so it seems of limited use for that.
  


• the residents don't want the parking. But the east side is the increasingly institutional and decreasingly residential, side with the Holiday Inn taking up a good half of the block. The west side is still completely residential and allows parking.
  

Here's a chance to freely add ~50 parking spaces to the area without building an expensive parking garage, or ripping up more of the University District's neighborhood. An urbanism approved solution that would only require a few revolutions of a screwdriver.

Also, people walking down the east side of the street would be an opportunity for the Holiday Inn -- the lone commercial presence in the neighborhood -- if the hotel had fronted their part of the street with a hotel rather than a storm water mud grass pit.

Sustainability is Fun

How do you sell sustainability? How can sustainability persuade ?

As a certified product of Catholic schools, I can assure you guilt isn't the answer. Neither is sacrifice.

But fun is. Or can be. Should be.

Fun how? Say, for instance, by

• building compact homes and businesses, we'll densely and imaginatively create intimate private and connected public space. We'll fill gas-powered emptiness (aka berms and parking lots) with human creativity and social energy.


• making creative challenges out of reuse, we'll make the thrift store a quarry and a game show.


• concocting local recipes from local foods, we'll show that barbecue was just an appetizer.


• learning and sharing with the rest of the world, we'll help the Live Web finish tearing down the Magnolia Curtain (leaving the magnolias, of course). Memphians will be connected to the good and fun ideas around the world, and across town.

Sustainability requires creativity. Creativity produces fun. Fun brings more people to sustainability.

Go to the Park!

Being my usual underachieving self, I haven't updated much recently. I did write something for the Citizens to Preserve Overton Park however. It's the results of an experiment me and a crackerjack Gates Of Memphis Research team performed last month.

In an acorn, what temperature difference does the Old Forest make vs. nearby urbanized areas?

Remember When Ugly Was a Parking Lot?

While it dreams of a world-class Beale Street Landing, the Riverfront Development Corporation plans a surface parking lot for the entrance.

The original design is arguably great! horrible! okay. Build it and we will see. But this revised plan to pave part of Tom Lee Park shows no faith in the design, and no vision for the riverfront's future that hasn't been discredited in Memphis' recent past.

RDC President Benny Lendermon's statement of his problem -- that it's too far to walk from the nearest parking lot, especially for excursion tourists -- may be reasonable. But his solution is the same old gray slab. One more anti-urbanist, drive-up experience, another atom in a disconnected downtown. It will disconnect BSL from Tom Lee Park, the Bluff Walk and their hordes of walkers. It will frame the architect's vision with SUVs hidden behind remedial crape myrtles.


If you're to sponsor talks by urban visionaries who place walking at the center of city livability, you can't respond with walk-killing asphalt. Its time to build the new world. Right now.

For instance, why not allow on street parking on Riverside? Riverside is presently a launch pad and tail hook for I-55. Memphis has no need for that much speed in that spot. If it can survive a month completely blocked, Riverside can survive year-round with 30 mph traffic. Allow on street, parallel parking from Beale Street to Coppock Park. It will provide convenience at no cost, other than the salary of the guy who has to unscrew the No Parking signs and screw in the 2 Hour Parking signs. It will slow the traffic on Riverside, creating more (or impeding less) pedestrian flow between Downtown and the Riverfront, which can only be good for Beale Street Landing.

If you want to read/hear about the parking lot and more about our riverfront, go to the Memphis Cobblestones. Its author, Mike Cromer, has been attending, recording, transcribing (!!!), then posting the City Council's budget hearings with the Riverfront Development Corporation.

Grow Your Soul: Share

Praises to Soul Fish Cafe and their very progressive attitude about parking.



Sharing helps optimize parking in Cooper-Young. This creates less pressure on everyone to have a proprietary parking lot. Less pressure is good for the district's other businesses and good for its space and architecture. The neighborhood texture is less likely to disappear in a cloud of parking-lot expired destruction. More density, energy and people -- customers -- in Cooper-Young, giving Soul Fish an attraction beyond its good food.

Contrast their sharing with the report of this Letter to the CA Editor:

I went to the Memphis Italian Festival on Friday, but as I pulled in to the Eastgate shopping center to park, as I have in past years, security guards ran me out. Have you ever seen this parking lot more than a quarter filled? I haven't, and over a three-day period, how much does it cost the shopping center's owners to pay for all that security, just to protect an empty parking lot?

Courtesy via the ever helpful Google, about quarter full might be right.


So they paid security guards, shunned patrons of a good cause and ignored those patrons' casual business (e.g., for this young man's employer, halfway between the Italian Festival and the parking lot), so they could stake a claim to their half-used asphalt heat sink.

Soul Fish's progressive welcome should be the vanguard for civic parking policy. "One business, one parking lot" development rips the texture and energy out of Memphis' districts and neighborhoods.

Unbuilt Projects: Memphis without Echo Chambers

For its recent Architecture Design Awards, the Memphis AIA used a panel of Toronto architects as judges. As the Commercial Appeal reported, it did it "to better ensure an unbiased selection of winners."

Openness to non-local ideas and criticism is important everywhere, and in all endeavors. Openness is particularly important for Memphis, where dysfunctional idea networks (aka, echo chambers, daisy chains, dreamcatchers, kereitsu) have often given local currency to universally bad ideas.

A bad idea like, say, the Regional Chamber's plans to replace the C&I Bank Building with a surface parking lot.

While all six designs stood out among the others, the Adaptive Re-Use of C & I Bank Building at 200 Madison caught the eye of the jurors right away. The redesign by Archimania received an Award of Merit.

Much controversy has surrounded the building known for its sloped glass roof and large atrium foyer in recent months. Bought by the Memphis Regional Chamber, the building was later deemed financially unfeasible for the chamber to move into, and discussions of replacing the building with a parking lot have buzzed through the city.

"Our primary interest was in the purpose of the design to find an appropriate way to rehabilitate the building," said Barry Sampson, principal of Baird Sampson Neuert Architects and assistant dean of facilities and design at the University of Toronto. "We felt it should remain in the city, and we would like to see ongoing efforts to retain this building."

Toronto architects shouldn't have to tell Memphis to save it, but thankfully they did.

Big Box in the Square

Jeramia of OnMemphis linked to my previous post on Overton Square (thanks, Jeramia!) and noted a CA comment against a big box retailer moving into Overton Square. Quoth Jeramia in response:

That would be truly awful, just imagine all the Midtowners shopping and spending money so close to their homes. It’s frightening to imagine that those people might even walk or ride bikes to the store rather than hop in their cars and drive to Wolfchase.

I’m not sure how a big box retailer could possibly be worse than empty buildings.

I should say, it wasn't me who expressed the concern. Nor am I opposed to that use. I do shop from time to time in large retailers.

It's not the big that's the problem for me, it's the box.

If they build it suburban style, with parking and the box exposed to the street, it adds nothing permanent to the neighborhood. Yes, we save a few miles driving, but we will still drive because we won't want to walk. The slight convenience will be overshadowed by the visual pollution and exposed dagger it permanently plunges in the Heart of the Arts.

If they build it to blend with classical midtown storefront, streetfront architecture, parking above or below the store, or at worst, recessed behind a masonry wall on a side street (see the parking lot of the Southern College of Optometry as an example), then it will add to the neighborhood and make it a better place. They could build a pedestrian entrance on Cooper that matches the storefronts on Madison, giving the complex two strong pedestrian entries, and a richer mixed use and look. Then they could make the driving entrances on either Monroe or Trimble. The pedestrian entrance from Madison could be from the clock tower over Trimble to the store. Fun for the kids, fun for me.

Shopping is a commodity.

Create value. Create place.

Expansion of the Beast?

Last Saturday's CA article on the relocation of Le Chardonnay and Bayou Bar and Grill quoted Jimmy Lewis, real estate agent for the people who own Overton Square, about the rest of the complex:

Palm Court, the former TGI Friday's restaurant and the space at the corner of Madison and Cooper, formerly occupied by Club Vortex and The Looney Bin, are functionally obsolete and could impede any future sale or redevelopment of the property.

"Either it has to be made efficient or something else has to be done," Lewis said. "The owner is trying to figure out the best option and that is what is being studied right now."

Mr. Lewis' comment reminds me of this from an earlier article in the Memphis Daily News:

Overton Square Investors LLC recently demolished a building on Cooper that used to house Cancun's restaurant. The building had been vacant for about five years and Lewis described it as "beyond rehabilitation."

"Functionally obsolete" sounds like "beyond rehabilitation" in utero.

I might end up adding both to this list.

By the way, Tuscany (formerly La Tourelle) has closed. 3 businesses with 60+ years in those original locations now gone. What did they have in common? Their customers could see the ever-expanding Beast.

Strings Now Minus Things

What I'd heard about the redevelopment of the Strings and Things building on Madison sounded great -- until today. Passing by I noticed that they've bulldozed part of the original building, the covered parking lot.


Now, they may be planning on building a new building in the old footprint, or perhaps fill it with a very developed people space (as opposed to a car space) like the walled beer garden that My Midtown Memphis mentions. But Mike, commenting on the My Midtown Memphis post says that "most of this will become parking."

Please God, don't tell me they've torn down an existing parking garage in order to "build" a surface parking lot. A parking garage that used the original building.

We'll see if God tells me. If anyone else has any special knowledge, let us know.

The Empty: Triage

Assuming that we won't be able to fill all of our empty buildings in the next year:

What kind of empty should we have?

1. Do we want the empty of a surface parking lot or vacant lot?
2. Or do we want the empty of a standing structure?

One of the most frustrating ideas that regularly circulates these parts states:

"that old building is not being used, so we should tear it down."

That's it. That's the idea.

If it were followed by

"and replace it with a community center",


or


"a high-rise hotel",

or


"an art museum",

or


"a school"

it would be a (more) palatable idea. But so few times do I hear the second part, what will replace it. Tearing it down solves the problem of the empty building.

No doubt, an empty building can be a visual reminder of economic decline. But that's only up close. No one looking at the Sterick Building from Interstate 40 or from the Peabody can tell if it's being used or not. From more than a block away, emptiness is an abstraction, but its vision is real. Remove the building and emptiness is real.

But, forget vision for a second. We want the buildings, or the land they're on, to be used. One of the arguments that support vacant lot/parking lot demolition/replacements is that these are just halfway houses to real development. Demolish the building, remove its ADA/HVAC/water damage/asbestos/etc. problems, clear the land, and it will be good and ready for the next developer to step up.

Except they don't step up. Even if you accepted this as a reasonable tradeoff, Memphis history shows that the promised development never comes or comes too slowly to base civic policy on.

Think of the 30+ years that the areas around Beale Street sat empty except for surface parking, the 20+ years that the once building filled block surrounding Morgan Keegan has sat nearly empty.

Despite being contractually obsolete as an arena for 5 years, the Pyramid is still surrounded by a dead sea of surface parking lots. Despite being surrounded by some of the hottest real estate in Memphis, the site of the Eureka Hotel is as desolate as when the last bulldozer drove off 2+ years ago.

A quarter of downtown is filled with surface parking lots, yet destroyers and their apologists cite future development as justification for demolition of more buildings. The fact stands that speculative demolition, the New UrbanRenewalism, does nothing (except destroy history, architecture and the fabric of the city). Destroys without creation. Destroys.

And we still have the problem of the empty.

The "tear 'er down" faction advocates amputation with a spurious promise that the limb will grow back better and newer than ever. What we need is urban triage that keeps Memphis whole while we decipher the problem of the empty.

If the C&I Bank Building is saved from the Regional Chamber's plan to add 15 parking spaces by 2012, it will be a half-victory. The full victory is when the building is bought and used by an organization that is committed to its preservation. An empty building is not good enough.

An empty lot is sure as hell bad enough.


(photo at top courtesy of Justin McGregor)

Memphis Destroys

Reasons why the Regional Chamber's plan to destroy Francis Gassner's C&I Bank Building stinks:

1. They're going to tear down the building, a very distinctive building.
   


2. They're going to replace it with a surface parking lot. Not with another building, not with a parking garage, but with a surface parking lot!
   
   Maybe there are no nearby surface parking lots.
   
   
   


3. The architect of the building is the late Francis Gassner, the namesake architect of the Memphis AIA's premier award. The award "honors architects and others from associated businesses for their contributions to the quality of the built environment in Memphis."


4. The surface parking lot will be diagonally across Madison from the AIA's headquarters.
   


A spaceless insult to the AIA's award and their vision.


5. The Chamber's pitch, by Nick Clark, chair of the Chamber's facilities committee:
   

   "It would be a vacant piece of land that wouldn't be a detriment to Downtown as well as provide an asset in terms of providing parking for AutoZone Park and surrounding buildings, including First Tennessee," Clark said.

   (emphasis mine)
   
   He adds:
   

   "The challenge we face is if we make a choice to preserve this building how does it impact our ability to preserve surrounding buildings?"

   Does that mean that the Chamber will make it a mission of theirs to preserve the Sterick Building? If so, then I retract everything most everything some of what I write here. But is that what it means? Or is the statement using the Sterick Building as an architectural shield to get something they want?
   


6. This approval (or apology) by one of Memphis' architects and leaders:
   

   Frank Ricks, founding member of Looney Ricks Kiss architects, said he understands both sides of the issue.
   
   "In one sense I'd hate to see it torn down, but for years I've thought that piece was probably an important component to the redevelopment to that section of Madison Avenue," Ricks said.
   
   Ricks faced a similar issue with the development of AutoZone Park and the surrounding neighborhood, which required the destruction of historic stables.
   
   "You hate to see any building that was significant torn down but in order to get the ballpark built we had to take down the old stables on Monroe," he said. "And look what happened because of it."

   What happened was not a surface parking lot. If the Chamber has an architectural peer of AutoZone Park envisioned, they should/would lead with that, not "a vacant piece of land that wouldn't be a detriment".
   

There's a Hole in the Heart of the Arts

Here is the Heart of the Arts.

And here is the Hole in the Heart of the Arts.


Yes, I'm talking about my old arch-nemesis -- the Overton Square big-ass parking lot.

It's an asphalt tarmac big enough (and perhaps decreated) for a Wal-Mart, as artless as Midtown gets. It mocks the idea of a pedestrian arts district. It and its smaller brethren across Madison have made Overton Square into a convenience store.

It destroys the energy, leaks the life, out of the Heart of the Arts.

If HotA is to be more than marketing website, if it's to be a real Arts district based on pedestrian proximity to its great organizations, then that Hole must be torn up.

HotA has a great concept with its plans/hopes/dreams for a mini-greenway between Overton Park and Overton Square. And a special connection needs a special space as destination.

Dig up that asphalt and smush it into public art.

Fill the Hole.


Update: bad form -- didn't mention my source for this info. It was the recent edition of the Cooper Young Lamplighter. I just discovered it was online so you can read the article about the Heart of the Arts launch there. That's where I saw mention of the greenway.

PPS on Parking

Despite what you may have heard, nobody goes to a place solely because it has parking.
...
The hang-up on parking is an indicator that a community has no broader vision for itself.

Ethan Kent in "Finding a Place for Parking"

Mr. Kent also made these points at the riverfront placemaking session last Saturday.

Besides asserting parking as a means and not a destination, the essay has practical steps for rationalizing parking without harming the reason for parking -- places.

Big Changes Planned for the Colosseum

From this morning's paper:

Staging a Colosseum Makeover
April 1, 2007

Memphians on trips and vacations have long enjoyed the many diversions available away from the Bluff City -- sightseeing, eating, swimming, drinking, snorkeling, relaxing, walking.

Walking? Well, most of the diversions. An oft-cited complaint from Memphians traveling abroad is the lack of parking in their favorite destinations.

But in an agreement being worked out between officials in Memphis and Rome, this could be a problem relegated to the dustbin of history -- along with an underused part of the Roman Colosseum.

Sources close to the landmark deal, who requested confidentiality, say a tentative plan to convert part of the historic Roman structure to parking has been agreed upon by officials in Memphis and Rome.

The plan was hatched in early 2005 by local business leaders after a recent trip to Rome turned inconvenient. Sensing an opportunity, they enlisted the support of the mayors of Memphis and Shelby County, who quickly put together a blue-ribbon working group of local business, political and cultural leaders. A study was commissioned which predicted a 21.7% increase in visits of Memphians to Rome if the parking situation improved. The study also pinpointed the Colosseum, centrally located and mostly underused, as an excellent choice for a new parking facility.

That was all the working group needed to hear. They immediately began discussions with elected officials in Rome, hoping to have a deal in place by the end of 2006. But the talks hit an immediate roadblock. Citing strong citizen opposition, the Italian delegation was reluctant to convert the landmark Colosseum to parking.

"This was a make-or-break time for the deal" says one source close to the discussions. "If we couldn't get Rome's Mayor and other influential politicians on-board, the deal wasn't going to happen." The working group knew that the whole plan was in danger if they didn't act -- and act decisively.

They flew the Roman officials to Memphis in William Tanner's private jet for further discussions. After a week of wining, dining and meetings with officials of local government, the Romans were persuaded.

"It makes sense", says local developer James Sheltie. "Rome becomes a much more sought after destination if the parking situation improves. This is a win-win for the citizens of Memphis and Rome." In fact, in an internal Regional Chamber survey, 50% of Memphis businessmen polled said they would return to Rome if the parking situation improved, 25% indicated that they would return either way, and 15% stated that parking had soured them on Rome permanently (the other 10% were undecided).

The plan calls for a small percentage of the Colosseum to be demolished to allow entry and exit for the new parking facility. While Roman preservation groups have vigorously opposed the plan, officials note that over 70% of the existing structure will be retained. "This is a great plan that addresses both convenience and history. Over 70% of the existing building will be there for the citizens of Rome and Memphis to enjoy indefinitely" says the working group's land-use consultant Zee McGarrett.

Others note ominously that if this plan doesn't go through, complete demolition could be the next step for the Colosseum. "The Mayors of Rome and Memphis have made it clear that convenient parking for Memphians is a major priority of both cities. I don't think that's going to change" says one source close to the plan.

Demolition is to begin next month, with construction of the parking facility to follow immediately afterwards. Parking in the new structure should begin in early 2008.

What can I say? I'm speechless.

A Christian Argument Against Parking Lots

Back in the ye goode olde days of the 1970s, Memphis liked to promote itself by saying that it had "more churches than fillin' stations!" It was definite proof of our holiness.

Alas, Memphis has given in to evil! For although we still have more churches than fillin' stations, we definitely have more surface parkin' lots than churches. If we are holy because we put church before gas, it follows that we are unholy because we prefer parkin' to churches. Technically this is called "putting before" and any Memphian can tell you that "putting before" is a clear violation of ... number 1 or number 2, depending on who's counting.

Parkin' on asphalt-covered dirt is Memphis' false idol and until we cast this idolatry from our midst, we will be afflicted with amany pestilences and corruptions and maladies.

Repent, O Memphis! and Remove those Parking Lots!

Build. Walk.