Neon icon-turned-eyesore fails to fit city’s re-imaging

‘Memphis’ signs lifted from silos

The neon “Memphis” signs that adorned concrete storage silos Downtown — an effort to turn what civic leaders deemed an eyesore into an iconic advertisement — were re- moved Thursday as part of The Pyramid’s conversion into a Bass Pro Shops super store.

A massive crane removed the signs to prepare the silos for demolition later this month.

The city bought what most people know as the old Lone Star Industries property for $13.5 million, part of the $215 million plan to turn The Pyramid into a destination store and improve the nearby convention center district and riverfront.

“It’s just another sign of progress,” said Housing

and Community Development Division Director Robert Lipscomb. The signs were “a good idea at the time, but we’re a big, new city and we’re being reinvented.”

The lights atop the property first flickered on in October 1999.

Former Shelby County mayor Jim Rout spear- headed the $158,000 project, funded by contributors including Lone Star, which changed its name to Buzzi Unicem USA when Lone Star Industries and the River Cement Co. merged. The operation has relocated to Presidents Island.

The sign eastbound motorists on Interstate 40 saw as they approached the city said, “Memphis, Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock `n’ Roll.” The “I” in Memphis was guitar-shaped. That sign — which measured 18 feet by 45 feet — and another one facing south were removed Thursday. Two other signs painted on the building remain.

Lipscomb said the neon signs would be placed in storage for safe keeping.

Rout said the idea of turning the Downtown property into a city marketing opportunity oc- curred to him as he looked out of his windows in the county mayor’s office on the eighth f loor of the Vasco A. Smith Jr. Administration Building. He convinced Lone Star officials from St. Louis not only to allow the signs but to make the first donation.

“Sometimes in this business you have to turn lemons into lemonade and that’s how I looked at it,” he said.

Jeff Sanford, who was president of the Downtown development agency, then called the Center City Commission, for 12 years, said the property was a remnant of the city’s industrial past and the lights were a way “to make the best of a bad situation.”

“Those buildings, with all due respect to the company, simply didn’t fit and don’t fit into the future of the Downtown riverfront,” Sanford said.