‘Parkside’ proposed
Mixed-use plans set out for Shelby Farms’ north side
A developer proposes lining the north side of Shelby Farms with stores, offices and as many as 1,200 apartments, most perched in a trio of buildings up to nine floors tall for panoramic park views.
But in the view of some residential neighbors, Parkside at Shelby Farms should not be approved because of traffic congestion and feared effects on home values, the 4,500-acre park and the Shelby Farms Greenline.
The Land Use Control Board will consider this morning the proposed 56-acre planned development that includes near the trio of nine-story buildings another 18 apartment buildings of up to three stories north and west of the mixeduse towers.
The plan includes a total of 700 to 900 apartment units, 80,000 square feet of office
space and 50,000 square feet of retail space in the three towers, and another 312 apartments in the 18 smaller buildings along with a clubhouse, pool, parking lots, detention ponds and greenspace.
The wooded site fronts more than a third of a mile of Mullins Station Road, extending west from the Whitten Road-Mulli ns Station intersection.
The property also sits between subdivisions of single-family homes, including Whitten Heights, Whitten Estates and Westchester Square. Some residents there have expressed concern t hat ex i st i ng traffic congestion at the T-intersection of Mullins Station and Whitten would be worsened, their home va lues weakened and the experience using the newly built Shelby Farms Greenline bike/pedestrian trail degraded.
Seeking approval for the planned development is developer DB Development Co., whose contact information is through Bob Turner, owner and broker of Southern Properties, a real estate firm in Cordova.
The property beside Shelby Farms is now zoned for single-family homes.
While the zoning prohibits mixed commercialresidential uses, “demand grows for both denser residential development patterns; a greater mix of residential, commercial, and recreational uses; integration of major urban amenities such as Shelby Farms into surrounding communities; and a development pattern that supports a greater variety of viable transit modes, from pedestrian to automobile,” land planner Brenda Solomito Basar says in a letter of intent.
“This application seeks to liberate the site’s potential in response to these demands,” the letter says.
The big proposal was first submitted to the Land Use Control Board last fall, but has been held for three months while the developer supplied more information to the planners with the Office of Planning & Development.
Now, the planning staff recommends that the Land Use Control Board approve the proposal under certain conditions.
One condition is aimed at relieving traffic congestion. It requires infrastructure improvements that likely will be part of the future Shelby Farms Parkway, but only along parts of the parkway next to Parkside at Shelby Farms.
Those improvements include immediate improving of the Mullins Station/Whitten intersection, improving Mullins Station as a minor urban arterial road, and conducting a traffic study on the effects on Whitten, Mullins Station and the neighborhoods.
Shelby Farms Parkway is to cross the west end of Shelby Farms, connecting Walnut Grove on the south with Whitten Road next to the proposed planned development on the north.
The parkway’s environmental document remains under review, and approval is anticipated later this year, a spokesman for the city of Memphis engineering division said Wednesday. Once the parkway plan is cleared, land ac- quisition and engineering design will start. Completion is anticipated in 2020, the spokesman said.
A not her cond it ion involves Shelby Farms Greenline. The Parkside at Shelby Farms’ main entrance along Mullins Station would cross a new, 4.1-mile extension of the walking and biking trail.
Access to cross the former railroad shall be subject to approval by the Shelby County Commission, planners recommend. “... Because no commercial use of the railroad easement was allowed in the Shelby County purchase agreement with the CSX Railroad,” the planning staff states.
The planning staff for the Land Use Control Board has received a number of emails about the project from neighbors.
“I just want to state that I’m supportive of commercial development in the area but in opposition of high-rise apartments for residential use,” stated Steve Mihatov in a Feb. 2 email. “The high-rise apartments will result in downward pressure on single family home values and the already depressed rental market in the area.”
Anne McKinstry wrote that her family has lived in the neighborhood almost 20 years. “I cannot imagine having this neighborhood divided with the new project,” she wrote in a Jan. 13 email. “Traffic has already gotten very bad on Whitten road and our commute times will be drastically affected.”
Another neighbor, Bill Mann, praised the developer for responding to questions, but stated in his Dec. 9 email, “... Do our citizens visiting this world class park, riding bikes and walking on the Greenline really need a cheap strip center facing the park? ...
“Our homes have enjoyed the benefit of a quiet wooded green space with the understanding that someday we may have new neighbors living near by in single family homes. We even have deer in these woods.”
The LUCB meeting will start at 10 a.m. in City Hall’s main chamber. Its vote is a recommendation to the City Council, which has the final word on planned developments.