LUCB endorses Union Mission project

Expansion plan draws concerns of businesses

The Memphis Union Mission’s redevelopment project moved forward on Thursday as the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board approved the shelter’s expansion plan.

Located at 383 Poplar, the Union Mission intends to buy 3.1 acres, most of the block where it sits, in order to better serve homeless men at its emergency shelter facility.

The Union Mission moved to its current site in 1963, a building that is now too small and is functionally obsolete, said Scott Bjork, Union Mission president and CEO.

The plan is to create dedicated space for volunteers, classrooms, job training, counselors, health care and other service providers.

Designed for about 60 occupants, the mission on an average night gives shelter to 175 men, a number that can exceed 300 during extreme weather, Bjork said.

The chapel also serves as a dining hall, classroom and space for overflow sleeping and while areas are reconfigured for those purposes, the men are asked to leave the building.

“Our goal is to make an investment over time to do what we need to operate in a fashion that best serves our city,” Bjork said.

Opponents say the men leave the Union Mission during the day and loiter Downtown and that the plan does not comply with the city’s medical center zoning overlay.

An expanded Union Mission will negatively impact area commercial properties, said Lew Wardlaw, the attorney for Valenti Mid-south Management, owners of the Wendy’s fast-food restaurant on Washington at Danny Thomas.

“We think either a more suitable central location could be found or probably several satellite locations throughout the city,” Wardlaw said.

Attorney John Delany, with offices at 668 Poplar, agreed with Wardlaw.

“I think you have to look at the past to project the future. The past has been horrific, the present for now is terrible. It’s all from the traffic generated by that facility,” Delany said.

Tripling the footprint will only triple the collateral damage, Delany said, asking the board to “not allow this blight to spread.”

However, Pat Morgan, a national consultant on homeless issues, noted that improving a homeless shelter does not increase the number of homeless people.

“People do not become homeless because there’s a new shelter in town,” Morgan said. “They become homeless when they have run out of every other option.”

The redevelopment plan will next go to the City Council in late February or early March.

The board also approved lighting for the athletic fields at Evangelical Christian School on Macon Road.

And it rejected a proposed dog day care facility at 9334 Walnut Grove near Reddit after area residents argued that the added traffic would make the already hazardous two -lane road more dangerous. — Linda A. Moore:

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