Center City, Turley will spruce up rail bridges

Dark, dirty, scary railroad underpasses in Downtown’s South End would be cleaned up and cast in a whole new light through a newly minted public-private partnership.

Nobody’s saying the result will rival Cooper-Young’s railroad trestle art, but public art is expected to be incorporated later to create gateways to the neighborhood.

The Center City Development Corp. will spend $80,000 on a project led by Memphis developer Henry Turley to spruce up undersides of railroad bridges over Main, Carolina and Florida.

Project organizers plan to seek another $45,000 later to add public art to the Main and Florida underpasses.

Carolina and Florida are on the approaches to Turley’s 200-apartment South Junction development.

Turley and Archie W. Willis III are also working on plans to develop vacant land adjoining nearby Central Station.

Turley said making the underpasses safe and inviting for pedestrians is key to making a walkable neighborhood.

“If you go down and walk through those things, it’s shameful,” he said.

Brett Roler, director of planning for the Downtown Memphis Commission, said the agency supported the expenditure because “the current conditions of the three railroad underpasses is so deplorable it will limit future development.”

The Center City cash would be used to pressureclean walkways, ceilings, walls and exteriors, remove an unused trestle over Florida, clean up and provide lighting.

The Henry Turley Co. will plan and organize the improvements and provide project management services.