PINCH ON PAUSE
A pitch for delay puts property owners on defensive
Property owners in Downtown’s long-suffering Pinch district are ticked off at city government — again.
More than a decade after The Pyramid was mothballed, and five years after city officials talked about buying a chunk of the neighborhood for a development that fell through, a city councilman last week pitched a plan to put the future on hold for an additional 120 days.
“I think it’s insane,” said Linda Thomas, who bought a 115-yearold building on Main in 2004 and opened Red Fish, a gallery and retail shop, three years ago. “I think if you don’t know what you’re going to do by now in the Pinch, you’ll never know. It really bothers me when they want to wait and see what a big landowner or big investor is going to do.”
I believe that because there will be real pressure now to develop the land in the Pinch ... for supportive facilities, hotels, retail space, it’s better to have a plan rather than letting it happen without some thought. If you just let people go start doing stuff, you don’t know what you’re going to get.”
Ray Brown,
urban planning consultant
Steve Davis, third-generation owner of C.A. Davis Printing, said he fears a new master vision for the Pinch is just another way “to try to steal our property from us.” Davis said, “Basically, the thought of all the tenants in this neighborhood is the fact that they’re worried to death about the city.”
Councilman Berlin Boyd’s proposed moratorium last week comes as Bass Pro Shops at The Pyramid starts to breathe new life into one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Boyd wants to temporarily halt approvals of land-use changes while a vision for future development is crafted in community meetings.
Property owners are fixing up buildings again in the 19th century neighborhood on Downtown’s north end, and a new hotel is proposed on Front facing The Pyramid.
Ray Brown, an urban planning consultant, said Boyd’s idea makes sense.
“I believe that because there will be real pressure now to develop the land in the Pinch, especially along and near Front Street, for supportive facilities, hotels, retail space, it’s better to have a plan rather than letting it happen without some thought. If you just let people go start doing stuff, you don’t know what you’re going to get.”
Brown doesn’t think the city’s behind the curve.
“I don’t think anybody knew quite how Bass Pro was going to impact the city, and it’s probably a good thing we didn’t try to get out in front of a plan without that knowledge,” Brown said.
City officials had grand designs for a vibrant district of shops and restaurants in the Pinch after The Pyramid opened in 1991, but progress came slowly. A 2001 decision to replace The Pyramid with a new arena on the south end cast a pall over the Pinch’s future.
After one last concert in 2007, The Pyramid became the focus of seemingly endless negotiations between city officials and Bass Pro, fueling public speculation about whether the building would ever make a comeback.
Many building owners and officials say the knockout punch came in 2010, when city officials said they wanted to buy 34 parcels for a masterplanned retail district to complement Bass Pro.
Buildings deteriorated because owners had no incentive to invest in maintenance and improvements. The Downtown Memphis Commission stopped offering public incentives for projects in the Pinch, saying improvement of individual properties was at odds with the city plan.
Boyd floated the moratorium idea last Tuesday and said he’d submit a proposal to the council July 7 to defer rezonings and other land-use changes in an area generally outlined by Interstate 40, Third Street, A.W. Willis Avenue and Front Street, but excluding St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“I get asked this question a ton: ‘What is the plan for the Pinch?’” Boyd said. “It’s not something that we’re trying to prolong and do for a year or two years. I think it will definitely rise from the ashes, and it will be great. We have one bite of the apple, so we need to make it a good bite.”
If the council approves, he said, it would not affect pending applications for a four-story, 108-room extended-stay hotel on Front Street and a gas station/convenience store at the northeast corner of A.W. Willis Avenue and Third Street. Both are up for review July 9 by the Land Use Control Board and would require council approval.
Exempting cases already in the approval pipeline was key to respecting private property rights. “Temporary moratoriums have been put in place in many parts of the city and it’s definitely legal,” Boyd said.
Council attorney Allan Wade said he hadn’t been asked to review Boyd’s proposal but such moratoriums are legal if done correctly.
Boyd initially said he was responding to concerns of a large landowner whom he wouldn’t identify. Later he said it was a response to widespread opposition to the proposed gas station at 184 A.W. Willis.
“Everyone is riled up about (the station),” Boyd said. “I have a ton of emails from residents from Harbor Town and Uptown and businesses along A.W. Willis and Danny Thomas. They’re saying, ‘We don’t want it.’”
David Bray, engineer for a Collierville group that wants to develop the station, said he understands the concern.
“It doesn’t surprise me. That’s a very sensitive area, with the investment in the Bass Pro Shop and St. Jude. I don’t think anybody wants to get the development wrong. If the wrong things were to go in there, it could be a problem,” Bray said.
Whatever the reason behind it, the moratorium proposal is stirring debate.
Property owners including Henry Turley and Jake Schorr saw merit in having a community conversation over the Pinch’s development.
Schorr, longtime operator of Westy’s, formerly The North End, at Main Street and Jackson Avenue, said such a discussion is overdue.
Turley, a Downtown development pioneer, and John Vergos, a former councilman whose family operates The Rendezvous restaurant’s rib-shipping kitchen on North Main, criticized city government’s development aspirations in the Pinch.
“I don’t agree that the city should do a speculative real estate development,” said Turley, coowner of buildings housing a pizzeria and ballroom at Jackson and Main.
Vergos was skeptical of a government-led planning initiative. Referring to development hot spots including Overton Square, Broad Avenue and Sears Crosstown, he said, “I just think things happen when a few people are passionate about something and they get out and get it done.”
Chris Carruthers, real estate broker with listings in the Pinch, said, “I know property owners have been reluctant to provide tenant improvement moneys or to improve their own properties, to put a roof on, when they don’t know if the property’s effectively going to be taken from them. It’s definitely affected progress.”
Missing from the dialogue last week was anything new from housing and community development director Robert Lipscomb on the city’s role or a response to Boyd’s proposal from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and its fundraising arm, ALSAC. Neither responded to requests for comment.
ALSAC went on a buying spree in the Pinch in the 1990s and is by far the largest landowner. ALSAC owns much of the vacant property along Second between Jackson and Willis, and the hospital is working on a strategic plan that officials have said could include $500 million to $800 million in capital spending.
Boyd said, “I don’t have any comment as far as what St. Jude wants to do. The temporary moratorium has nothing to do with what the administration brings forward. I don’t know if (the land purchase) is even on the table any longer. The Pinch is a very vital part of District 7. I have a vested interest, along with my constituents, to see some type of positive growth in that area.”