LEGACY OF CHANGE
Former housing director altered city’s look
For more than 20 years, there has been one point man for redeveloping public housing, one architect behind the relocation of the poor and one visionary for massive public projects like the overhaul of The Pyramid arena into the Bass Pro Shop.
Now that man has resigned from one of his two director’s positions with the city amid allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor, and another job hangs in the balance.
But what does Robert Lipscomb leave behind and what becomes of his projects in progress?
It’s hard to characterize Lipscomb’s impact on the landscape of Memphis, said Louise Mercuro, former interim director of the Office of Planning and Development.
Lipscomb served as the city’s director of Housing and Community Development until Monday.
Deputy director Debbie Singleton was named interim HCD director. Lipscomb’s post as head of the Memphis Housing Authority will be considered when its board meets today.
“Some people would say he might have done too much, but he had some imagination that was never there in those two positions before,” said Mercuro, who said he changed Memphis for the better.
It was Lipscomb’s vision to eradicate public housing in Memphis, using federal grants, public and private dollars.
The formula, repeated in each development, removed longtime residents, who were issued housing vouchers that dispersed them throughout
the city.
Meanwhile, what arose from the dust of “the projects” was multi-income housing. With few lowincome units, it was difficult for former residents to return.
“There’s some good sides and bad sides of his tearing down all the projects, but in the long run those projects that he came up with are beautiful and they changed the whole landscape,” Mercuro said.
His influence also includes the new Bass Pro Shops, which took years to finalize, redevelopments underway near Graceland and a still-incomplete redevelopment plan for the Fairgrounds.
Betty Isom grew up with Lipscomb at the demolished LeMoyne Gardens public housing projects, the first one he worked to replace with new multiincome housing in what is now College Park.
Isom lived at Cleaborn Homes, now Cleaborn Pointe at Heritage, and knows that living in public housing can be enabling.
Although she bought a house in 1989, Isom disagreed with Lipscomb’s approach to public housing at the time.
“Now I see what Robert was saying,” Isom said. “You can’t stay there forever.”
But Lipscomb’s approach was a “glaring failure” for the low-income residents forced from their homes who received none of the “trickle-down” benefits to redevelopment, like jobs, said Ken Reardon, a former University of Memphis professor, who recently moved to the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The projects Lipscomb championed did not include economic opportunities for the poor people who were displaced, Reardon said.
Other U.S. cities have found ways to use public funds to expand employment and business opportunities “for those with the fewest life chances,” Reardon said.
“In Memphis, we just refused to do that,” he said. “Our development is with overwhelming mega projects, including the reclamation of public housing.”
Reardon helped guide the Vance Avenue Collaborative, whose members included residents trying to redirect federal dollars toward the renovation, instead of demolition, of the Foote Homes public housing development.
Although it has historic significance, no one was willing to back to the coalition when it clashed with Lipscomb, he said.
“Everyone appeared to wilt in the face of Mr. Lipscomb,” Reardon said.
With federal money in play, it’s likely the Foote Homes project will go forward without Lipscomb, Reardon said.
It’s anyone’s guess who will now guide the Fairgrounds redevelopment project, said Marvin Stockwell, spokesman for the Coliseum Coalition, a group trying to find an alternative use for the MidSouth Coliseum.
Lipscomb’s plan included the Coliseum’s demolition.
“He had a vision and he was kind of driving the ship,” Stockwell said. “So whoever takes over, will they pursue that vision with the same vigor that Robert did? I don’t know that and I don’t know if anybody knows that.”