Group says no to hotel on river
Preservationists: Founders wanted open ‘promenade’
A Memphis preservation group opposes plans to locate a riverside hotel on Front Street, on land set aside forever by city founders as a public space.
Friends For Our Riverfront will file a lawsuit if necessary attempting to bar the city from turning over the Downtown site for development, said Virginia McLean, president of the private group formed in 2003.
Denver hotel consultant Robert Swerdling last year proposed bringing a 600room convention hotel to Front on a site now used as a public garage for the Mud Island River Park.
In an interview Wednesday, McLean said the city has preserved the open sight lines and public walkway along the river for two centuries and ought to continue with that policy, especially because other sites are available near the Memphis Cook Convention Center.
“We are committed to protecting the public land,” McLean said. “It is the citizens’ land and we as citizens will lose if they decide to go ahead and take the land that they have no right to and the descendants have no right to give up.”
Claiming the land along Riverside Drive and Front Street as a public space is not considered a surprise. Documents created by Memphis founders including John Overton have kept heirs in the control of the land and insisted it must be preserved as an open “promenade,” McLean said, noting the documents have survived several legal challenges over the years including a city effort to take land through eminent domain.
The city and the heirs would have to agree to redevelop the site if the hotel project goes forward. Swerdling declined to discuss the matter Wednesday.
“I’m familiar with the issue and it’s not mine to resolve,” Swerdling said.
Swerdling earlier this week introduced Memphis city officials to members of a Chicago private equity firm he said was prepared to lend $180 million for the hotel project.
Swerdling proposed putting a hotel on the garage site last year, but the city has not agreed to go forward with the project.
City officials this winter said Memphis would ask other developers to propose hotels and the city would hire a consultant to evaluate the proposals.
“It’s a perfect site for a hotel,” said Kevin Kane, president of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The key is, does the city have control of the property?’’
Doug McGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, in an earlier interview said the city would examine covenants and other land restrictions in the area Downtown near the hotel site and the nearby Pinch district.
Although a parking garage and monorail station to Mud Island were built on the open space years ago, McLean said the Overton heirs may have allowed this because it tied into the development of a public park.