What’s next for Forest Hill Heights?
It’s one of Germantown’s last undeveloped areas
In the southeast corner of Germantown, a few hundred acres of land jut out from the city’s southern boundary, creating a small peninsula of the suburb bordered to the east by Collierville and to the west by Memphis. Still largely undeveloped two decades after becoming part of the city, the Forest Hill Heights area is the last substantial area for potential commercial development in Germantown.
Annexed into Germantown from Shelby County in 2000, the 303-acre area at the southeast corner of Winchester and Forest Hill Irene roads – and a 25-acre spur of land north of Winchester Road – is one of the last areas where large-scale development could happen. As one of the city’s three smart growth districts, it provides a largely blank canvas for the controversial development style that has divided Germantown residents in recent years.
Currently, the majority of those 300plus acres is open land. Most of the structures that do exist, including the Hyatt Place hotel, Circle K, Forest Hill Church of Christ, First Horizon Bank and several office buildings, sit on the western edge of the area. The Crestwyn Behavioral Health Center also sits within the Forest Hill Heights area.
Community and economic development director Cameron Ross said that aside from the city’s historic farms and the portion of the Fulmer tract that was recently rezoned for office use, there are not many places where new non-residential structures could be built.
“Forest Hill Heights is really the only undeveloped commercial area,” he said. “Up to this point, I think that the focus has been on our core area, the central business district.”
Along with commercial uses, the area’s zoning allows for the construction of multi-family housing in the future.
More apartments likely
Two apartment projects had been proposed in the area. While previous plans for the Watermark apartments were killed in the courts, one of the biggest questions looming over the Forest Hill Heights area is when and how the Viridian planned development will take shape.
An outline plan for the project was approved by the board of mayor and aldermen in October 2017, but there have been few public indications of progress since.
The project was not subject to the city’s apartment moratorium, which was approved in early 2018, or the partial moratorium put in place after the expiration of the initial moratorium. Ross confirmed newly approved smart code changes prohibiting stand-alone apartment buildings will not apply to Viridian because the regulations were enacted after the project received preliminary approval.
“They’ve been checking in with us to have an understanding of where they are and what considerations they have versus some of the changes that have occurred,” he said.
Les Binkley, vice president at Boyle Investment Company, the project’s developer, confirmed the Viridian development continues to move forward.
“We recently completed the first step in the site plan application process with our sketch plan review submittal and subsequent review with Germantown staff,” he said in an email. “We are now in the process of reviewing the staff comments as we continue finalizing our plans for the final site plan submittal.”
That site plan will have to be approved by the city planning commission and board of mayor and aldermen before any work could begin and will give the public more details about what the finished apartment complex could look like.
The outline plan approved in 2017 calls for 299 apartment units within a 25-acre development, taking up the portion of the Forest Hill Heights smart code area north of Winchester Road along the border with Collierville. The development will feature a parking garage and on-street parking along a north-south road constructed within the development. About 12 acres of the project is intended to be green space.
Small area plan
While recent changes to the city’s smart code will not impact the Viridian project, another development like it would not be allowed in the Forest Hill Heights area. The smart code revisions prohibit stand-alone apartment buildings, unless they are part of a larger mixed-use development, meaning any new apartment projects would have to feature other uses – like office or retail space – in the same building or within the same development.
Developers will also now be required to apply for a warrant if they bring forward a project that deviates from the recommendations in the small area plan approved by the board of mayor and aldermen in 2016.
The Forest Hill Heights small area plan – written by architects at Memphis firm Looney Ricks Kiss, analysts from Robert Charles Lesser & Company in Maryland and engineers from Fisher Arnold, which has its offices within the Forest Hill Heights area – does not provide explicit details about what should be built within the area or where future buildings, roads, trails or green spaces should be located within the Forest Hill Heights area. However, it does provide a concept master plan based on recommendations from public work sessions and analysis of the area and its economic and development potential.
The concept master plan suggests concentrating retail along Forest Hill Irene and Winchester roads, putting any new office buildings near the existing office space on Forest Hill Irene, singlefamily homes or other low-density residential development south of Crestwyn Hills Drive, higher-density residential units around a central “village green” area, which would also be surrounded by retail and restaurants. As with other smart growth areas, creating a walkable and bicycle-friendly area was also emphasized.
How, and if, those recommendations come to life will be dependent on developers and property owners in the area.
Forest Hill Associates, which helped pay for the small area plan study, owns about 100 acres in the smart growth area and Baptist Memorial Health Services owns another 75 acres. The remaining undeveloped portion – about 100 acres of the 303-acre area had been developed when the small area plan was written – is divided between several entities, each controlling several acres.
Developing character
Ross said developers and property owners do come to the city to ask about the potential of building in the Forest Hill Heights area, inquiring about how different commissions examine development proposals and what impact changing city ordinances could have on builders.
One thing he said his department tries to impress upon potential developers is that, when working with a relatively blank canvas, any project they propose will be evaluated not only on its own merits but on what tone it will set for future development in the area.
“It’s important to make sure that whatever comes in sets that character standard. It’s what we’re being very careful to consider as projects come in and ask about that area,” he said.
The character of recently developed areas has been a flashpoint in the debate about whether smart growth is good or bad for Germantown, with proponents of the dense development style saying it can give specific areas an urban feel that is more desirable to some people and businesses, and opponents lamenting that smart growth itself has begun to drain the rest of the city of its overall character.
Ross said each commercial area of the city had its own character and a unique set of advantages and disadvantages for developers. Aside from having a blank slate to work with, he said Forest Hill Heights is an example of a neighborhood that could function almost as its own hamlet.
“It can operate as a unit of Germantown, but it also has the opportunity to have goods and services, residential and office, and function by itself,” he said. “But it will still have access to public safety, our fire and ambulance services, our schools, all the goods and services that Germantown provides but still kind of hang out by itself too and create its own character.”
What remains to be seen is what the character of the Forest Hill Heights area will be once Germantown’s last undeveloped commercial area is built out.
Corinne Kennedy is a reporter at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached via email at Corinne.kennedy@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @Corinneskennedy.
Les Binkley