So, after four years of supposed serious interest in opening a megastore in The Pyramid, Bass Pro Shop discovers that Memphis sits on a fault zone.
Due diligence sure must mean something different in Springfield, Missouri.
That said, it was curious to us that using this sudden seismic concern as justification for why Bass Pro Shop won’t sign a binding letter of intent wasn’t made by Bass Pro Shop officials themselves.
Witness For The Defense
Instead, it was advanced by City Hall officials who appear to be clinging to any defense for why Bass Pro Shop has delivered so little for so long.
Of course, the store has played the same game in Buffalo, New York – six years and counting as our New York fellow sufferer waits for Bass Pro Shop to match its rhetoric with a binding agreement. And Buffalo doesn’t even have the New Madrid Fault as an excuse.
We don’t mean to insinuate that we know what the sporting goods retailer is thinking. So far, they have been as inscrutable as Buddha.
Deafening
Their continued silence – in the face of a blizzard of questions about their commitment to the project in the old downtown arena – seems to be the loudest statement that they could make about their seriousness in Memphis.
There’s little in the store’s behavior that indicates that it’s working as a partner in this project. To some, its lack of comment feels an awful lot like stonewalling.
We’re not sure of that, but it sure doesn’t feel like we’re expecting too much when we look for an official statement of continued commitment to the project, or even a “feel good” statement generated by the chain’s public relations department.
Whole Lot Of Shaking
Can they at least throw a line to their Memphis advocates who seem to be fighting tirelessly the store’s battles?
It’s disconcerting to see our city officials doing all the heavy lifting to salvage such a major project with such an absence of help from its chief beneficiary. It just speaks to how strange this project has been from the beginning, and why it finds such lack of enthusiasm by much of Memphis.
As for The Pyramid itself, it is not a “seismic building.” It was intended to be, but as part of the cost-cutting that seemed to be such a part of the building’s history, seismic protection was cut out of the budget early on.
Cold Comfort
In particular, former City Council member Barbara Sonnenburg emotionally pleaded with her colleagues to require that the building have seismic protection. She had recently visited Reelfoot Lake where she looked over the earthquake-created landscape and had a premonition of what could happen to The Pyramid.
However, at the time, engineers on the project said: “If there is an earthquake, the building will crack, but it will stand. It will not be destroyed.”
That’s probably cold comfort to anybody looking to invest tens of millions of dollars in the building (although it’s not dissuaded theme park developer Greg Ericson), but engineers pointed out that about 1,600 pilings were being driven at various depths to keep the arena in place in lieu of a complete seismic design.
Downstream
Or as one member of the Pyramid Building authority, in the midst of a discussion about the arena collapsing into the Mississippi River, joked: “At least we know we’re not building an arena for New Orleans.”
Of course, when that Richter Scale-busting day comes, the condition of The Pyramid will be the least of our worries.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Help Wanted
A key to living and working downtown is a sense of proportion.
We’ve been clear that we have a no tolerance attitude toward panhandlers. We are flexible about the homeless.
That’s why we had no problems with the man earlier this year who slept on the sidewalk in front of our place. He cleaned up after himself, he never threatened or panhandled, and he even got up early so he wouldn’t be in the way of people going to work or visitors walking to the river. In other words, he was a good neighbor.
The new neighbor that moved in a couple of weeks ago is something altogether different.
Looking out on Union Avenue, our view is now akin to overlooking a mobile trash heap. The woman now sleeping on the Union Avenue side of the Memphis Fire Department headquarters regularly surrounds herself with newspapers, magazines and tourism brochures.
On occasion, hidden beneath a tattered blanket covered with paper, she suddenly jumps up to the dismay of tourists walking by. Often she begins a rant that takes her unexpectedly into traffic swerving around her.
While the debris is unsightly and irritating, at this point, we’re more concerned about her safety and need for medical attention. Unfortunately, we’ve largely been greeted with shrugs from city officials who have been contacted in hopes that she can be provided with a shelter and mental health attention.
So far, we’ve had no success in getting her help. If you have any suggestions, we’d appreciate them.
Memo To News Editor
Someone emails with this question:
How come the stun gun incident involving 2 middle school students in the County Schools attacking another student and the brawl across the street from Houston High School don't get reported in the press?
If only it had been Memphis City Schools.
How come the stun gun incident involving 2 middle school students in the County Schools attacking another student and the brawl across the street from Houston High School don't get reported in the press?
If only it had been Memphis City Schools.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Pointed Questions About Pyramid Future
Finally, someone is asking the right questions about The Pyramid.
Someone is stepping back to ask the “real” question about its future.
Someone is willing to consider that the two best ideas for the darkened arena may not just be the ones that coincidentally walked through the door.
Someone is willing to suggest that it’s not simply a choice between Plan A and Plan B.
Someone is willing to speak the truth: we are having the wrong conversation, and in doing so, we limit our own possibilities.
Someone is willing to consider that the land occupied by the project could be put to a higher and better use than remaining as a perpetual monument to our civic sense of unworthiness.
Amen And Amen
That someone seems to be City Councilman Shea Flinn, and all we can say in the wake of his questions about the proposed uses for the old arena is, “Amen.”
As Councilman Flinn said to The Commercial Appeal: “We need to see what else is out there, so we can test the market and see what the market says about it.”
Only to those fixed in their position and fixated on the building itself does this sound revolutionary. To the rest of us, it just sounds like good business.
An Iconic Failure
As he logically puts it up, when we couple The Pyramid site and Mud Island, we open up new possibilities that we may not even have imagined at this point. Heck, maybe there’s even a way that the land could be used for the best of all worlds – in a way that could draw on the Riverfront Development Corporation’s idea from a few years ago for new, high-quality development along the river and Friends for our Riverfront’s positions about green space.
If the site could become the answer to ending the kind of controversy that has nagged us for too long, The Pyramid could actually become a symbol of a growing maturity in its very absence.
The notion by some – notably The Commercial Appeal editor Chris Peck yesterday – that The Pyramid is an architectural signature for Memphis is on its best days simply ludicrous. On its worst days, it’s the kind of misguided thinking that got us in this mess to begin with.
Symbol For What?
Mr. Peck, who often seems to have a tenuous grip on what makes Memphis tick, sees The Pyramid as Memphis’ answer to the Eiffel Tower, the St. Louis Arch and other comparable city landmarks. But the truth is that those icons are reflective of those city’s ambitions, successes and aspirations.
The Pyramid is just the opposite - a constant reminder of the price we pay for low expectations, lack of ambition, lack of national standards for public investments and an Elvis-like tendency toward kitsch.
I guess that’s why the notion of demolishing The Pyramid has never upset us. To us, it’s never been an architectural gem – the design is too pedantic, the building materials too cut-rate and the setting too depressing – and because of it, The Pyramid stands as a symbol all right - our tendency to settle for cheapness in a world where successful cities are being defined by quality.
Fish Photos
Mr. Peck’s clincher for his argument for The Pyramid is that there are 1,500 photos of the deserted arena on Flickr. We just couldn’t help but wonder how many photos will be taken if there’s a 50 x 60 foot leaping bass added to all four sides?
But maybe Mr. Peck’s instincts are right. There are 12,330 photos of Paris Hilton on Flickr, so maybe someone in City Hall should contact her for exclusive rights to her museum for her career, a Pyramid scheme if there ever was one.
As for us, we prefer to think that if we’re looking for the iconic symbol for Memphis, it’s the river, stupid. It’s still the most visited and most photographed site in our city, and frankly, we think the view is improved if the jarring presence of The Pyramid was gone for good.
Someone is stepping back to ask the “real” question about its future.
Someone is willing to consider that the two best ideas for the darkened arena may not just be the ones that coincidentally walked through the door.
Someone is willing to suggest that it’s not simply a choice between Plan A and Plan B.
Someone is willing to speak the truth: we are having the wrong conversation, and in doing so, we limit our own possibilities.
Someone is willing to consider that the land occupied by the project could be put to a higher and better use than remaining as a perpetual monument to our civic sense of unworthiness.
Amen And Amen
That someone seems to be City Councilman Shea Flinn, and all we can say in the wake of his questions about the proposed uses for the old arena is, “Amen.”
As Councilman Flinn said to The Commercial Appeal: “We need to see what else is out there, so we can test the market and see what the market says about it.”
Only to those fixed in their position and fixated on the building itself does this sound revolutionary. To the rest of us, it just sounds like good business.
An Iconic Failure
As he logically puts it up, when we couple The Pyramid site and Mud Island, we open up new possibilities that we may not even have imagined at this point. Heck, maybe there’s even a way that the land could be used for the best of all worlds – in a way that could draw on the Riverfront Development Corporation’s idea from a few years ago for new, high-quality development along the river and Friends for our Riverfront’s positions about green space.
If the site could become the answer to ending the kind of controversy that has nagged us for too long, The Pyramid could actually become a symbol of a growing maturity in its very absence.
The notion by some – notably The Commercial Appeal editor Chris Peck yesterday – that The Pyramid is an architectural signature for Memphis is on its best days simply ludicrous. On its worst days, it’s the kind of misguided thinking that got us in this mess to begin with.
Symbol For What?
Mr. Peck, who often seems to have a tenuous grip on what makes Memphis tick, sees The Pyramid as Memphis’ answer to the Eiffel Tower, the St. Louis Arch and other comparable city landmarks. But the truth is that those icons are reflective of those city’s ambitions, successes and aspirations.
The Pyramid is just the opposite - a constant reminder of the price we pay for low expectations, lack of ambition, lack of national standards for public investments and an Elvis-like tendency toward kitsch.
I guess that’s why the notion of demolishing The Pyramid has never upset us. To us, it’s never been an architectural gem – the design is too pedantic, the building materials too cut-rate and the setting too depressing – and because of it, The Pyramid stands as a symbol all right - our tendency to settle for cheapness in a world where successful cities are being defined by quality.
Fish Photos
Mr. Peck’s clincher for his argument for The Pyramid is that there are 1,500 photos of the deserted arena on Flickr. We just couldn’t help but wonder how many photos will be taken if there’s a 50 x 60 foot leaping bass added to all four sides?
But maybe Mr. Peck’s instincts are right. There are 12,330 photos of Paris Hilton on Flickr, so maybe someone in City Hall should contact her for exclusive rights to her museum for her career, a Pyramid scheme if there ever was one.
As for us, we prefer to think that if we’re looking for the iconic symbol for Memphis, it’s the river, stupid. It’s still the most visited and most photographed site in our city, and frankly, we think the view is improved if the jarring presence of The Pyramid was gone for good.
DeSoto County Needs Good Neighbor Policy
And officials in DeSoto County wonder why we often have so little positive feelings toward them.
Sometimes, it’s hard to shake the feeling that they are circling our community like vultures, looking to pick off our companies and our jobs.
We thought of this in the wake of the apparent destruction of the former Coors Beer bottling plant, now the Hardy Bottling Company owned by one of Memphis’ most impressive success stories, Carolyn Hardy.
When the Coors beer plant she managed shut its doors, she put all of her money at risk to buy the plant and put 120 people back to work. It was courageous on her part, and it was starting to pay off as she won more contracts and planned to increase her workforce by 66 percent.
But, recent tornado damage is not fully covered, and it’s questionable if she can get the plant back on line.
In the midst of the catastrophic damage to the plant, our neighbors from the south called up and offered incentives to get her to move operations across the state line. It reminded us of the time when a prominent county elected official died and half the people at the visitation were trying to cut deals for his job.
Perhaps, in this case, DeSoto County’s interest was purely charitable, but in light of its regular forays into Shelby County to poach our businesses, it’s not likely. For too long, rather than develop their own prospects which could end up creating a net positive impact on our region, DeSoto County and Mississippi officials have set the targeting of Memphis businesses as a main plank of their economic development plans.
If there’s 10 Commandments for a successful regional economy, the first one should be: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s businesses.
Until DeSoto County acknowledges the fact that we’re all in this together, it will always encounter prevalent descriptions of it in Shelby County as a parasite that lives and preys on the county whose success is instrumental to its own.
Sometimes, it’s hard to shake the feeling that they are circling our community like vultures, looking to pick off our companies and our jobs.
We thought of this in the wake of the apparent destruction of the former Coors Beer bottling plant, now the Hardy Bottling Company owned by one of Memphis’ most impressive success stories, Carolyn Hardy.
When the Coors beer plant she managed shut its doors, she put all of her money at risk to buy the plant and put 120 people back to work. It was courageous on her part, and it was starting to pay off as she won more contracts and planned to increase her workforce by 66 percent.
But, recent tornado damage is not fully covered, and it’s questionable if she can get the plant back on line.
In the midst of the catastrophic damage to the plant, our neighbors from the south called up and offered incentives to get her to move operations across the state line. It reminded us of the time when a prominent county elected official died and half the people at the visitation were trying to cut deals for his job.
Perhaps, in this case, DeSoto County’s interest was purely charitable, but in light of its regular forays into Shelby County to poach our businesses, it’s not likely. For too long, rather than develop their own prospects which could end up creating a net positive impact on our region, DeSoto County and Mississippi officials have set the targeting of Memphis businesses as a main plank of their economic development plans.
If there’s 10 Commandments for a successful regional economy, the first one should be: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s businesses.
Until DeSoto County acknowledges the fact that we’re all in this together, it will always encounter prevalent descriptions of it in Shelby County as a parasite that lives and preys on the county whose success is instrumental to its own.
Residency Requirements Hit Close To Home
New City Councilman Jim Strickland recently learned a key lesson about local government – many elected officials essentially see government as a jobs program.
On its face, Councilman Strickland’s proposal to allow emergency workers to be drawn from a 100-mile radius of Memphis made perfect sense. After all, we’re already lowering educational credentials in hopes of finding candidates for police jobs.
Somehow, it’s hard to imagine that taxpayers don't really prefer to lie in bed at night feeling safe, rather than to lie in bed at night with the secure feeling that only Shelby County residents are patrolling the streets. Unfortunately, despite the obvious logic of his proposal, Councilman Strickland could only coax one additional vote to support his change.
That’s too bad, because in painting itself into a corner, Memphis City Council are guilty of putting political interests ahead of public safety. However, while many observers saw it as a city versus suburbs issue or a white versus black issue, it was in truth more of an economic issue.
That’s why change is resisted so vehemently, not only in City Hall but in other places like Memphis City Schools. It is these government jobs that anchor the black middle class in Memphis. At a time when African-Americans could find little openings in the private sector, it was the public sector that provided the pathway to decent jobs, as shown by the fact that almost two out of three employees of county government are African-American.
As a result, any suggestions that can attack the stability of these jobs are always met with fierce resistance. As a result, any discussion about reducing residency requirements need to start with this in mind.
On its face, Councilman Strickland’s proposal to allow emergency workers to be drawn from a 100-mile radius of Memphis made perfect sense. After all, we’re already lowering educational credentials in hopes of finding candidates for police jobs.
Somehow, it’s hard to imagine that taxpayers don't really prefer to lie in bed at night feeling safe, rather than to lie in bed at night with the secure feeling that only Shelby County residents are patrolling the streets. Unfortunately, despite the obvious logic of his proposal, Councilman Strickland could only coax one additional vote to support his change.
That’s too bad, because in painting itself into a corner, Memphis City Council are guilty of putting political interests ahead of public safety. However, while many observers saw it as a city versus suburbs issue or a white versus black issue, it was in truth more of an economic issue.
That’s why change is resisted so vehemently, not only in City Hall but in other places like Memphis City Schools. It is these government jobs that anchor the black middle class in Memphis. At a time when African-Americans could find little openings in the private sector, it was the public sector that provided the pathway to decent jobs, as shown by the fact that almost two out of three employees of county government are African-American.
As a result, any suggestions that can attack the stability of these jobs are always met with fierce resistance. As a result, any discussion about reducing residency requirements need to start with this in mind.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Education Shapes The Herenton Legacy
Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton has sent two strong signals that he intends to get more involved in the affairs of Memphis City schools.
One was as he assertively and decisively brushed aside district indecision and took charge of school safety. The other was a letter that he mailed about the same time to the board of commissioners that signaled his deep concern about the district.
All in all, it sent the message that if the five-term mayor is focusing these days on his legacy, he’s defining it in terms of Memphis City Schools.
Closing The Loop
It brings a distinct symmetry to the Herenton public career, which began as a elementary school teacher in Memphis City Schools in 1963, as the youngest elementary school principal at the age of 28, and finally as deputy superintendent and superintendent where he served for 13 years.
These days, his 16 years as mayor overshadow his 29 years as an educator, but it’s worth remembering that in those days, he was considered a hot prospect for most major urban districts searching for new superintendents.
It seemed apparent to his closest advisors that he was channeling his earlier educator’s experience last week when he announced that he would put metal detectors and more policeman in city middle and high schools. And, by the way, if any principals had a problem with it, they were had better get out of his way.
Best Of Times And Worst Of Times
It was an impressive performance and reminded us of what Mayor Herenton looks like at his best. Unfortunately, it came within hours of a reminder of what he looks at his worst with a series of questionable key appointments used as rewards for political loyalists. Perhaps, the defiance (some say arrogance) that rests at the center of his personality were at the heart of both, but at least in the case of school safety, he cut through school board politics to mandate a policy to combat the recent school shootings.
If there was ever a dichotomy of leadership, it was the difference between Mayor Herenton’s take charge attitude and Memphis City Schools Commissioner Kenneth Whalum call a few hours earlier to shut down Memphis’ schools. We could only assume that if he were the mayor and were faced with crime problems, he’d simply put Memphis on lock down.
If Memphis City Schools was unsure that Mayor Herenton was trying to send a message, that was resolved when the school officials received one of the mayor’s rare letters. In it, according to school officials, he left no doubts that he’s not satisfied with the district and that he intends to get more involved.
Education Mayor
Meanwhile, 210 miles to the east, the new mayor of Nashville, Karl Dean, is becoming the quintessential education mayor. Since taking office, he has demanded greater academic strides in his city’s consolidated system, he has called for a voice in the selection of the new superintendent, he has hinted at changes in the operations of the Nashville district, he has held town hall meetings on ways to improve schools and he has almost daily kept public education at the top of his city’s agenda and on the front page of his city’s newspapers.
Perhaps, Mayor Herenton is warming up for his final act by doing the same. It would be hard to watch his performance and read his letter and believe that he’s not deadly serious about one thing: that Memphis City Schools is adrift and in need of strong leadership if it is to improve the academic performance of its 115,000 students.
In taking a more assertive approach toward the school district after 16 years, Mayor Herenton need only look to Chicago to see that it can be done. There, Mayor Richard M. Daley – in his sixth term and 19th year – aggressively urged school leaders to challenge the status quo.
Six-term Enthusiasm
“There is much more to be done before our parents, taxpayers, business and community leaders are confident that Chicago’s public education system is producing the workers and leaders of tomorrow that they, and our city, need. Today, instead of patting ourselves on the back, I want to re-challenge every one in the school system to accomplish even more for our students over the months and years ahead.”
And that’s coming from a mayor who essentially transformed the entire school district of his city, installing a mayor-led district and an appointed school board. If he can continue to be motivated by the potential for improvement, it’s hard to argue that Memphis should not be doing the same.
Hopefully, another benefit of Mayor Herenton driving a stake in the ground on school security is that any discussion about a Memphis City Schools Police Department is now dead. The Memphis City School’s 61-page “Feasibility Study on the Creation of a Memphis City Schools Police Department” is a feasibility study in name only.
A Preconceived Conclusion
Because it apparently was to become the basis for proposed state legislation allowing the district to create its own police department, the feasibility study was a conclusion in search of a justification. In pursuit of it, the report selected so-called comparable districts that all just happened to have police departments – Austin, Baltimore, Dallas, Duval County (FL), Indianapolis, San Diego and Pinellas County (FL).
It offered up the size of budgets and the size of the departments. Glaring in its omission was any evidence that the police departments reduced crime and increased school safety, or of any alternative approaches used in other districts.
The report called for doubling the number of officers in city schools – taking them from security guards to police officers – and increasing the security budget by 50 percent to $10.4 million.
Making The Real Deal The Real Deal
It all sounds eerily similar to the justifications used in Shelby County Government when it added its own police department. Based on the budgetary track record of that decision, the district should assume that its budgetary projections are significantly too low.
At the end of the day, it just seems that at a time when Memphis City Schools should put all of its attention on attacking the problem of 100 schools that do not now meet state benchmarks, the last thing it needs is another operational distraction. In fact, based on the controversies that plague its operational departments now, school officials would be wise to consider contracts with other public entities for all support operations.
That way, the district could keep a laser-like focus on the academic achievement of its students. After all, its ultimate success will be determined by how well it prepares students for work and life, not how well nutrition services is run.
Perhaps, Mayor Herenton would be interested in being part of that conversation, too.
One was as he assertively and decisively brushed aside district indecision and took charge of school safety. The other was a letter that he mailed about the same time to the board of commissioners that signaled his deep concern about the district.
All in all, it sent the message that if the five-term mayor is focusing these days on his legacy, he’s defining it in terms of Memphis City Schools.
Closing The Loop
It brings a distinct symmetry to the Herenton public career, which began as a elementary school teacher in Memphis City Schools in 1963, as the youngest elementary school principal at the age of 28, and finally as deputy superintendent and superintendent where he served for 13 years.
These days, his 16 years as mayor overshadow his 29 years as an educator, but it’s worth remembering that in those days, he was considered a hot prospect for most major urban districts searching for new superintendents.
It seemed apparent to his closest advisors that he was channeling his earlier educator’s experience last week when he announced that he would put metal detectors and more policeman in city middle and high schools. And, by the way, if any principals had a problem with it, they were had better get out of his way.
Best Of Times And Worst Of Times
It was an impressive performance and reminded us of what Mayor Herenton looks like at his best. Unfortunately, it came within hours of a reminder of what he looks at his worst with a series of questionable key appointments used as rewards for political loyalists. Perhaps, the defiance (some say arrogance) that rests at the center of his personality were at the heart of both, but at least in the case of school safety, he cut through school board politics to mandate a policy to combat the recent school shootings.
If there was ever a dichotomy of leadership, it was the difference between Mayor Herenton’s take charge attitude and Memphis City Schools Commissioner Kenneth Whalum call a few hours earlier to shut down Memphis’ schools. We could only assume that if he were the mayor and were faced with crime problems, he’d simply put Memphis on lock down.
If Memphis City Schools was unsure that Mayor Herenton was trying to send a message, that was resolved when the school officials received one of the mayor’s rare letters. In it, according to school officials, he left no doubts that he’s not satisfied with the district and that he intends to get more involved.
Education Mayor
Meanwhile, 210 miles to the east, the new mayor of Nashville, Karl Dean, is becoming the quintessential education mayor. Since taking office, he has demanded greater academic strides in his city’s consolidated system, he has called for a voice in the selection of the new superintendent, he has hinted at changes in the operations of the Nashville district, he has held town hall meetings on ways to improve schools and he has almost daily kept public education at the top of his city’s agenda and on the front page of his city’s newspapers.
Perhaps, Mayor Herenton is warming up for his final act by doing the same. It would be hard to watch his performance and read his letter and believe that he’s not deadly serious about one thing: that Memphis City Schools is adrift and in need of strong leadership if it is to improve the academic performance of its 115,000 students.
In taking a more assertive approach toward the school district after 16 years, Mayor Herenton need only look to Chicago to see that it can be done. There, Mayor Richard M. Daley – in his sixth term and 19th year – aggressively urged school leaders to challenge the status quo.
Six-term Enthusiasm
“There is much more to be done before our parents, taxpayers, business and community leaders are confident that Chicago’s public education system is producing the workers and leaders of tomorrow that they, and our city, need. Today, instead of patting ourselves on the back, I want to re-challenge every one in the school system to accomplish even more for our students over the months and years ahead.”
And that’s coming from a mayor who essentially transformed the entire school district of his city, installing a mayor-led district and an appointed school board. If he can continue to be motivated by the potential for improvement, it’s hard to argue that Memphis should not be doing the same.
Hopefully, another benefit of Mayor Herenton driving a stake in the ground on school security is that any discussion about a Memphis City Schools Police Department is now dead. The Memphis City School’s 61-page “Feasibility Study on the Creation of a Memphis City Schools Police Department” is a feasibility study in name only.
A Preconceived Conclusion
Because it apparently was to become the basis for proposed state legislation allowing the district to create its own police department, the feasibility study was a conclusion in search of a justification. In pursuit of it, the report selected so-called comparable districts that all just happened to have police departments – Austin, Baltimore, Dallas, Duval County (FL), Indianapolis, San Diego and Pinellas County (FL).
It offered up the size of budgets and the size of the departments. Glaring in its omission was any evidence that the police departments reduced crime and increased school safety, or of any alternative approaches used in other districts.
The report called for doubling the number of officers in city schools – taking them from security guards to police officers – and increasing the security budget by 50 percent to $10.4 million.
Making The Real Deal The Real Deal
It all sounds eerily similar to the justifications used in Shelby County Government when it added its own police department. Based on the budgetary track record of that decision, the district should assume that its budgetary projections are significantly too low.
At the end of the day, it just seems that at a time when Memphis City Schools should put all of its attention on attacking the problem of 100 schools that do not now meet state benchmarks, the last thing it needs is another operational distraction. In fact, based on the controversies that plague its operational departments now, school officials would be wise to consider contracts with other public entities for all support operations.
That way, the district could keep a laser-like focus on the academic achievement of its students. After all, its ultimate success will be determined by how well it prepares students for work and life, not how well nutrition services is run.
Perhaps, Mayor Herenton would be interested in being part of that conversation, too.
This Week On Smart City: Main Streets
This week's guests are on the frontlines of making cities sustainable with their work on housing, mixed use development and Main Streets.
Jonathan Rose has been called the father of the green affordable housing movement. His projects in the South Bronx and in Harlem are showing how green buildings ought to be for everyone. The national real estate firm he founded, Jonathan Rose Companies, collaborates with cities, towns, and nonprofits nationwide to develop projects that are both green and socially responsible. Its mission is to repair the fabric of communities.
Brian Goodman is renewing Boston's neighborhood commercial districts through its Main Street program, demonstrating that old does not necessarily mean disposable. Brian manages Mainstreets WiFi and Boston Community Change and he has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria, an entrepreneur, and an MBA student at Babson College.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit the website.
Note: We've received numerous emails asking about the change in the broadcast time of Smart City in Memphis. We're extremely grateful to WKNO-FM for their instrumental role in making it possible to have this program in the first place and we will always remain so. In answer to emails, however, we did want to respond: If you would like the time moved to the later time that it previously had (as many of you have said), please contact the radio station program director.
Jonathan Rose has been called the father of the green affordable housing movement. His projects in the South Bronx and in Harlem are showing how green buildings ought to be for everyone. The national real estate firm he founded, Jonathan Rose Companies, collaborates with cities, towns, and nonprofits nationwide to develop projects that are both green and socially responsible. Its mission is to repair the fabric of communities.
Brian Goodman is renewing Boston's neighborhood commercial districts through its Main Street program, demonstrating that old does not necessarily mean disposable. Brian manages Mainstreets WiFi and Boston Community Change and he has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria, an entrepreneur, and an MBA student at Babson College.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit the website.
Note: We've received numerous emails asking about the change in the broadcast time of Smart City in Memphis. We're extremely grateful to WKNO-FM for their instrumental role in making it possible to have this program in the first place and we will always remain so. In answer to emails, however, we did want to respond: If you would like the time moved to the later time that it previously had (as many of you have said), please contact the radio station program director.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Question Of The Week: What Would You Be Running On The Front Page?
We wrote yesterday about The Commercial Appeal using some of Memphis’ most precious real estate – its front page – for its weekly “single mother counter.”
We also suggested some other facts, trends and information that we thought merited front page attention. Some of ours include:
• The number of new jobs that don’t pay a living wage.
• The number of students in Memphis City Schools who drop out or who get a degree but still aren’t proficient on state tests.
• The number of college-educated 25-34 year-olds who are moving out of Memphis compared to the number moving in.
• The increase in the average salary of Memphis workers.
• The gap between the average income of an African-American and a white Memphian.
So, here’s the question of the week:
If you were the editor of The Commercial Appeal, what statistic would you be running on the front page instead of the number of single mothers?
We also suggested some other facts, trends and information that we thought merited front page attention. Some of ours include:
• The number of new jobs that don’t pay a living wage.
• The number of students in Memphis City Schools who drop out or who get a degree but still aren’t proficient on state tests.
• The number of college-educated 25-34 year-olds who are moving out of Memphis compared to the number moving in.
• The increase in the average salary of Memphis workers.
• The gap between the average income of an African-American and a white Memphian.
So, here’s the question of the week:
If you were the editor of The Commercial Appeal, what statistic would you be running on the front page instead of the number of single mothers?
Maybe There Needs To Be A Memphis Condom
To follow up the topic of contraception in our latest post, we think the Memphis and Shelby County Health Department should follow the lead of its New York City counterpart and develop its own condoms.
To read more about the New York City condom, click here.
To read more about the New York City condom, click here.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Single Mother Counter Ticks Away Chance For Important Discussion
With column inches in increasingly short supply, The Commercial Appeal uses its prime real estate on the front page to herald this bulletin – 1,024 children have been born to single mothers this year.
Actually, it’s not really a fact, because the number isn’t based on actual 2008 births. Rather, it is based on previous data trends that are extrapolated to the present.
In its own unique way, the “single mother ticker” is perhaps the clumsiest, most inept attempt to illuminate a serious public issue in recent memory.
It fails on so many levels that in the end, it actually obscures the serious debate it is designed to enlighten. Worse still, it devalues the importance of the research and insight under way at Urban Child Institute.
Another Line
It’s all too bad, because the counter runs the serious risk of becoming another unneeded racial dividing line in our city. To many African-Americans, this is yet the latest proof that white people just don’t understand how statements like this are interpreted when filtered through the experience of the majority race in our city.
It’s a little reminiscent of the confused looks that come over the faces of white guys as their comments about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are heard through the filter of gender and racial politics. Suddenly, comments that seem so well-intended and reasonable to white men are received as insensitive, demeaning or patronizing to women and African-Americans.
This seems to be the case of the “single mother counter,” which is seen by many African-Americans as one more symptom of the racial code language that hides beneath a thin veneer of civility in Memphis. To many, it also sends the unmistakable message that the white power structure still controls the conversation and discussion in our city.
All of this is lamentable, because all of the researchers at the Urban Child Institute are deeply passionate and personally invested in attacking the interwoven problems that trap too many of our fellow citizens into lives of poverty, dependency and hopelessness. Based on our reading of their definitive research reports (which are must reading for anyone interested in the future of Memphis), it is hard to conclude that all of those tables, graphs and rows of statistics boil down to say that single mothers are the greatest cause of Memphis’ problems.
Symptoms, Not Causes
More to the point, single mothers are more a symptom of the problems of our city than their cause. We understand what Urban Child Institute is really trying to say: children in families with two incomes have more opportunity, more access to educational enrichment programs and more support for their schooling.
We understand that we live in a media world where simplistic answers are emphasized at the expense of the in-depth discussion that is needed on questions like intractable poverty in too many of our neighborhoods. The “single mother counter” feels an awful lot like a glib marketing response to complex, interlocking public policy issues.
We know many of the people who labor at Urban Child Institute to get out the most reliable data in Memphis and who care deeply about the future of Memphis’ children. We just think that the CA’s counter does a disservice to the equality of their work, and relying on education rather than titillation is the best way in the long run to spark the conversation that we need on the serious web of poverty-related problems in our city.
While the Urban Child Institute is thankfully exploring tactics and cataloguing successful programs in other cities to address the residual damage of these trends in Memphis, it would be encouraging if Memphis at large would place more emphasis on good old-fashioned sex ed. Now, one of four of the births headlined on the CA’s front page is to teenagers. Any notion that state-mandated (and politically driven) abstinence-focused classes are the answer to this has been put to rest once and for all.
Abstinence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
According to the always reputable Mathematic Policy Institute Inc., students who participate in sexual abstinence programs are just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, and one in four had a similar number of sexual partners as those who did not take the abstinence classes.
We know that as a culture, we have difficulty grasping the realities of teenage sexuality, but it is a fact of life. Thinking that abstinence-based curriculum masquerading as real sexual education is the same as doing something productively is inane. (How is it that as soon as people get into policy-making positions on this issue, their personal memories are wiped out and they act as if they weren’t doing the same things when they were teenagers?)
Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools are essentially teaching abstinence with some cautionary information about sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV. Of course, the real problem, according to our friends at Planned Parenthood, resides with women in their 20’s who have multiple children (too often with multiple fathers) and with little interest in birth control.
Maybe, just maybe, if we started talking to them about birth control and self-esteem in middle schools, there would be better prospects for slowing the trends highlighted on the front page. What educators report is that having babies is many times a validation of self-worth.
Get Real
Here, we wonder why we don’t get serious and hand out condoms and birth control prescriptions at home room each day? Or while schools unwisely focus on abstinence as the answer, how about designing cool birth control patches and sending health department educators to hand them out to students just off school property?
If the school board in Portland, Maine, managed to vote in favor of making contraceptives available to middle school students, only the imagination limits what we should be doing here. However, the most obvious is to put health clinics in every middle and high school and give the nurses the power to offer serious birth control services unlike the school clinics in the past.
In other words, if we’re really serious about the issue of single mothers, we’d be even more serious about the need to deliver comprehensive sexuality education and access to contraception.
All that said, births to single mothers seem more like a symptom than the fundamental problem of too many people living in poverty. More to the point, we have to come to grips with environments where violence is common place, where parental validation is sparse and where residents are sent the message every day – in poor schools, in poor housing and in high crime rates – that they are not valued by the city in which they live.
Sending A Message
Unfortunately, to many, that is the primary message sent by the CA’s single mother counter – just one more reminder to them that they are seen as a problem, that they are stigmatized and that they are vilified. It’s too bad, because it’s a lost opportunity to have a data-driven conversation that crosses racial lines and produces new understanding and a renewed commitment to solving these issues.
In the meantime, we hope the single mother counter will be short-lived. If it is, here are a few other things we’d be interested in reading on the CA’s front page:
• The amount of public tax money given away in tax freezes.
• The number of new jobs that don’t pay a living wage.
• The ratio of public money spent on poverty prevention and prisons.
• The number of students in Memphis City Schools who drop out or who get a degree but still aren’t proficient on state tests.
• The number of college-educated 25-34 year-olds who are moving out of Memphis compared to the number moving in.
• The increase in the average salary of Memphis workers.
• The number of members of the middle class moving out of Memphis.
• The number of new houses built in Memphis and the number of vacant buildings demolished.
• The gap between the average income of an African-American and a white Memphian.
Actually, it’s not really a fact, because the number isn’t based on actual 2008 births. Rather, it is based on previous data trends that are extrapolated to the present.
In its own unique way, the “single mother ticker” is perhaps the clumsiest, most inept attempt to illuminate a serious public issue in recent memory.
It fails on so many levels that in the end, it actually obscures the serious debate it is designed to enlighten. Worse still, it devalues the importance of the research and insight under way at Urban Child Institute.
Another Line
It’s all too bad, because the counter runs the serious risk of becoming another unneeded racial dividing line in our city. To many African-Americans, this is yet the latest proof that white people just don’t understand how statements like this are interpreted when filtered through the experience of the majority race in our city.
It’s a little reminiscent of the confused looks that come over the faces of white guys as their comments about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are heard through the filter of gender and racial politics. Suddenly, comments that seem so well-intended and reasonable to white men are received as insensitive, demeaning or patronizing to women and African-Americans.
This seems to be the case of the “single mother counter,” which is seen by many African-Americans as one more symptom of the racial code language that hides beneath a thin veneer of civility in Memphis. To many, it also sends the unmistakable message that the white power structure still controls the conversation and discussion in our city.
All of this is lamentable, because all of the researchers at the Urban Child Institute are deeply passionate and personally invested in attacking the interwoven problems that trap too many of our fellow citizens into lives of poverty, dependency and hopelessness. Based on our reading of their definitive research reports (which are must reading for anyone interested in the future of Memphis), it is hard to conclude that all of those tables, graphs and rows of statistics boil down to say that single mothers are the greatest cause of Memphis’ problems.
Symptoms, Not Causes
More to the point, single mothers are more a symptom of the problems of our city than their cause. We understand what Urban Child Institute is really trying to say: children in families with two incomes have more opportunity, more access to educational enrichment programs and more support for their schooling.
We understand that we live in a media world where simplistic answers are emphasized at the expense of the in-depth discussion that is needed on questions like intractable poverty in too many of our neighborhoods. The “single mother counter” feels an awful lot like a glib marketing response to complex, interlocking public policy issues.
We know many of the people who labor at Urban Child Institute to get out the most reliable data in Memphis and who care deeply about the future of Memphis’ children. We just think that the CA’s counter does a disservice to the equality of their work, and relying on education rather than titillation is the best way in the long run to spark the conversation that we need on the serious web of poverty-related problems in our city.
While the Urban Child Institute is thankfully exploring tactics and cataloguing successful programs in other cities to address the residual damage of these trends in Memphis, it would be encouraging if Memphis at large would place more emphasis on good old-fashioned sex ed. Now, one of four of the births headlined on the CA’s front page is to teenagers. Any notion that state-mandated (and politically driven) abstinence-focused classes are the answer to this has been put to rest once and for all.
Abstinence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
According to the always reputable Mathematic Policy Institute Inc., students who participate in sexual abstinence programs are just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, and one in four had a similar number of sexual partners as those who did not take the abstinence classes.
We know that as a culture, we have difficulty grasping the realities of teenage sexuality, but it is a fact of life. Thinking that abstinence-based curriculum masquerading as real sexual education is the same as doing something productively is inane. (How is it that as soon as people get into policy-making positions on this issue, their personal memories are wiped out and they act as if they weren’t doing the same things when they were teenagers?)
Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools are essentially teaching abstinence with some cautionary information about sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV. Of course, the real problem, according to our friends at Planned Parenthood, resides with women in their 20’s who have multiple children (too often with multiple fathers) and with little interest in birth control.
Maybe, just maybe, if we started talking to them about birth control and self-esteem in middle schools, there would be better prospects for slowing the trends highlighted on the front page. What educators report is that having babies is many times a validation of self-worth.
Get Real
Here, we wonder why we don’t get serious and hand out condoms and birth control prescriptions at home room each day? Or while schools unwisely focus on abstinence as the answer, how about designing cool birth control patches and sending health department educators to hand them out to students just off school property?
If the school board in Portland, Maine, managed to vote in favor of making contraceptives available to middle school students, only the imagination limits what we should be doing here. However, the most obvious is to put health clinics in every middle and high school and give the nurses the power to offer serious birth control services unlike the school clinics in the past.
In other words, if we’re really serious about the issue of single mothers, we’d be even more serious about the need to deliver comprehensive sexuality education and access to contraception.
All that said, births to single mothers seem more like a symptom than the fundamental problem of too many people living in poverty. More to the point, we have to come to grips with environments where violence is common place, where parental validation is sparse and where residents are sent the message every day – in poor schools, in poor housing and in high crime rates – that they are not valued by the city in which they live.
Sending A Message
Unfortunately, to many, that is the primary message sent by the CA’s single mother counter – just one more reminder to them that they are seen as a problem, that they are stigmatized and that they are vilified. It’s too bad, because it’s a lost opportunity to have a data-driven conversation that crosses racial lines and produces new understanding and a renewed commitment to solving these issues.
In the meantime, we hope the single mother counter will be short-lived. If it is, here are a few other things we’d be interested in reading on the CA’s front page:
• The amount of public tax money given away in tax freezes.
• The number of new jobs that don’t pay a living wage.
• The ratio of public money spent on poverty prevention and prisons.
• The number of students in Memphis City Schools who drop out or who get a degree but still aren’t proficient on state tests.
• The number of college-educated 25-34 year-olds who are moving out of Memphis compared to the number moving in.
• The increase in the average salary of Memphis workers.
• The number of members of the middle class moving out of Memphis.
• The number of new houses built in Memphis and the number of vacant buildings demolished.
• The gap between the average income of an African-American and a white Memphian.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
192021 Cities
If you're interested in cities, you'll be interested in this program. To learn more, click here.
Voting For An Exciting Weekend Of Creativity In Memphis
Memphis is blowing away the competition.
This time, it’s not college basketball, but the vote for a Startup Weekend.
It’s a fascinating – not to mention fun – process, because within 52 hours in one weekend, a tech start up company will be created and launched from scratch.
There are 35 cities vying to be the site for the kind of energy and creativity that often percolates just below the surface of Memphis.
When our friend Jenny Howard of MPACT Memphis tipped us off to this vote Thursday, Memphis was #5 in the balloting, but right now, it’s running away with the election with 10 times more votes than the second place city. In fact, Memphis has more votes than the rest of the cities combined.
It’s the latest encouraging indication of an enthusiastic group of Memphians who are searching for a way to connect and create. That’s certainly consistent with the purpose of Startup Weekend, which has been held previously in places like Boulder (home base for Startup Weekend), Toronto, Hamburg, New York, Boston, Chapel Hill, Atlanta, London, Seattle and San Francisco.
The weekend starts at 6 p.m. on a Friday and winds up at midnight Sunday. There is a facilitator, but there is no CEO or other titles at the event. What’s been interesting in other cities is watching natural leaders emerge and watching the camaraderie gel in ways that bring the project from an concept to fruition.
The best ways to incorporate the new company will be considered and shares will be awarded and based on the level of participation by each person.
To vote for Memphis, click here.
To read a Washington Post article about that city's Startup Weekend, click here.
We’re not sure what else takes place at these weekends, but there’s one thing that needs to happen for sure. Someone needs to be there taking down the names of every one who shows up, because they’re exactly the kind of people we need to get involved in the public boards and activities of our community.
Memphis' Unworthiness Gives Power To Pyramid Projects
It seems that we're about to add another verb to our uniquely Memphis vocabulary: to be "Bass Pro'ed."
Previously posted March 7, 2006:
It all feels eerily familiar – the politicians’ self-congratulations, the civic hyperbole, the bureaucrats leading the rounds of applause, the army of cameras and reporters.
It’s one of Memphis’ favorite pastimes – another development plan for The Pyramid.
This time, it was Bass Pro Shop that is the answer to realizing the building’s potential. Or will it become the latest grand idea laid to rest in the Tomb of Doom along all the others?
Noun To Verb
It all began in the late 1980’s with the unforgettable Sidney Shlenker. His promises ended up as elusive as a realistic financial plan for his grand vision for The Pyramid.
In the course of a few years, he went from Memphis’ “Man of the Year” to a verb:
shlenker (SHLINK-ur), v., 1) to dupe. 2) to fool. 3) to take advantage of people with too little self-esteem to say no. (From Southern, unknown derivation, possibly river-related.)
Mythology
Shlenker is now the stuff of mythology, relegated to stories of a modern Carnival huckster who hypnotized the city and county into giving him control of their sparkling, new signature building. Forgotten these days are some interesting facts: one, he owned a National Basketball Association team in Denver, he had been CEO of the Houston Astrodome, he had co-founded Pace Entertainment (the largest live entertainment company in its day) until bought by the ever-hungry SFX and most remarkably of all, he was a banker. Two, his credibility was vouched for by one of Memphis leading citizens, John Tigrett. Three, after years of searching vainly for bank financing, at the 11th hour as his contract was being voided, he found the money for his project in a French bank, but the deal fell quickly apart when the bank received an anonymous, explosive letter attacking him, postmark: downtown Memphis.
No, we’re not defending Shlenker, but it’s just a little hard to place all the blame on the pickpocket when you put his hands in your pocket.
In that same time period, there was the Isaac Tigrett announcement that The Pyramid would boast Memphis’ long-awaited Hard Rock Café, but the deal fell apart when his board complained that they had not approved it and they had no interest in opening here.
Hooked
Then, after a lengthy process of city and county government, there was the selection of gifted Memphis photographer Marius Penczner to add his eco-theme park, Island Earth, to the building. However, Mayor Herenton jerked his support from the project at the last minute, and Mr. Penczner went on to film and produce award-winning commercials for the Clinton/Gore campaign and was media adviser to the Gore for President campaign. With the inescapable feeling that he had been repudiated by his hometown, he moved to Nashville.
Then there was the on-again and off-again flirtation with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for the Grammy Hall of Fame, or some permutation of it. Renderings were produced, committees were formed, endless meetings were held and mayors’ blessings were bestowed. The only thing missing was the money to do it.
So, now we’ve moved to Bass Pro Shops as Memphis again searches for the elusive answer to the mystery of The Pyramid’s future. While there’s nothing definite and there are no signatures on the dotted line, it appears that it will happen.
Asking Right Question
If city and county governments’ question is, “How can we get a tenant so we can keep The Pyramid open,” they’ve come up with a winning answer. After 15 years of various schemes and plans (and the building still without even the inclinator to the apex), the special task force on Pyramid reuse seems to have a proposal that can get done.
However, if the question is, “What can be done with The Pyramid that enhances Memphis’ national image and attracts the young professions that we so desperately need,” Bass Pro Shop misses the mark. Widely.
At a time when Memphis lacks any cohesive economic plan, and these days that especially means a talent strategy to attract 25-34 year-old knowledge economy workers, it is hard to imagine that the giant fish retail theme park will be a plus.
It's Talent, Stupid
It’s ironic that Memphis led the nation in research into this key demographic, which is determining which cities fail and which cities succeed. And yet, armed with definitive recommendations from the Memphis Talent Magnet Report, the results of the Memphis Manifesto Summit and the data of the Young and Restless studies, Memphis has never been able to leverage this knowledge into a strategy that can work.
Already, we know about Memphis’ drawbacks from major corporate recruiters in Memphis and members of the young professionals’ demographic group. In the eyes of these workers, Memphis is seen as provincial, slow-moving, dull and a big country town. They want to live and work in cities that are vibrant, have a visible creative culture and opportunities for unique, memorable experiences.
With the pressing need to correct these misperceptions and communicate a new image, city and county governments are turning over the region’s signature building to Bass Pro Shop, a highly successful company with quality leadership. But the question remains: is this the best use of The Pyramid and will it create a buzz about Memphis as a vibrant, 21st century city teeming with creativity?
Symbols Matter
When it was built, The Pyramid was supposed to symbolize our confidence in the future of Memphis. Today, its reuse should symbolize our confidence that we will be a city competitive in the new economy.
As we said, the committee that did a fine job in luring Bass Pro Shop to The Pyramid answered the question that they were given. We just wonder if it was the right question.
And, what did we learn from Memphis’ Shlenker Era? It’s simply this - it wasn’t his cleverness or his charisma or his glibness that conned us into giving him the keys to the Pyramid. Rather, it was our own neediness and feeling of unworthiness, which manifests itself in the deadly notion that we don’t deserve the best, that whatever we get is good enough and that we’re lucky to get it.
The good news is that Jim Hagale, president of Bass Pro Shop, is no Sidney Shlenker. Here's hoping we're not the same old Memphis.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Welcome To Memphis
Maybe the writing over the door says it all: "Welcome Fishermen, Hunters and Other Liars."
Sunday, February 10, 2008
20 Years Of Pyramid Curses
Maybe the truth is that The Pyramid is just cursed.
No, we’re serious.
From native American warnings to Isaac Tigrett’s crystal skull to former Shelby County Commissioner Vasco Smith’s foreboding feelings about the site that he called “evil,” The Pyramid has been a reliable tomb of doom for any big ideas for its use.
The only thing more consistent than failure is the hyperbole that characterizes each of them. We thought of this when a leading Memphis businessman and promoter of the Bass Pro Shop told The Commercial Appeal:
“We know that Bass Pro will draw 3 to 4 million tourists (annually) to Memphis."
Shoppers As Tourists
Of course, we know no such thing. And the continued description of its shoppers as “tourists” is misleading and unsupportable. We’ve not heard anything about a definitive, impartial market study for Bass Pro Shop, and we suspect that the generous projection of “tourists” actually comes from the company itself. Next, Bass Pro Shop backers will be referring to the store’s yearly “attendance.”
All this sounds so familiar. Accompanying every half-baked plan for The Pyramid has been a different batch of indefensible numbers justifying their claim to the city’s most prominent building. Ironically, the grand plans of Sidney Shlenker and John Tigrett also projected three million visitors to The Great American Pyramid – a prediction that now seems as ludicrous as the claim that $39 million would get Memphis a “state of the art” arena.
If Bass Pro supporters are going to bandy about claims of 3 to 4 million shoppers (oh, sorry, tourists), they need to reassure an anxious city. That can be done by releasing the data to back up such an extravagant claim, by determining how many come from our market, and how much is “new net money” and not just money moved from other retailers to Bass Pro Shop.
But back to the curse. The most ominous warning was given by Isaac Tigrett following the removal of the crystal skull that he had secretly riveted to the steel superstructure of The Pyramid apex. The small black box was spotted by a maintenance man about a year after the arena had opened.
Cosmic Imbalance
Pried from its secret place, the box was opened with great ceremony in a conference room in the bottom of The Pyramid, and inside the velvet-lined box and covered with gauze dusted with a fragrant powder was a small crystal skull. There was little question who had put it there, because of Isaac Tigrett’s interest in Eastern mysticism.
Although the skull seemed to have more in common with those found in Mayan archaeological sites, city and county officials were told that the skull had materialized in the hands of Mr. Tigrett’s guru, Sathya Sai Baba, during a conversation. The founder of Hard Rock Café and House of Blues had a special debt to the Indian mystic, who protected him during a devastating car wreck in California. Hurtling off the road in his sports car, Mr. Tigrett said that Sai Baba appeared in his car, put his arms around him and protected him from harm. The car was destroyed.
In other words, the crystal skull’s connection to the religious leader and guru gave it special power, which was amplified by the additional force of the pyramid itself, according to Isaac Tigrett.
“You don’t have any idea what you have done,” he said upon being told that the crystal skull had been removed. He added somberly that the cosmic balance of the earth could be disturbed as well.
Curses
By that time, suggestions that removal of the skull could curse The Pyramid were laughable. After all, with the crystal skull in place, little had gone right.
If Memphis had been interpreting signs, perhaps there wasn’t one delivered more forcefully than the thunder storm that postponed the “Big Dig” extravaganza to kick off construction. A native American telephoned city and county officials with a warning - the Pyramid site was sacred and that the rain was an omen of worse things to come.
Officials joked about the warning for days. Two years later, no one was laughing. Construction had been delayed, the price had increased, and the shape-shifting Shlenker/Tigrett development was no closer to coming into focus.
The Great American Pyramid plan was essentially dead. So was the Hard Rock Café; the glass inclinator to the apex; the perverse mutation of of Egyptology and rock music into Rakapolis; Dick Clark’s American Music Awards Hall of Fame; a re-creation of the Cavern, ground zero for Beatles fans, and priceless Stax Records artifacts; an Omnimax theater; a light and music spectacle in the arena on non-event days; a radio station on the top of the building beaming shortwave Memphis music; and what became called the “scheme du jour,” ideas that often became inoperable before the end of the business day.
Flush And Flood
The private partnership finally cratered and the public sector scampered to get The Pyramid opened in time for Memphis State University basketball. But first, there was the grand opening. Once touted by Mr. Shlenker as Luciano Pavarotti in Aida, complete with elephants and grandeur, the opening instead starred the Judds, who came all the way from Nashville.
Although arena officials had been referring to opening night as their “baptism by fire,” because of the rushed opening, it was a more traditional baptism – by water. When the packed house stormed the restrooms and flushed the toilets at the same time, it was too much for the city sewer transfer station, which flooded the arena floor with water of varying degrees of sanitation, giving birth to the so-called Pyramid test now conducted in all new arenas.
From the beginning, it was clear that the seats were too narrow (required when the arena capacity was increased by 2,000 seats to get the deciding vote from County Commissioner Pete Sisson), the angle of the upstairs seats was too severe (a pregnant woman fell down the darkened, unlit aisles), the track seating adjacent to the floor seats wasn’t used in arenas any more and conjured up images of rodeo seating; the private suites were on the public concourse which devalued their exclusivity, and the sound was in a word, atrocious.
The gallows humor at The Pyramid was that a concert ticket was a bargain, because you got to hear two concerts for the price of one – the actual concert and the one that bounced off the ceiling about 15 seconds later. A lawsuit and millions of dollars later, the acoustics were improved, but not before some promoters decided that there was a hex on the building.
Death By Pyramid
A door at ground level was cut into the south side of the building for disabled guests. Technically, the ramps into the building met building code, but after a Pyramid manager was unable to move up the ramp on a wheelchair, the new entrance was added and handicapped parking was redesigned.
In addition to basic acoustics, the sound system and lighting for basketball games had to be upgraded. More than once, it was muttered that the building was cursed, particularly after someone fell to his death from the rigging and a gunman holed up in the ground floor.
But the dream of a Pyramid attraction doesn’t die easy. Island Earth was killed off by politically connected Herenton supporters who didn’t like the idea of a eco-attraction (which now seems to have been ahead of its time) and other pleas for development plans to major theme park operators and developers only drew shrugs. As a result, the Wonders exhibit seemed like a godsend when it moved to the north wide of The Pyramid from the convention center. Within a few years, it shut its doors with a debt of more than $1 million.
Now, about 20 years after The Great American Pyramid was first proposed, the curse seems as active as ever, bringing Bass Pro Shop as our latest, greatest magic answer to making the building the 365 day a year attraction that was always envisioned.
If there is anything that should be clear by now, it is that some things just aren’t meant to be.
Friday, February 08, 2008
This Week On Smart City: The Performance Of Cities
The world is obsessed with measurement, especially it seems when it comes to cities. We have the best city for lovers, the best city for families, the healthiest city for women - and men.
The Conference Board of Canada has introduced its own ranking of Canadian cities and compared their performance with key cities in the U.S. This week we'll talk to the man who led that study, Mario Lefebvre. Mario was project director of City Magnets: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of Canada's CMAs.
Also with us is Dr. Bridget Jones, who has put together a remarkably broad and effective coalition of elected officials, hunters, farmers, and traffic officials in Nashville and Middle Tennessee for smart growth and sustainability. Bridget is Executive Director of Cumberland Region Tomorrow.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit the website.
Note: We've received numerous emails asking about the change in the broadcast time of Smart City in Memphis. We're extremely grateful to WKNO-FM for their instrumental role in making it possible to have this program in the first place and we will always remain so. In answer to emails, however, we did want to respond: If you would like the time moved to the later time that it previously had (as many of you have said), please contact the radio station program director.
The Conference Board of Canada has introduced its own ranking of Canadian cities and compared their performance with key cities in the U.S. This week we'll talk to the man who led that study, Mario Lefebvre. Mario was project director of City Magnets: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of Canada's CMAs.
Also with us is Dr. Bridget Jones, who has put together a remarkably broad and effective coalition of elected officials, hunters, farmers, and traffic officials in Nashville and Middle Tennessee for smart growth and sustainability. Bridget is Executive Director of Cumberland Region Tomorrow.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit the website.
Note: We've received numerous emails asking about the change in the broadcast time of Smart City in Memphis. We're extremely grateful to WKNO-FM for their instrumental role in making it possible to have this program in the first place and we will always remain so. In answer to emails, however, we did want to respond: If you would like the time moved to the later time that it previously had (as many of you have said), please contact the radio station program director.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Ethical Commitment Is To Public, Not Bass Pro Shop
It’s one strange relationship that Memphis city government has with Bass Pro Shop.
Over the past 38 months, there’s nothing in any of the four agreements they have signed that binds the store to anything. Of course, that shouldn’t be too surprising since three of the agreements actually bore the adjective, non-binding, in their titles.
And yet, city government officials contend that the agreements bind them - to only talking to the big box retailer.
Horns Of Dilemma
Today, we felt like we had a peek into this parallel universe when City Hall lead negotiator Robert Lipscomb said:
The horns of this ethical dilemma surfaced when theme park proponent Greg Ericson announced that he will submit his own development agreement (complete with financing and a plan of action). That’s a gutsy strategy and actually helpful in clarifying these issues (we just hope it doesn’t include Mud Island).
There is no question that Mr. Lipscomb is serious about his ethical standards. However, that’s not what this is all about. It’s about acting in the best interests of the taxpayers of Memphis and Shelby County.
No Real Risk
After all, what’s really at stake for Mr. Lipscomb in negotiating with someone else? The risk that Bass Pro Shop may cancel an agreement that doesn’t mean anything anyway?
If Mr. Lipscomb feels that he and city government can’t negotiate with anyone but Bass Pro Shop, we don’t understand it, but we respect it.
But there’s no reason Shelby County Government can’t, and for that matter, there’s really nothing stopping the Pyramid Public Building Authority, which is the owner of The Pyramid in the first place.
Tunnel Vision
We respect Mr. Lipscomb not only for the sincerity that he exudes in his projects to improve his hometown, but for being one of the rare sources for new thinking in city government. We’ve agreed with him on some, and we’ve disagreed on others.
In this case, however, he seems to have fallen prey to one of those peculiarly public sector syndromes: He seems so determined to prove that city government can close a deal that he’s developed a tunnel vision that undermines all that he is doing.
For that reason alone, it is a good time for some fresh eyes to look at this issue. After all, Mr. Lipscomb has invested three years of his life in the futile hope that he can get Bass Pro Shop to ink a substantive agreement. We understand how hard it must be to admit that he’s fallen short of his goals, but there is no logical basis for Bass Pro Shop to be given exclusive control of The Pyramid for the next 18 months while it determines if it wants to move ahead.
Fresh Eyes
It seems to us that county government can provide this fresh look. City officials even seemed peeved that Shelby County Attorney Brian Kuhn rightly (not to mention ethically) ruled that the draft development agreement was a public record. Mr. Lipscomb, on the other hand, called it a “working document” which should not have been released to the public.
As for us, it’s immutable that on a matters of this importance, local government should always err on the side of public disclosure. The public deserves to see the details of the “development agreement” and they shouldn’t have to rely on city negotiators to spoon feed the information.
In light of the move to change the Tennessee Sunshine Law to allow a return to the days of backroom deals, we are thankful for the unshakable clarity of the Tennessee Public Records Act. As Mr. Kuhn understands and ruled, there is no exception for “working documents.”
An Easy Call
It’s actually so easy that even a non-lawyer can make the call: A public document is any document sent to a public official by someone outside of government. (We would even argue that it applies to any document sent by someone within government to another department of government, but we’ll save that more aggressive argument for another day.)
Suffice it to say, if ethics is the rules of conduct recognized for specific kinds of actions, Mr. Kuhn’s decision was anchored in the first rule of public ethics: The public’s right to know what is being done in their names. It is this transparency that lies at the heart of ethical government.
Back to The Pyramid: When it was built, The Pyramid was supposed to become the physical symbol of our confidence in the future of Memphis. It was supposed to mirror our greater ambitions.
Tomb Of Doom
Time after time, The Pyramid’s big promises have collapsed and promises have gone unmet. The Memphis Pyramid has buried more big dreams than its Egyptian predecessors buried kings. There’s been the Hard Rock Café, the inclinator ride to the apex, the American Music Experience, the NARAS museum, Island Earth, the Wonders exhibit, and finally, the arena itself.
Today, it’s not too late for The Pyramid to symbolize our confidence and speak to our ambition. Can we really say that our city’s ambition is truly captured in a Bass Pro Shop in the signature building on our doorstep?
What should we have learned from from Memphis’ Shlenker Era?
Sending A Message
It’s simply this - it wasn’t his cleverness or his charisma or his glibness that conned us into giving him the keys to the Pyramid. Rather, it was our own neediness and feelings of unworthiness, which manifested itself in the deadly notion that we don’t deserve the best. Instead, good is always good enough for Memphis, and we think we’re lucky to get it.
Our city fathers profess to have great ambitions for Memphis. This is our chance to aim high. Right now, with the push for Bass Pro shop, it unfortunately us beginning to feel like the same old Memphis to us.
Over the past 38 months, there’s nothing in any of the four agreements they have signed that binds the store to anything. Of course, that shouldn’t be too surprising since three of the agreements actually bore the adjective, non-binding, in their titles.
And yet, city government officials contend that the agreements bind them - to only talking to the big box retailer.
Horns Of Dilemma
Today, we felt like we had a peek into this parallel universe when City Hall lead negotiator Robert Lipscomb said:
“I can’t negotiate with that person (any one other than Bass Pro Shop), because that would violate every ethical thing I can think of.”
The horns of this ethical dilemma surfaced when theme park proponent Greg Ericson announced that he will submit his own development agreement (complete with financing and a plan of action). That’s a gutsy strategy and actually helpful in clarifying these issues (we just hope it doesn’t include Mud Island).
There is no question that Mr. Lipscomb is serious about his ethical standards. However, that’s not what this is all about. It’s about acting in the best interests of the taxpayers of Memphis and Shelby County.
No Real Risk
After all, what’s really at stake for Mr. Lipscomb in negotiating with someone else? The risk that Bass Pro Shop may cancel an agreement that doesn’t mean anything anyway?
If Mr. Lipscomb feels that he and city government can’t negotiate with anyone but Bass Pro Shop, we don’t understand it, but we respect it.
But there’s no reason Shelby County Government can’t, and for that matter, there’s really nothing stopping the Pyramid Public Building Authority, which is the owner of The Pyramid in the first place.
Tunnel Vision
We respect Mr. Lipscomb not only for the sincerity that he exudes in his projects to improve his hometown, but for being one of the rare sources for new thinking in city government. We’ve agreed with him on some, and we’ve disagreed on others.
In this case, however, he seems to have fallen prey to one of those peculiarly public sector syndromes: He seems so determined to prove that city government can close a deal that he’s developed a tunnel vision that undermines all that he is doing.
For that reason alone, it is a good time for some fresh eyes to look at this issue. After all, Mr. Lipscomb has invested three years of his life in the futile hope that he can get Bass Pro Shop to ink a substantive agreement. We understand how hard it must be to admit that he’s fallen short of his goals, but there is no logical basis for Bass Pro Shop to be given exclusive control of The Pyramid for the next 18 months while it determines if it wants to move ahead.
Fresh Eyes
It seems to us that county government can provide this fresh look. City officials even seemed peeved that Shelby County Attorney Brian Kuhn rightly (not to mention ethically) ruled that the draft development agreement was a public record. Mr. Lipscomb, on the other hand, called it a “working document” which should not have been released to the public.
As for us, it’s immutable that on a matters of this importance, local government should always err on the side of public disclosure. The public deserves to see the details of the “development agreement” and they shouldn’t have to rely on city negotiators to spoon feed the information.
In light of the move to change the Tennessee Sunshine Law to allow a return to the days of backroom deals, we are thankful for the unshakable clarity of the Tennessee Public Records Act. As Mr. Kuhn understands and ruled, there is no exception for “working documents.”
An Easy Call
It’s actually so easy that even a non-lawyer can make the call: A public document is any document sent to a public official by someone outside of government. (We would even argue that it applies to any document sent by someone within government to another department of government, but we’ll save that more aggressive argument for another day.)
Suffice it to say, if ethics is the rules of conduct recognized for specific kinds of actions, Mr. Kuhn’s decision was anchored in the first rule of public ethics: The public’s right to know what is being done in their names. It is this transparency that lies at the heart of ethical government.
Back to The Pyramid: When it was built, The Pyramid was supposed to become the physical symbol of our confidence in the future of Memphis. It was supposed to mirror our greater ambitions.
Tomb Of Doom
Time after time, The Pyramid’s big promises have collapsed and promises have gone unmet. The Memphis Pyramid has buried more big dreams than its Egyptian predecessors buried kings. There’s been the Hard Rock Café, the inclinator ride to the apex, the American Music Experience, the NARAS museum, Island Earth, the Wonders exhibit, and finally, the arena itself.
Today, it’s not too late for The Pyramid to symbolize our confidence and speak to our ambition. Can we really say that our city’s ambition is truly captured in a Bass Pro Shop in the signature building on our doorstep?
What should we have learned from from Memphis’ Shlenker Era?
Sending A Message
It’s simply this - it wasn’t his cleverness or his charisma or his glibness that conned us into giving him the keys to the Pyramid. Rather, it was our own neediness and feelings of unworthiness, which manifested itself in the deadly notion that we don’t deserve the best. Instead, good is always good enough for Memphis, and we think we’re lucky to get it.
Our city fathers profess to have great ambitions for Memphis. This is our chance to aim high. Right now, with the push for Bass Pro shop, it unfortunately us beginning to feel like the same old Memphis to us.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Bass Pro Shop Agreement Is No Development At All
Memphis’ proposed deal with Bass Pro shop reminds us of the punch line from that classic joke: “O.K., we’ve determined what you are. Now we’re just haggling over your price.”
Apparently, we’ve now established that our price is $420,000, and what we are is desperate.
That’s the only way to explain the proposed “development agreement” between Bass Pro Shop and Memphis and Shelby County Governments. Normally such agreements look like the results of a poker game with each side winning some and losing some.
Straight Flush
That’s sure not the case with this agreement, because all the cards are squarely in the hands of the sporting goods store. That’s why we predict that the 20-page draft agreement will have trouble clearing three formidable hurdles that lie ahead – approvals by Memphis City Council, Shelby County Board of Commissioners and Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton.
The mantra for every successful negotiation is: “You have to be willing to walk away.” This proposal sends an unmistakable message that not only were City Hall negotiators unwilling to leave the negotiating table, but they seemed willing to give the store more and more until it ended up with a strangle hold over the signature building on our riverfront.
So, what does Memphis get in return for its largesse? Precious little - unless you are excited by $35,000 a month in rent payments. Keep in mind: city and county governments spend that much money every 20 minutes, every hour of every day.
Guilty as Charged
This would be a great time for city/county truth in advertising requirement. This agreement is anything but a “development agreement.” There is nothing in the entire document that requires Bass Pro Shop to ever do anything in The Pyramid.
In fact, the “development agreement” isn’t binding or requires any specific actions from the national hunting and fishing retailer.
And yet, in exchange for about $1,200 a day in rent, Bass Pro Shop would be given exclusive control of The Pyramid until summer, 2009. All in all, it’s a testament to Bass Pro Shop’s well-deserved reputation for masterfully stringing along governments on its timetable.
Toothless
If you are unsure that Bass Pro Shop is in the driver’s seat, just consider a few gems sprinkled through the proposed agreement:
Got it?
Driving The Deal
The message is unmistakable: Bass Pro Shop is in the driver’s seat. It can pull out whenever it wants (with 15 days notice) and for whatever it wants, and city and county governments have no recourse to do anything about it.
And for this, local government is supposed to be willing to give this store exclusive control over The Pyramid?
Or as the legal wordsmiths put it, “…in consideration of the payment of the monthly fee…City and County (and their respective representatives) shall deal exclusively with Bass Pro on all matters pertaining to the development and use of the Pyramid during the Development Period, and neither the city nor County shall, and no person or entity shall on either the City’s and County’s behalf, negotiate, correspond or enter into any written document or agreement whatsoever (whether binding or non-binding) with any party regarding the prospective use of the Pyramid.”
In a city with a history of the public getting outnegotiated by private sector lawyers, this agreement sets a new standard. Never have so many words been used to give so little to so many people in Memphis.
Special Designs
According to the agreement, Bass Pro Shop deserves this special consideration because it has “devoted substantial internal resources and undertook a preliminary design of the project, and Bass Pro hired various consultants to study various aspects of The Pyramid.” That seems to be an especially curious claim considering that the first official from the company toured the old arena little more than two months ago.
We’re excited that Bass Pro has allegedly done so much to put together an exciting design for The Pyramid. That’s why it seems even stranger that no company official was willing to make a public statement about this project and their excitement over the prospects for the future, or best of all, just show us their designs for the future.
That future, according to the agreement, will see The Pyramid – unless “the Partner Developments are not secured to the satisfaction of Bass Pro” – become home to a hotel, aquarium, restaurants, traveling exhibits, conference space, additional retail, museum and boat showroom.
Bigger And Better
In other words, it will be a regular Bass Pro Shop writ large.
But, if the prospects of this fishing store as the welcome mat for Memphis don’t fill you with civic pride, there’s always the company’s leaping bass logo - all 3,000 square feet of it – that will be affixed to each of The Pyramid’s four sides.
It must have swelled the breasts of city negotiators, because, if and when the company develops The Pyramid, Bass Pro Shop has the contractual right to be the tenant for 55 years.
Special Purpose Indeed
Curiously, the agreement calls for creation of the “Memphis Special Purpose Entity,” which will act as landlord and enter into the agreement with Bass Pro Shop. It adds a new layer to the building’s operation, since the Pyramid Public Building Authority – the city-county agency created about 20 years ago to build the arena – still exists and must sign off on any proposed deal.
To get all this done, city and county governments will put $30 million of public money into the megastore, and it likely will come from yet another special tax district, this time, a TIF (Tax Increment Financing) District and Pyramid Tourism Development Zone.
In the end, the combination of Bass Pro Shop’s skills at political foot dragging and the reality of “government time” could mean that we could be years away from knowing if the store really plans to develop The Pyramid.
The Clock’s Ticking
After all, it was summer, 2001, when we all learned that the Grizzlies would be prime tenants of The Pyramid until 2004, when the building’s future would become uncertain. Despite the knowledge that the building would be closing, city and county governments waited three years to form the Pyramid Reuse Committee, and it was summer, 2004, when Bass Pro Shop began discussions with the powers-that-be about their ambitions for the building.
In December, 2004, the store signed its first of three non-binding letters of intent, and at a press conference in February, 2005, officials with Bass Pro Shop said they would take control of The Pyramid in six months. We’re still waiting.
We are now 79 months from the time when we learned that The Pyramid would be shut down. We are now 42 months from the time when Bass Pro Shop said it planned to put a megastore in The Pyramid. And yet, the clock is still running on a definitive agreement from the sporting goods store.
Predictions
It seems likely to us that the city and county legislative bodies – if not Mayor Wharton himself – will have little patience with the suggestion that this “development agreement” really means anything and may well insist on a level playing field that gives both Bass Pro Shop and Ericson Group an equal chance to put up or shut up.
Secondly, it appears more and more likely that the same criticisms that were made about the public concessions to Michael Heisley’s Grizzlies are about to erupt in the wake of the proposed agreement with Bass Pro Shop. There are some of the same opponents to FedEx Forum who believe that although the Bass Pro Shop is on a smaller scale, it is based on similar principles to FedEx Forum.
In other words, there may be a “development agreement,” but it may well take more time than Bass Pro Shop thought to pull in its latest catch.
Apparently, we’ve now established that our price is $420,000, and what we are is desperate.
That’s the only way to explain the proposed “development agreement” between Bass Pro Shop and Memphis and Shelby County Governments. Normally such agreements look like the results of a poker game with each side winning some and losing some.
Straight Flush
That’s sure not the case with this agreement, because all the cards are squarely in the hands of the sporting goods store. That’s why we predict that the 20-page draft agreement will have trouble clearing three formidable hurdles that lie ahead – approvals by Memphis City Council, Shelby County Board of Commissioners and Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton.
The mantra for every successful negotiation is: “You have to be willing to walk away.” This proposal sends an unmistakable message that not only were City Hall negotiators unwilling to leave the negotiating table, but they seemed willing to give the store more and more until it ended up with a strangle hold over the signature building on our riverfront.
So, what does Memphis get in return for its largesse? Precious little - unless you are excited by $35,000 a month in rent payments. Keep in mind: city and county governments spend that much money every 20 minutes, every hour of every day.
Guilty as Charged
This would be a great time for city/county truth in advertising requirement. This agreement is anything but a “development agreement.” There is nothing in the entire document that requires Bass Pro Shop to ever do anything in The Pyramid.
In fact, the “development agreement” isn’t binding or requires any specific actions from the national hunting and fishing retailer.
And yet, in exchange for about $1,200 a day in rent, Bass Pro Shop would be given exclusive control of The Pyramid until summer, 2009. All in all, it’s a testament to Bass Pro Shop’s well-deserved reputation for masterfully stringing along governments on its timetable.
Toothless
If you are unsure that Bass Pro Shop is in the driver’s seat, just consider a few gems sprinkled through the proposed agreement:
“The lease…will provide that if the Partner Developments are not secured to the satisfaction of Bass Pro, Bass Pro shall have the right to terminate the project without further obligation or liability.”
“It is understood that if Bass Pro is not satisfied with the results of its investigations, studies and planning, for any reason and at any time, Bass Pro is not obligated to execute any other document or continue to pursue the project, and it may terminate this Agreement without any liability or obligation effective fifteen (15) days following written notice to the City and County.”
“Provided that this Agreement has not been terminated during the Planning Phase, Bass Pro shall give notice to the City and County when Bass Pro has developed a plan for the project that it believes to be feasible and economically viable.”
“It is understood that if Bass Pro is not satisfied with the progress or results of the permitting process for any reason and at any time, Bass Pro is not obligated to execute any other document, or continue to pursue the project, and it may terminate this Agreement without any liability or obligation effective fifteen (15) days following written notice to the City and County.”
Got it?
Driving The Deal
The message is unmistakable: Bass Pro Shop is in the driver’s seat. It can pull out whenever it wants (with 15 days notice) and for whatever it wants, and city and county governments have no recourse to do anything about it.
And for this, local government is supposed to be willing to give this store exclusive control over The Pyramid?
Or as the legal wordsmiths put it, “…in consideration of the payment of the monthly fee…City and County (and their respective representatives) shall deal exclusively with Bass Pro on all matters pertaining to the development and use of the Pyramid during the Development Period, and neither the city nor County shall, and no person or entity shall on either the City’s and County’s behalf, negotiate, correspond or enter into any written document or agreement whatsoever (whether binding or non-binding) with any party regarding the prospective use of the Pyramid.”
In a city with a history of the public getting outnegotiated by private sector lawyers, this agreement sets a new standard. Never have so many words been used to give so little to so many people in Memphis.
Special Designs
According to the agreement, Bass Pro Shop deserves this special consideration because it has “devoted substantial internal resources and undertook a preliminary design of the project, and Bass Pro hired various consultants to study various aspects of The Pyramid.” That seems to be an especially curious claim considering that the first official from the company toured the old arena little more than two months ago.
We’re excited that Bass Pro has allegedly done so much to put together an exciting design for The Pyramid. That’s why it seems even stranger that no company official was willing to make a public statement about this project and their excitement over the prospects for the future, or best of all, just show us their designs for the future.
That future, according to the agreement, will see The Pyramid – unless “the Partner Developments are not secured to the satisfaction of Bass Pro” – become home to a hotel, aquarium, restaurants, traveling exhibits, conference space, additional retail, museum and boat showroom.
Bigger And Better
In other words, it will be a regular Bass Pro Shop writ large.
But, if the prospects of this fishing store as the welcome mat for Memphis don’t fill you with civic pride, there’s always the company’s leaping bass logo - all 3,000 square feet of it – that will be affixed to each of The Pyramid’s four sides.
It must have swelled the breasts of city negotiators, because, if and when the company develops The Pyramid, Bass Pro Shop has the contractual right to be the tenant for 55 years.
Special Purpose Indeed
Curiously, the agreement calls for creation of the “Memphis Special Purpose Entity,” which will act as landlord and enter into the agreement with Bass Pro Shop. It adds a new layer to the building’s operation, since the Pyramid Public Building Authority – the city-county agency created about 20 years ago to build the arena – still exists and must sign off on any proposed deal.
To get all this done, city and county governments will put $30 million of public money into the megastore, and it likely will come from yet another special tax district, this time, a TIF (Tax Increment Financing) District and Pyramid Tourism Development Zone.
In the end, the combination of Bass Pro Shop’s skills at political foot dragging and the reality of “government time” could mean that we could be years away from knowing if the store really plans to develop The Pyramid.
The Clock’s Ticking
After all, it was summer, 2001, when we all learned that the Grizzlies would be prime tenants of The Pyramid until 2004, when the building’s future would become uncertain. Despite the knowledge that the building would be closing, city and county governments waited three years to form the Pyramid Reuse Committee, and it was summer, 2004, when Bass Pro Shop began discussions with the powers-that-be about their ambitions for the building.
In December, 2004, the store signed its first of three non-binding letters of intent, and at a press conference in February, 2005, officials with Bass Pro Shop said they would take control of The Pyramid in six months. We’re still waiting.
We are now 79 months from the time when we learned that The Pyramid would be shut down. We are now 42 months from the time when Bass Pro Shop said it planned to put a megastore in The Pyramid. And yet, the clock is still running on a definitive agreement from the sporting goods store.
Predictions
It seems likely to us that the city and county legislative bodies – if not Mayor Wharton himself – will have little patience with the suggestion that this “development agreement” really means anything and may well insist on a level playing field that gives both Bass Pro Shop and Ericson Group an equal chance to put up or shut up.
Secondly, it appears more and more likely that the same criticisms that were made about the public concessions to Michael Heisley’s Grizzlies are about to erupt in the wake of the proposed agreement with Bass Pro Shop. There are some of the same opponents to FedEx Forum who believe that although the Bass Pro Shop is on a smaller scale, it is based on similar principles to FedEx Forum.
In other words, there may be a “development agreement,” but it may well take more time than Bass Pro Shop thought to pull in its latest catch.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Pyramid Scheme For New Convention Center Complex
There is little question that city and county governments made a serious misjudgment when they expanded the Memphis Cook Convention Center.
Because of it, we’re inclined not to dismiss out of hand Mayor Willie W. Herenton’s proposal for a new or expanded convention center.
Before the expansion, the Memphis convention center was a bunker. After the expansion, it is simply a bunker with an incongruous annex.
Uncompetitive
To complement its fortress appearance or because of it, the convention center is drab and dreary and predestines Memphis to remain a third-tier convention city.
In a world characterized by stylish, light-filled convention centers, Memphis Cook Convention Center is a throwback to another age. If you doubt it, please check out the photographs on this post. They show Pittsburgh’s convention center, and while it’s probably the best of its kind, it does in fact reflect the more appealing architecture prevalent in today’s convention centers.
The Memphis convention center expansion – setting aside for the moment the fact that it cost twice its original projection and took twice as long to complete – was the architectural equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. The expansion does little to offset the gloomy interior and the gloomier meeting experience in the convention center, and in truth, the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts – as much of an upgrade as it was from the old auditorium - is equally meager when compared to similar halls in other cities.
Locked In Place
Here’s the thing: the woeful decision about expansion and the $92 million thrown at it have essentially locked Memphis in place for at least 20 years as the bonds are paid in a complicated swap of revenues between the Tourism Development Zone and the hotel-motel taxes that took place to cobble together funding for FedEx Forum.
As a result, any new convention center would need to be accompanied by new sources of revenues, because the cost of a $300 million facility – a moderately-priced center - would be about $18 million a year for two decades.
If Mayor Herenton’s objective is to provide Memphis with a convention center that attracts meeting and convention planners, there might be a way to kill two birds with one stone – combining our two problem buildings, the convention center and The Pyramid into a single high-concept facility that no other city can emulate.
Right In Front Of Us
For that reason, we are resurrecting our suggestion of several years ago.
For years, convention center board members have complained that Memphis lacks the large, unobstructed exhibition hall sought by many tenants. There’s an easy place to find it – in The Pyramid.
And, it’s possible to do it without prohibitively expensive retrofits or costly upgrades. Rather, a new floor can be “dropped” into The Pyramid at the level of the concourse. There’s no reason to even remove the seats in the bowl; leave them there and put the floor over them.
Connections
It seems within the realm of possibility that about 200,000 of exhibition space – free of any columns or obstructions – could come on-line much quicker than building a new convention center. To top it off, the 150,000 of office and Wonders space can be converted into meeting rooms or possibly hotel rooms. (The upper part of The Pyramid will not support a floor of hotel rooms without a number of new pilings or stronger super structure.)
Most of all, the long-awaited inclinator – the phantom cash cow for the building – could finally be added to the building, and the two-story, 10,000 square feet apex could finally be the profit center that every feasibility study has seen for it.
With new convention centers costing more than $350 million, the improvements to the convention center – even with a connecting structure to the existing convention center – would be a bargain. The Pyramid footprint is 17 acres, offering plenty of area for the imaginative, eye-catching connection that includes a monorail or trolley.
Three Options
Best of all, the $65 million construction cost of the bargain basement arena was paid largely from property taxes, and if The Pyramid becomes part of the convention center, its renovations could be funded from the city and county hotel-motel taxes.
This proposal would continue public use of The Pyramid, rather than it being used to put millions of dollars into the coffers of a big box retailer.
We’ve written before that we think there’s merit to demolishing The Pyramid, but it’s obvious that the idea of eliminating vacant arenas is anathema to our public officials. In lieu of demolition, we should consider how The Pyramid could become the answer to our serious convention center needs and add it to the options that now seem to be limited to a theme park or a sporting goods retailer.
One thing is certain: with this proposal, Memphis would have a signature building anchoring a convention center complex unmatched by any city.
Blues Blogging
As a show of support for the International Blues Challenge that we spotlighted last week, Chuck Porter of WEVL fame is posting updates here from the IBC, one of this city's signature music events.
Here's the latest as the Blues Challenge is poised to begin in earnest:
So the final day began with the gathering of the blues masses at the Orpheum. The finals orientation meeting was at noon to go over what was expected and what was about to happen.
After the orientation meeting, the Orpheum backstage began to take shape as the bands were bringing in gear and staking out a location to wait. The band competition would be first and the solo/duo later in the evening. Just before 2 p.m., the Orpheum was near capacity with only a few seats left in the upper level. The lobby was buzzing and CD’s from the artists were being sold in the lobby.
Honestly, I had not seen any of the bands who made it to the finals so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were 10 bands to compete and at 2:05 p.m., the first band, Little Rodger & The Cheap Thrills, hit their first note and the stop watch began for a 20-minute set. The Laurie Morvan Band, Lil’ Ray Neal Blues Band, Delta Wires finished at 3:20 p.m. and Trampled Under Foot began at 3:44 p.m. Immediately it was obvious the three siblings had something different.
Danielle Schnebelen, was the bass player and brothers Nick and Chris were behind her. When Danielle began to sing, there was a soulful raspy combination of Reba Russell and Susan Marshall. Their set ended with “Hard Headed Woman” and a standing ovation.
Backstage, the Doghouse Daddies were already on stage, and there was a call from the front of house as Trampled Under Foot CD’s were sold out. The seventh band in the line-up sparked interest as a tall lanky lady entered the stage with a long white coat on a voice that definitely turned everyone around. Shakura S’ Aida with her band, which included a female guitar player she referred to as “firecracker.” Awek, from France, played in the eight spot. They were the only international finalist and probably knew more about blues that any of the other bands.
Finally after a short break, it was time for the solo/duo challenge finals to begin. Six acts with 2blu starting off followed by the duo Dan Stevens and Chris D’Amato. I was familiar with Dan Stevens because he had participated in previous years. The fourth band in the line-up was Ben Prestage with whom I had worked Wednesday night at the Grizzlies game. Of the six, I thought he had the best chance. His music was more of a North Mississippi All-Stars-style similar to Richard Johnston that won back in 2001. The Lionel Young started his violin blues, which were reminiscent of Gatemouth Brown and gave him a little more uniqueness than the others.
Without question, the 24th annual International Blues Challenge was a huge success and well-attended by blues lovers outside of Memphis. I can honestly say there is the beginning of locals understanding what the IBC is and how popular it has become. However, we are a long way away from gaining any form of support from our home base. There’s always good talk, but the walk has a long dirt road ahead.
Finally, the winners were announced and just as expected, Trampled Under Foot was voted best band and Lionel Young and his violin were picked as the top solo/duo. They received prizes ranging from recording time to festival bookings and of course bragging rights. For most of the bands, just playing in Memphis on Beale Street was the best winning package they could receive.
It’s been another fun year. The daily blog has been a blast, and I hope that the insight about The Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge will help spread an understanding about the dedication that it takes to stage this event. Blues is not necessarily about sitting on the front porch listening to someone sing the same tune 20 times and only the words change with each tune. More accurately, it’s a vibrant form of music that gave us rock and roll and soul.
In an earlier post, I mentioned the young lady outside the club the other night saying: “I never liked the blues before but now I love it.” It’s always been there. She just had it presented to her in a different form.
Stayed tuned to the Blues Foundation. It’s next event will be the Blues Music Awards around the end of April in Tunica. I’ll be there and maybe you will be too.
Here's the latest as the Blues Challenge is poised to begin in earnest:
So the final day began with the gathering of the blues masses at the Orpheum. The finals orientation meeting was at noon to go over what was expected and what was about to happen.
After the orientation meeting, the Orpheum backstage began to take shape as the bands were bringing in gear and staking out a location to wait. The band competition would be first and the solo/duo later in the evening. Just before 2 p.m., the Orpheum was near capacity with only a few seats left in the upper level. The lobby was buzzing and CD’s from the artists were being sold in the lobby.
Honestly, I had not seen any of the bands who made it to the finals so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There were 10 bands to compete and at 2:05 p.m., the first band, Little Rodger & The Cheap Thrills, hit their first note and the stop watch began for a 20-minute set. The Laurie Morvan Band, Lil’ Ray Neal Blues Band, Delta Wires finished at 3:20 p.m. and Trampled Under Foot began at 3:44 p.m. Immediately it was obvious the three siblings had something different.
Danielle Schnebelen, was the bass player and brothers Nick and Chris were behind her. When Danielle began to sing, there was a soulful raspy combination of Reba Russell and Susan Marshall. Their set ended with “Hard Headed Woman” and a standing ovation.
Backstage, the Doghouse Daddies were already on stage, and there was a call from the front of house as Trampled Under Foot CD’s were sold out. The seventh band in the line-up sparked interest as a tall lanky lady entered the stage with a long white coat on a voice that definitely turned everyone around. Shakura S’ Aida with her band, which included a female guitar player she referred to as “firecracker.” Awek, from France, played in the eight spot. They were the only international finalist and probably knew more about blues that any of the other bands.
Finally after a short break, it was time for the solo/duo challenge finals to begin. Six acts with 2blu starting off followed by the duo Dan Stevens and Chris D’Amato. I was familiar with Dan Stevens because he had participated in previous years. The fourth band in the line-up was Ben Prestage with whom I had worked Wednesday night at the Grizzlies game. Of the six, I thought he had the best chance. His music was more of a North Mississippi All-Stars-style similar to Richard Johnston that won back in 2001. The Lionel Young started his violin blues, which were reminiscent of Gatemouth Brown and gave him a little more uniqueness than the others.
Without question, the 24th annual International Blues Challenge was a huge success and well-attended by blues lovers outside of Memphis. I can honestly say there is the beginning of locals understanding what the IBC is and how popular it has become. However, we are a long way away from gaining any form of support from our home base. There’s always good talk, but the walk has a long dirt road ahead.
Finally, the winners were announced and just as expected, Trampled Under Foot was voted best band and Lionel Young and his violin were picked as the top solo/duo. They received prizes ranging from recording time to festival bookings and of course bragging rights. For most of the bands, just playing in Memphis on Beale Street was the best winning package they could receive.
It’s been another fun year. The daily blog has been a blast, and I hope that the insight about The Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge will help spread an understanding about the dedication that it takes to stage this event. Blues is not necessarily about sitting on the front porch listening to someone sing the same tune 20 times and only the words change with each tune. More accurately, it’s a vibrant form of music that gave us rock and roll and soul.
In an earlier post, I mentioned the young lady outside the club the other night saying: “I never liked the blues before but now I love it.” It’s always been there. She just had it presented to her in a different form.
Stayed tuned to the Blues Foundation. It’s next event will be the Blues Music Awards around the end of April in Tunica. I’ll be there and maybe you will be too.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
The Biggest Fish Story of All
Ignore the media hype and the headline-grabbing bus ride to the Bass Pro Shop mother ship in Springfield, Missouri, there was no substantive progress in the deadline-defying proposal to convert The Pyramid into a store.
Bass Pro Shop has signed what is a glorified non-binding letter of intent. This time, it’s called a “development agreement.”
But it’s not like a serious development agreement. These are normally reciprocal agreements: You do something, and I’ll do something, because we’ve agreed that we want to make something happen and we are both at risk. In this one, we do something and Bass Pro Shop can do whatever it wants.
Quick Fixes
That’s because with this agreement, the retail chain has the ability to walk away. All it has to do is decide that there are reasons – financial, structural, or they can pretty much name their own - why The Pyramid doesn’t work for them.
Before we say any more about this, we want to get the terminology right. This is about a store. It’s not a destination. It’s not a tourist attraction. It's not an attractor. It’s not a magic bullet. It’s a store.
It’s just the latest chapter in our favorite pastime - chasing yet another quick fix. More than anything, Bass Pro Shop perpetuates the sense of desperation that seems to characterize so much of what we do, and most disturbingly, it accurately speaks to the pervasive lack of self-worth that results in projects like this one.
It’s Optional
Coverage by The Commercial Appeal suggests that the agreement is stronger because Bass Pro Shops will begin paying rent. Not really. The agreement is nothing more than an option to develop.
There were two strange things in the newspaper’s coverage: 1) it didn’t tell how much the rent is, and 2) the silence of Bass Pro Shop executives was deafening.
It almost feels like someone – most likely Bass Pro Shop as a result of its experience in manipulating governments across the country to get multi-million dollar subsidies - made the political judgment that dangling rent as bait would keep us on the hook a little longer, and judging by city administration officials’ comments, they’re in too deep to admit that all of this has just become an embarrassment (not to even mention that the giant jumping bass to be painted on the side of The Pyramid is tantamount to writing “Hicksville, USA” in 310-foot letters on the signature building on the Memphis riverfront).
Are we really supposed to believe that it's in our overall civic interest to put millions of dollars in the pocket of a national chain of stores? Are we really supposed to feel a burst of civic pride in using our most recognizable public building for this?
Political Manipulations
There is no retailer in the U.S. more skilled in wringing public subsidies from governments than Bass Pro Shop, or more adept in dragging out projects in ways that allow them to leverage political expediencies against the people negotiating on behalf of local government.
They know how it works. The longer they drag it out, the greater is the pressure on the politicians to show that they can get something done. The longer they drag it out, the more they can ask for. If you want to see how it’s done, just look to Buffalo, New York.
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a couple of years, we check in on Buffalo from time to time to see how Bass Pro Shop fulfilled its 2004 promise to develop an empty downtown auditorium into a massive megastore.
Paper Tigers
Back then, after years of negotiation, in one of those grand announcements for which government has become known, the governor of New York, the mayor of Buffalo, downtown redevelopment officials, Chamber types and myriad functionaries cheerily put on camouflage vests and red Bass Pro baseball caps to announce with fanfare that the 250,000 square foot megastore would be the latest catalyst to the rebirth of the Lake Erie city’s downtown.
And yet, time after time, as city and state leaders pressed to consummate a binding agreement, Bass Pro Shop wiggled on the line. It talked about larger investments to buy time, it talked about a bigger project to keep every one at the table, but in the end, it controlled the timetable and the project.
Government set deadlines and demanded signs of progress, but they were little more than paper tigers, because it was Bass Pro Shop calling the shots.
Non-binding Agreements
After years of encouraging comments and promises, Bass Pro Shop eventually announced that it wasn’t interested in the auditorium conversion, and instead, it wanted a new location – the key spot in the middle of the $250 million Erie Canal Harbor development. Oh, and by the way, it said that it had reduced the size of the store to 100,000 square feet, which essentially put it on par with its regular stores.
But about a year ago, with noticeably less fanfare, another announcement was made: Bass Pro Shop would indeed become the magnet for the new five-acre project overlooking the Buffalo River. To show how serious it was, the retailer signed another agreement – this one was called a “pre-development agreement.”
The store said it would pay $300,000 in what is essentially rent while Buffalo’s $25 million public incentive would be spent in preparing the site and constructing the three-story building for the retailer. Meanwhile, the city will get $10 million from state government to tear down the vacant auditorium that Bass Pro Shop had promised to transform.
The Real Deal…Again
In conjunction with the 2007 announcement, there were the customary questionable economic impact numbers and superlatives from politicians, who hailed it as an even better deal than the long-stalled one. And yet, even one of its longtime boosters felt compelled to assure his fellow citizens: “This is the real deal.”
It was announced that construction would start this spring and the store would open in mid-2009. Apparently, the business community isn’t convinced. In an October survey by Buffalo’s weekly business newspaper, business leaders voted on whether the project would ever get done. They said yes – 177 to 176.
More to the point, Bass Pro Shop seems to be keeping its options open. Its website shows a proposed store in Buffalo, but it has nothing about its latest agreement, instead listing the information about the glorious 2004 press conference whose substance has been moot for more than a year.
All of this should be a cautionary tale for Memphis, where history seems to be repeating itself in startlingly similar detail. Apparently, we are blinded by the unfounded idea that a sporting goods store is going to pull millions of people off the interstate (there’s also the unanswered question of whether they aren't pulled right back on after shopping). It’s also questionable that the sporting goods store, which, with its competitors, are becoming ubiquitous to interstate travelers, will really be so unique to achieve the spectacular – and rarely measured - projections.
Q & A
It’s unclear if there are the votes to support the Herenton Administration’s pitch for Bass Pro Shop, but we predict that it will inevitably pass. We cannot remember a vote that Mayor Herenton seriously wanted that he didn’t get, and on this one, even City Hall insiders are surprised by the single-minded backing by the administration - to the point that it sparks speculation that the incremental sales tax revenue from a retailer is needed to prop up the revenues used to pay for the FedEx Forum or to pay for a new convention center.
Whatever, this building – leaping fish logo and all - will immediately symbolize Memphis’ ambition and self-image such that it is. As we said Friday, part of our problem with all of this is that it began with the wrong question.
It shouldn't have been: how do we fill up The Pyramid with a tenant? Rather, it should have been: what can we do with the building and/or the site that makes the most sense for a city that desperately needs more vibrancy, more ambition, more talent, more innovation and more entrepreneurship?
When you ask the wrong question, you inevitably come up with the wrong answer. And that's what Bass Pro Shop feels like to us.
Previous Posts On This Subject:
December 19, 2007
May 13, 2007
January 23, 2007
August 22, 2006
March 7, 2006
February 8, 2006
Bass Pro Shop has signed what is a glorified non-binding letter of intent. This time, it’s called a “development agreement.”
But it’s not like a serious development agreement. These are normally reciprocal agreements: You do something, and I’ll do something, because we’ve agreed that we want to make something happen and we are both at risk. In this one, we do something and Bass Pro Shop can do whatever it wants.
Quick Fixes
That’s because with this agreement, the retail chain has the ability to walk away. All it has to do is decide that there are reasons – financial, structural, or they can pretty much name their own - why The Pyramid doesn’t work for them.
Before we say any more about this, we want to get the terminology right. This is about a store. It’s not a destination. It’s not a tourist attraction. It's not an attractor. It’s not a magic bullet. It’s a store.
It’s just the latest chapter in our favorite pastime - chasing yet another quick fix. More than anything, Bass Pro Shop perpetuates the sense of desperation that seems to characterize so much of what we do, and most disturbingly, it accurately speaks to the pervasive lack of self-worth that results in projects like this one.
It’s Optional
Coverage by The Commercial Appeal suggests that the agreement is stronger because Bass Pro Shops will begin paying rent. Not really. The agreement is nothing more than an option to develop.
There were two strange things in the newspaper’s coverage: 1) it didn’t tell how much the rent is, and 2) the silence of Bass Pro Shop executives was deafening.
It almost feels like someone – most likely Bass Pro Shop as a result of its experience in manipulating governments across the country to get multi-million dollar subsidies - made the political judgment that dangling rent as bait would keep us on the hook a little longer, and judging by city administration officials’ comments, they’re in too deep to admit that all of this has just become an embarrassment (not to even mention that the giant jumping bass to be painted on the side of The Pyramid is tantamount to writing “Hicksville, USA” in 310-foot letters on the signature building on the Memphis riverfront).
Are we really supposed to believe that it's in our overall civic interest to put millions of dollars in the pocket of a national chain of stores? Are we really supposed to feel a burst of civic pride in using our most recognizable public building for this?
Political Manipulations
There is no retailer in the U.S. more skilled in wringing public subsidies from governments than Bass Pro Shop, or more adept in dragging out projects in ways that allow them to leverage political expediencies against the people negotiating on behalf of local government.
They know how it works. The longer they drag it out, the greater is the pressure on the politicians to show that they can get something done. The longer they drag it out, the more they can ask for. If you want to see how it’s done, just look to Buffalo, New York.
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a couple of years, we check in on Buffalo from time to time to see how Bass Pro Shop fulfilled its 2004 promise to develop an empty downtown auditorium into a massive megastore.
Paper Tigers
Back then, after years of negotiation, in one of those grand announcements for which government has become known, the governor of New York, the mayor of Buffalo, downtown redevelopment officials, Chamber types and myriad functionaries cheerily put on camouflage vests and red Bass Pro baseball caps to announce with fanfare that the 250,000 square foot megastore would be the latest catalyst to the rebirth of the Lake Erie city’s downtown.
And yet, time after time, as city and state leaders pressed to consummate a binding agreement, Bass Pro Shop wiggled on the line. It talked about larger investments to buy time, it talked about a bigger project to keep every one at the table, but in the end, it controlled the timetable and the project.
Government set deadlines and demanded signs of progress, but they were little more than paper tigers, because it was Bass Pro Shop calling the shots.
Non-binding Agreements
After years of encouraging comments and promises, Bass Pro Shop eventually announced that it wasn’t interested in the auditorium conversion, and instead, it wanted a new location – the key spot in the middle of the $250 million Erie Canal Harbor development. Oh, and by the way, it said that it had reduced the size of the store to 100,000 square feet, which essentially put it on par with its regular stores.
But about a year ago, with noticeably less fanfare, another announcement was made: Bass Pro Shop would indeed become the magnet for the new five-acre project overlooking the Buffalo River. To show how serious it was, the retailer signed another agreement – this one was called a “pre-development agreement.”
The store said it would pay $300,000 in what is essentially rent while Buffalo’s $25 million public incentive would be spent in preparing the site and constructing the three-story building for the retailer. Meanwhile, the city will get $10 million from state government to tear down the vacant auditorium that Bass Pro Shop had promised to transform.
The Real Deal…Again
In conjunction with the 2007 announcement, there were the customary questionable economic impact numbers and superlatives from politicians, who hailed it as an even better deal than the long-stalled one. And yet, even one of its longtime boosters felt compelled to assure his fellow citizens: “This is the real deal.”
It was announced that construction would start this spring and the store would open in mid-2009. Apparently, the business community isn’t convinced. In an October survey by Buffalo’s weekly business newspaper, business leaders voted on whether the project would ever get done. They said yes – 177 to 176.
More to the point, Bass Pro Shop seems to be keeping its options open. Its website shows a proposed store in Buffalo, but it has nothing about its latest agreement, instead listing the information about the glorious 2004 press conference whose substance has been moot for more than a year.
All of this should be a cautionary tale for Memphis, where history seems to be repeating itself in startlingly similar detail. Apparently, we are blinded by the unfounded idea that a sporting goods store is going to pull millions of people off the interstate (there’s also the unanswered question of whether they aren't pulled right back on after shopping). It’s also questionable that the sporting goods store, which, with its competitors, are becoming ubiquitous to interstate travelers, will really be so unique to achieve the spectacular – and rarely measured - projections.
Q & A
It’s unclear if there are the votes to support the Herenton Administration’s pitch for Bass Pro Shop, but we predict that it will inevitably pass. We cannot remember a vote that Mayor Herenton seriously wanted that he didn’t get, and on this one, even City Hall insiders are surprised by the single-minded backing by the administration - to the point that it sparks speculation that the incremental sales tax revenue from a retailer is needed to prop up the revenues used to pay for the FedEx Forum or to pay for a new convention center.
Whatever, this building – leaping fish logo and all - will immediately symbolize Memphis’ ambition and self-image such that it is. As we said Friday, part of our problem with all of this is that it began with the wrong question.
It shouldn't have been: how do we fill up The Pyramid with a tenant? Rather, it should have been: what can we do with the building and/or the site that makes the most sense for a city that desperately needs more vibrancy, more ambition, more talent, more innovation and more entrepreneurship?
When you ask the wrong question, you inevitably come up with the wrong answer. And that's what Bass Pro Shop feels like to us.
Previous Posts On This Subject:
December 19, 2007
May 13, 2007
January 23, 2007
August 22, 2006
March 7, 2006
February 8, 2006
Blues Blogging
As a show of support for the International Blues Challenge that we spotlighted last week, Chuck Porter of WEVL fame is posting updates here from the IBC, one of this city's signature music events.
Here's the latest as the Blues Challenge is poised to begin in earnest:
We’re are on our last venues for the semi-finals for Friday. We all need sleep but thank goodness, it has really been smooth tonight.
The day consisted of lots of meeting new people, seeing more friends and exchanging cards for the next event. I received a bunch of CD’s today - one including the new Barbara Blue CD and an Albert Collins’ “Live at Montreuax.” My radio show, “Blues Today” on WEVL, was loads of fun this morning as I usually play local blues to “show them how it’s done.” I played Reba Russell, Ollie Nightingale, Blind Mississippi Morris and the Pocket Rockets, Billy Gibson, Barbara Blue, Dr. Feelgood Potts, Daddy Mack, Robert Nighthawk and “I’ve Been Dipped In the Water” by Syl Johnson and the Hi Rhythm Section.
When I arrived at the hotel after the show, I met some new friends that were outside the hotel on a break. They were from Houston with one of the two having a spouse in the competition. Like always, I said hello and I started telling my stories of Memphis - Rufus Thomas stories, stories about the Lorraine Motel and who “Lorraine” was, Albert King and the fact that I obtained his king-sized bed at auction on Beale Street (another story entirely), B.B. King and his recording of “3 O’Clock Blues” at the YMCA on Pontotoc St. and the Dorsey Brothers (The Rock & Roll Trio) being born South of Linden Avenue on Cynthia and Pontotoc just down from the YMCA. We also discussed the reason why all streets running east and west from the Mississippi are named Avenue except for Beale.
I enjoy telling the Memphis stories as much as working with the Competition.
At 3:00 pm in the Doubletree Hotel lobby, I sat up my Bose PAS L1 (seems too fancy for the blues) but it’s a new PA system. (Disclosure: I am one of the local representatives of Bose for this incredible system.) To spare the details, it made the lobby of the hotel sound good.
I wasn’t familiar with the individual that was going to perform - Spencer Bohren, an artist from New Orleans. He was asked by Jay Sieleman, Blues Foundation Executive Director, to perform on the behalf of the Foundation for “Blues In the Schools” around Memphis during the competition. The talents of Mr. Bohren by far captivated me as much as anything else I have seen in some time. I am a teacher at heart and he is one of the best.
He started out by lining instruments up around him starting with a banjo, a guitar that dated into the 1880’s, a metal guitar, a 1950’s Gibson and an electric guitar. Mr. Bohren began with a story of a black sharecropper walking down a road watching Maggie all the time describing the hot sweaty picture of this man. The song, “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” was taken through history using the instruments and the lyrics. He took it through Kentucky, Appalachian blues, into country of Georgia and Hank Williams, then Elvis, then Carl Perkins, then Bob Dylan then the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. This was an educational experience that every American should know about their music.
By 4:00 p.m., our HQ is the Handy Bar on Beale. Judges are missing from a club, a volunteer has not shown up and Joe is beginning to stress. As always, everything works out and the buzz on the street starts with whom to go see.
At 10:48 p.m., the radio tells us that B.B. Kings is at capacity and the fire marshal will not let anyone else in, including our runners. It’s now 11:45pm and the winners are about to be announced in the clubs that are having blues jams with the bands that were in the competition. The word on the street is that several winners from past contests and big names from the blues world are participating in the jams.
Final orientation is at noon today, and I’ll be there alongside Joe for moral support. The solo and duo first in the early afternoon and the finals will be around 8 p.m. The talent is the best it’s ever been. It should be an incredible show.
If you have to miss the Challenge this year, please make plans for next year. The results of the semi-finalists can be found at www.blues.org.
I’ll be back with the final day and the final results on Saturday. Then I’m going to sleep and get up to watch the Super Bowl. Nothing else!
Here's the latest as the Blues Challenge is poised to begin in earnest:
We’re are on our last venues for the semi-finals for Friday. We all need sleep but thank goodness, it has really been smooth tonight.
The day consisted of lots of meeting new people, seeing more friends and exchanging cards for the next event. I received a bunch of CD’s today - one including the new Barbara Blue CD and an Albert Collins’ “Live at Montreuax.” My radio show, “Blues Today” on WEVL, was loads of fun this morning as I usually play local blues to “show them how it’s done.” I played Reba Russell, Ollie Nightingale, Blind Mississippi Morris and the Pocket Rockets, Billy Gibson, Barbara Blue, Dr. Feelgood Potts, Daddy Mack, Robert Nighthawk and “I’ve Been Dipped In the Water” by Syl Johnson and the Hi Rhythm Section.
When I arrived at the hotel after the show, I met some new friends that were outside the hotel on a break. They were from Houston with one of the two having a spouse in the competition. Like always, I said hello and I started telling my stories of Memphis - Rufus Thomas stories, stories about the Lorraine Motel and who “Lorraine” was, Albert King and the fact that I obtained his king-sized bed at auction on Beale Street (another story entirely), B.B. King and his recording of “3 O’Clock Blues” at the YMCA on Pontotoc St. and the Dorsey Brothers (The Rock & Roll Trio) being born South of Linden Avenue on Cynthia and Pontotoc just down from the YMCA. We also discussed the reason why all streets running east and west from the Mississippi are named Avenue except for Beale.
I enjoy telling the Memphis stories as much as working with the Competition.
At 3:00 pm in the Doubletree Hotel lobby, I sat up my Bose PAS L1 (seems too fancy for the blues) but it’s a new PA system. (Disclosure: I am one of the local representatives of Bose for this incredible system.) To spare the details, it made the lobby of the hotel sound good.
I wasn’t familiar with the individual that was going to perform - Spencer Bohren, an artist from New Orleans. He was asked by Jay Sieleman, Blues Foundation Executive Director, to perform on the behalf of the Foundation for “Blues In the Schools” around Memphis during the competition. The talents of Mr. Bohren by far captivated me as much as anything else I have seen in some time. I am a teacher at heart and he is one of the best.
He started out by lining instruments up around him starting with a banjo, a guitar that dated into the 1880’s, a metal guitar, a 1950’s Gibson and an electric guitar. Mr. Bohren began with a story of a black sharecropper walking down a road watching Maggie all the time describing the hot sweaty picture of this man. The song, “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” was taken through history using the instruments and the lyrics. He took it through Kentucky, Appalachian blues, into country of Georgia and Hank Williams, then Elvis, then Carl Perkins, then Bob Dylan then the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. This was an educational experience that every American should know about their music.
By 4:00 p.m., our HQ is the Handy Bar on Beale. Judges are missing from a club, a volunteer has not shown up and Joe is beginning to stress. As always, everything works out and the buzz on the street starts with whom to go see.
At 10:48 p.m., the radio tells us that B.B. Kings is at capacity and the fire marshal will not let anyone else in, including our runners. It’s now 11:45pm and the winners are about to be announced in the clubs that are having blues jams with the bands that were in the competition. The word on the street is that several winners from past contests and big names from the blues world are participating in the jams.
Final orientation is at noon today, and I’ll be there alongside Joe for moral support. The solo and duo first in the early afternoon and the finals will be around 8 p.m. The talent is the best it’s ever been. It should be an incredible show.
If you have to miss the Challenge this year, please make plans for next year. The results of the semi-finalists can be found at www.blues.org.
I’ll be back with the final day and the final results on Saturday. Then I’m going to sleep and get up to watch the Super Bowl. Nothing else!
Friday, February 01, 2008
This Week On Smart City: City Cycling And Sustainable Landscaping
While we've talked often on the show about sustainability, there are two related topics that haven't had much attention: cycling as an alternative means of transportation and landscaping using sustainable practices.
Ben Gomberg and Randy Neufeld are cycling experts in Chicago, and they share a vision of making their city the most bike-friendly in the nation. We'll talk to them about their progress and what other cities can learn from it. Ben is the City of Chicago's Bicycle Coordinator. Randy is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.
Heather Venhaus is also our guest. An environmental designer for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Heather is leading the new Sustainable Sites Initiative, the landscaping profession's attempt to catch up to LEED standards for buildings and neighborhoods.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit the website.
Note: We've received numerous emails asking about the change in the broadcast time of Smart City in Memphis. We're extremely grateful to WKNO-FM for their instrumental role in making it possible to have this program in the first place and we will always remain so. In answer to emails, however, we did want to respond: If you would like the time moved to the later time that it previously had (as many of you have said), please contact the radio station program director.
Ben Gomberg and Randy Neufeld are cycling experts in Chicago, and they share a vision of making their city the most bike-friendly in the nation. We'll talk to them about their progress and what other cities can learn from it. Ben is the City of Chicago's Bicycle Coordinator. Randy is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.
Heather Venhaus is also our guest. An environmental designer for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Heather is leading the new Sustainable Sites Initiative, the landscaping profession's attempt to catch up to LEED standards for buildings and neighborhoods.
Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.
Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit the website.
Note: We've received numerous emails asking about the change in the broadcast time of Smart City in Memphis. We're extremely grateful to WKNO-FM for their instrumental role in making it possible to have this program in the first place and we will always remain so. In answer to emails, however, we did want to respond: If you would like the time moved to the later time that it previously had (as many of you have said), please contact the radio station program director.
Blues Blogging
As a show of support for the International Blues Challenge that we spotlighted last week, Chuck Porter of WEVL fame is posting updates here from the IBC, one of this city's signature music events.
Here's the latest as the Blues Challenge is poised to begin in earnest:
January 31 – 11 p.m.
We are off and jamming with the 24th Annual International Blues Challenge.
It’s a much different atmosphere today as I stepped into the Doubletree Hotel lobby. Blues fans and bands everywhere. The rest of the volunteers are here and checking in bands, selling merchandise, manning the silent auction and catching up with friends they haven’t seen since the last event.
Band orientation at 2:00 pm is when the competition starts to get real. Each band is required to have a representative in the room. What an interesting group of people in that room. I saw every kind of hat from cowboy to fedora. With all the sunglasses in the room, you would have thought that the stage lights were already on. There were sear sucker suits and ties and tennis shoes.
Joe Whitmer, event producer for The Blues Foundation, began the greeting as he always does every year with his “everybody’s smiling today but feelings usually get hurt when you don’t win” speech. Contest rules are rehashed as it’s inevitable that someone will say they didn’t know they had to check in or didn’t know they only has 25 minutes or didn’t know they had to bring cymbals.
After orientation it was back to the Adler Suite on the 8th floor to gather what we needed and make our plans to move over to Beale Street. At 4:15 p.m., we were on our way with radios, venue coordinator packets and extra clothes, because our new home for two days is the Handy Bar in Handy Park.
When we arrived, our yearly crew of venue coordinators, time keepers, runners and judge’s assistants were waiting. Each checked in and got their pass with the venue coordinators getting their radios. First clubs - Blues City and Rum Boogie - at 5:00pm started without a hitch. The two-way radios begin to rattle for equipment with a club needing a bass rig, another club didn’t have its keyboard and another needed a high hat stand clutch.
Then there was the group that had wheeled their piano down the street to play on at Pat O’Briens. How weird is that? The most interesting encounter might have been the young lady who came into Handy Bar to make a suggestion about Beale Street - seems she wasn’t happy that there weren’t restrooms along the street and she really thought the buildings could look nicer because they were old looking, couldn’t they make them look little nice? They may not all look pretty, but they all sure sounded good tonight.
I’ve seen some incredible talent already as I ride Beale on the golf cart in a 30 degree rain. It’s now 7:30pm and the radio has been silent now for about and hour and a half. Let’s hope it stays that way. The clubs are packed so tight there’s very little room to move much less sit.
Now going on 10:30 p.m. and the golf cart is getting colder. It’s been a fun night with a couple of the Beale Street regulars, Dr. Feelgood Potts and Fred Sanders hanging around. The Dr. called his wife and we chatted for a few minutes, but she really was much more excited to talk to national XM Satellite blues host Bill Wax.
I’ll be heading home about 12:30 a.m. and back to downtown Memphis to do “Blues Today” on WEVL 89.9 Friday morning from 8-10 a.m.. Then back to the Doubletree Hotel for a short while and back to Beale by 4:30 p.m. to do it all over again.
Here’s the quote of the night. A young lady leaving a club after the last band finished said: “I’ve never like the blues before, but I’m in love with them now.” We have converted another non believer. I’ll be back tomorrow.
Here's the latest as the Blues Challenge is poised to begin in earnest:
January 31 – 11 p.m.
We are off and jamming with the 24th Annual International Blues Challenge.
It’s a much different atmosphere today as I stepped into the Doubletree Hotel lobby. Blues fans and bands everywhere. The rest of the volunteers are here and checking in bands, selling merchandise, manning the silent auction and catching up with friends they haven’t seen since the last event.
Band orientation at 2:00 pm is when the competition starts to get real. Each band is required to have a representative in the room. What an interesting group of people in that room. I saw every kind of hat from cowboy to fedora. With all the sunglasses in the room, you would have thought that the stage lights were already on. There were sear sucker suits and ties and tennis shoes.
Joe Whitmer, event producer for The Blues Foundation, began the greeting as he always does every year with his “everybody’s smiling today but feelings usually get hurt when you don’t win” speech. Contest rules are rehashed as it’s inevitable that someone will say they didn’t know they had to check in or didn’t know they only has 25 minutes or didn’t know they had to bring cymbals.
After orientation it was back to the Adler Suite on the 8th floor to gather what we needed and make our plans to move over to Beale Street. At 4:15 p.m., we were on our way with radios, venue coordinator packets and extra clothes, because our new home for two days is the Handy Bar in Handy Park.
When we arrived, our yearly crew of venue coordinators, time keepers, runners and judge’s assistants were waiting. Each checked in and got their pass with the venue coordinators getting their radios. First clubs - Blues City and Rum Boogie - at 5:00pm started without a hitch. The two-way radios begin to rattle for equipment with a club needing a bass rig, another club didn’t have its keyboard and another needed a high hat stand clutch.
Then there was the group that had wheeled their piano down the street to play on at Pat O’Briens. How weird is that? The most interesting encounter might have been the young lady who came into Handy Bar to make a suggestion about Beale Street - seems she wasn’t happy that there weren’t restrooms along the street and she really thought the buildings could look nicer because they were old looking, couldn’t they make them look little nice? They may not all look pretty, but they all sure sounded good tonight.
I’ve seen some incredible talent already as I ride Beale on the golf cart in a 30 degree rain. It’s now 7:30pm and the radio has been silent now for about and hour and a half. Let’s hope it stays that way. The clubs are packed so tight there’s very little room to move much less sit.
Now going on 10:30 p.m. and the golf cart is getting colder. It’s been a fun night with a couple of the Beale Street regulars, Dr. Feelgood Potts and Fred Sanders hanging around. The Dr. called his wife and we chatted for a few minutes, but she really was much more excited to talk to national XM Satellite blues host Bill Wax.
I’ll be heading home about 12:30 a.m. and back to downtown Memphis to do “Blues Today” on WEVL 89.9 Friday morning from 8-10 a.m.. Then back to the Doubletree Hotel for a short while and back to Beale by 4:30 p.m. to do it all over again.
Here’s the quote of the night. A young lady leaving a club after the last band finished said: “I’ve never like the blues before, but I’m in love with them now.” We have converted another non believer. I’ll be back tomorrow.
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