Fuss scares off Overton Square grocery
By Tom Bailey Jr.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The proposed Overton Square grocery store has died anonymously.

The developer of the controversial project confirmed Tuesday he has officially dropped the project, always described as a high-end but yet-to-be-named grocery store.

"The grocery store people were getting pretty nervous about the whole project," said Leland Clark, principal of Sooner Investments.

"With all the publicity going on, this thing had almost become a public referendum on the site development plan."

The plan would have transformed the five acres on the southwest corner of Madison and Cooper. The project would have razed existing buildings that line Madison and replaced them with five new ones, including a 53,000-square-foot grocery store.

Preservationists and some urban planning advocates either fought the plan or fought to change it.

Preservationists, saying any new buildings should have at least as much character as the older ones.

Urban design advocates, saying the buildings should not be fronted by parking lots as if they were in suburbia.

Last month, Sooner Investments indefinitely delayed the project. They killed it this month.

The property owners helped plunge the dagger into the development, refusing to extend the time Sooner needed to win government approval and more community support.

In an effort to win more support, Sooner had hired local architectural firm Looney Ricks Kiss to improve how the new buildings would look.

Opponents were waiting to see how the changes looked last month when Sooner put the brakes on.

Meanwhile, work continues on a zoning overlay district for Midtown that may lessen such conflicts in the future.

The Midtown Plan would tell developers on the front end some basic design rules the community wants the projects to follow.

The Memphis Regional Design Center, Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development, Midtown Memphis Development Corporation and the Cooper-Young Development Corporation are nearly finished with the first draft of the district plan, said Chooch Pickard, executive director of the design center.

Feedback will be sought from public officials and residents, he said.

Who knows, Sooner's Clark said, his project "may come back around. Things may change a year from now."

According to MBJ, the Tenoke Building is slated to become a Hotel Indigo.

http://memphis.bizjo...1774400^1639759

A 4th parallel on the west side has already been discussed. It would involve a lot of dirt moving and the relocation of Airways, but there's room. They also have an extension of Twy. M northward across Plough Blvd. in the works as well. They have a lot of future plans in their back pocket should the need to greatly expand ever arise.

Today, Flintco was named the general contractor for the airport parking garage expansion. I think this project is far better than having an off-airport transportation center for buses, shuttles, and car rental agencies. This puts the car rentals much closer to the arriving passengers and leaves space for a potential 4th parallel runway on the west side of the airport should the extra capacity ever be needed.
MBJ: http://memphis.bizjo...14/daily19.html
Daily News from earlier but with extra background: http://www.memphisda...e.aspx?id=46735

No Beale street landing is currently under construction they are approaching phase 3 which will be the more visible structures. There has been a lot of foundation work but it is definitely under construction go to memphisriverfront.com to view the live construction cam, playhouse on the square is almost finished, the new airport tower is almost done, the parking structure is about to begin, lebohneur is almost complete on the outside, and phase 1 of the UT Baptist research park is topped out. There are a lot of major projects being completed now some people actually just dont drive around the city to really see whats happening. Oh yea the new courtyard marriott downtown on main is finished and the barbaro alley flats are about on the 4th floor check out some of these places.

Was Beale Street Landing canceled? The Memphis Airport area does need renovation though. Its a terrible front door to our city and I think they recognize this. Lets just see if they can get this aerotropolis thing off the ground

Memphis sucks too badly for any NFL players, families, entourages, girlfriends, etc to want to live in such a hellhole, and the NFL don't want their players miserable, hanging out in a really really second rate, divisive, overgrown rivertown full of racists, bad entertainment, bad schools, bad politics, bad food, and high crime (ala Detroit..)

It simply is not going to happen for Memphis. This topic has been around for decades. It's useless beating a dead horse.