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Bears

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IMO we have 2 huge, empty, tracts of lands that have much potential. The old Mall of Memphis land is right on the interstate and close to the airport. The fairgrounds is near the U of M, airport, and downtown. Its also on the proposed light rail line. If you were the developer responsible for these properties, how would you like to see them used?

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IMO we have 2 huge, empty, tracts of lands that have much potential. The old Mall of Memphis land is right on the interstate and close to the airport. The fairgrounds is near the U of M, airport, and downtown. Its also on the proposed light rail line. If you were the developer responsible for these properties, how would you like to see them used?

Sorry. Wish I could be informative. I've heard of various proposals for both sites, but don't recall specifics too much.

I believe the McDonalds' heiress--Jean Kroc--had left a pile of money for something at the Fairgrounds, just don't recall the specifics.

I've heard "office park", "urban housing", etc. for the old mall site. Again, I really don't recall.

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I am personally in favor of ANY plan that will make the fairgrounds more aesthetically pleasing. The city has made major improvements to the Liberty Bowl in the past 2 years and it looks much better, but everything surrounding it looks depressing. I would like to see the old livestock-related buildings come down. Keep the Coliseum and the larger exhibit buildings for community center-type uses. Some of the parking lots should be reconfigured to include wide grassy medians appropriate for tailgating; others should be replaced outright with grass & trees.

The Fair should be relocated to the Agricenter at Shelby Farms. There are already buildings there that could easily be adapted for this purpose...including a rodeo arena. Attendance would go up since the area is perceived as safer, and is more convenient to suburban areas. The experience would be much more like a traditional "county fair" in the park, compared to on asphalt at the fairgrounds.

They also need to do something about the run-down retail areas along Hollywood and Central, adjacent to the fairgrounds. There is an abandoned Walgreens at Hollywood and Central, and a closed gas station directly across from the Childrens Museum. The neighborhood to the east, across Hollywood, is deteriorating and dangerous. Maybe a police station could be included in the plan? Apart from that, there will be a challenge creating a "green" environment in the fairground considering that it has railroad yard on its south border and a Coca Cola bottling plant in the SE corner. However, it would fit in nicely with the Christian Brothers campus, East Parkway, and Toby Park to the north.

Finally, I've heard discussions about a Wal Mart Supercenter on the old Mall of Memphis site. Offices and hotels were also mentioned. The owners were in a big hurry to demolish the site, as if they already had developments in the works, but it's been cleared for six months now.

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I am personally in favor of ANY plan that will make the fairgrounds more aesthetically pleasing. The city has made major improvements to the Liberty Bowl in the past 2 years and it looks much better, but everything surrounding it looks depressing. I would like to see the old livestock-related buildings come down. Keep the Coliseum and the larger exhibit buildings for community center-type uses. Some of the parking lots should be reconfigured to include wide grassy medians appropriate for tailgating; others should be replaced outright with grass & trees.

The Fair should be relocated to the Agricenter at Shelby Farms. There are already buildings there that could easily be adapted for this purpose...including a rodeo arena. Attendance would go up since the area is perceived as safer, and is more convenient to suburban areas. The experience would be much more like a traditional "county fair" in the park, compared to on asphalt at the fairgrounds.

They also need to do something about the run-down retail areas along Hollywood and Central, adjacent to the fairgrounds. There is an abandoned Walgreens at Hollywood and Central, and a closed gas station directly across from the Childrens Museum. The neighborhood to the east, across Hollywood, is deteriorating and dangerous. Maybe a police station could be included in the plan? Apart from that, there will be a challenge creating a "green" environment in the fairground considering that it has railroad yard on its south border and a Coca Cola bottling plant in the SE corner. However, it would fit in nicely with the Christian Brothers campus, East Parkway, and Toby Park to the north.

Finally, I've heard discussions about a Wal Mart Supercenter on the old Mall of Memphis site. Offices and hotels were also mentioned. The owners were in a big hurry to demolish the site, as if they already had developments in the works, but it's been cleared for six months now.

i wish the mall of memphis would be used for something special instead of another walmart :( . i was wishing for some sort of international marketplace and foreign resturants along with an IKEA but i guess something is better than nothing.

Here's an article from this weeks flyer...

http://www.memphisflyer.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A11749

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i wish the mall of memphis would be used for something special instead of another walmart :( . i was wishing for some sort of international marketplace and foreign resturants along with an IKEA but i guess something is better than nothing.

As much as I'd like to see something more sophisticated and original on that site, I think they would have lots of trouble recruiting higher-end retailers to that site. Even though the "Mall of Murder" is no more, most of the suburbanites, midtowners or East Memphians that would frequent such places still consider the Perkins/American Way area to be the hood. Widely-reported violent crimes, like the convenience store clerk was just murdered at that intersection this week, will only solidify that reputation.

One problem in Memphis is that the predominantly black and hispanic areas of town are underserved by good-quality retail. A Wal-Mart Supercenter would probably be popular with the surrounding population. There is a small, older Wal-Mart about a mile to the east but otherwise people would have to drive 6 miles down 385 to get to a Supercenter.

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As much as I'd like to see something more sophisticated and original on that site, I think they would have lots of trouble recruiting higher-end retailers to that site. Even though the "Mall of Murder" is no more, most of the suburbanites, midtowners or East Memphians that would frequent such places still consider the Perkins/American Way area to be the hood. Widely-reported violent crimes, like the convenience store clerk was just murdered at that intersection this week, will only solidify that reputation.

One problem in Memphis is that the predominantly black and hispanic areas of town are underserved by good-quality retail. A Wal-Mart Supercenter would probably be popular with the surrounding population. There is a small, older Wal-Mart about a mile to the east but otherwise people would have to drive 6 miles down 385 to get to a Supercenter.

True true. I think its time for Memphis to lose its reputation as a run down city. While the Mall of Memphis was being brought down, it gave people the impression that was the way the entire city was going downhill.

People out in the suburbs are afraid to take thier kids into the city, therefore the kids have no idea what the city has to offer. When they are 7-8 years old they just sit at home, listening to radio disney, going to the library, and playing in the backyards. Nowadays the kids have redbirds and grizz games to go to but when I was a kid, people would whine about how horrible Memphis is because there was nothing to do but watch TV and on TV, the news would talk about all the knives or guns found at school, but what people dont realize is that its common in every school, whether it be in inner city Memphis or Mio, MI but it doesn't get reported. Memphis isn't as dangerous as people make it out to be. Look at the crime stats between Memphis and Nashville for example:

Violent Crime (per 100,000)

Nashville: 1607.3

Memphis: 1410.5

National Average: 446.1

Property Crime (per 100,000)

Nashville: 7276.4

Memphis: 6957.6

National Average: 4162.2

(from Bestplaces.net)

Not saying Nashville is dangerous, but looking at the stats, why is Nashville considered safe and Memphis dangerous? It goes without needing to be said lol. I like the direction that Downtown Memphis is going in changing that. Beirut for example has rebuilt its downtown as a place for people to come together and get over the divisions from the civil war. I think Memphis is doing the same. Downtown had the same repututaion in the "Mall of Murder" but is coming back with high end retailers and half a million dollar condos.

I think an international center will serve the needs of the hispanics and the many other foriegners and the IKEA will draw mostly Downtowners/Midtowners, college students, and even some suburbanites. There's more than enough space for a Walmart too. Why not kill two birds with one stone and have a Walmart International Market lol? This is also why I wanted the CSX line to become a light rail. It will be kinda like propaganda to make the suburban kids grow up feeling like they live in a really classy city. They are the ones that will go out into the world and tell people about how nice Memphis is with something as simple as that. Now my rant is over

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Those stats are great if you don't know the areas. Are those for the MSA's or city limits? If they are city limits then you have just removed all the crime that Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett and parts of Cordova have. Nashville's city limits stretches to the end of the county lines, Memphis' does not. I am pretty sure that the criminals in Memphis are staying within the city limits - LOL.

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Those stats are great if you don't know the areas. Are those for the MSA's or city limits? If they are city limits then you have just removed all the crime that Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett and parts of Cordova have. Nashville's city limits stretches to the end of the county lines, Memphis' does not. I am pretty sure that the criminals in Memphis are staying within the city limits - LOL.

^ Thats a good point. I couldn't find any 2005 crime stats but here are the ones from 2000.

Crimes Reported/Population

Davidson County:51,149/566,062 = 0.090

0.090 Crimes per person in Davidson County.

or 90 crimes per 1000

http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/crime/county/47037.html &

Shelby County: 68,257/897,472= 0.076

0.076 Crimes per person in Shelby County

or 76 crimes per 1000

http://www.fedstats.gov/mapstats/crime/county/47157.html

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Out of curiousity, I decided to take Bear's analysis to the MSA level. I pulled the same stats for all counties in the Memphis and Nashville MSAs (year 2000). I won't type up all the numbers for all the counties, but here are the MSA totals. Note...there were no crime figures available for Marshall or Tunica Co., MS, so I just left those counties out of the Memphis MSA population baseline.

All Reported Crimes:

Memphis: 80,000/1,174,000 = .068 crimes/person (1 in 15 chance of being a victim of a crime)

Nashville: 74,000/1,231,000 = .060 crimes/person (1 in 17 chance)

Violent Crimes:

Memphis: 11,661/1,174,000 = .0099 crimes/person (1 in 101 chance)

Nashville: 11,913/1,231,000 = .0097 crimes/person (1 in 103 chance)

Murder:

Memphis: 173/1,174,000 = .00015 crimes/person (1 in 6,667 chance)

Nashville: 91/1,231,000 = .00007 crimes/person (1 in 14,286 chance)

So...your chance of being the victim of any crime is about 13% higher in metro Memphis than in Nashville, and your chance of suffering any violent crime are virtually identical. Obviously, there's a big difference in the homicide rate, where your chances of being murdered in Memphis are more than double that of Nashville.

Interesting how the violent crime rates are similar but the homicide rates are so divergent. Could it be that rapes, robberies and assaults in inner-city Memphis are being under-reported, but not the homicides which are obviously more difficult to ignore?

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Those stats are great if you don't know the areas. Are those for the MSA's or city limits? If they are city limits then you have just removed all the crime that Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett and parts of Cordova have. Nashville's city limits stretches to the end of the county lines, Memphis' does not. I am pretty sure that the criminals in Memphis are staying within the city limits - LOL.

I would think a county-to-county comparison would be fairer. Basically when you compare Memphis to Nashville-Davidson, you're comparing an inner-city to a county-wide city. Throw in the 250,000 people living in suburban Shelby County and the Memphis-Shelby crime rate would be drastically lower than the Memphis rate by itself.

And while Memphis criminals obviously don't always stay in the city limits, most crime is commited in certain areas of the city. I would imagine that places like Collierville and Germantown have 1/10th the crime of Memphis.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fairgrounds: perhaps a mix of retail and residential. Liberty Bowl parking should be restricted to east of Early Maxwell with retail on the west side of that north-south street that would act as a buffer between the stadium and residential area to the west of Early Maxwell. Evelyn, Nelson, Young, and Walker could be extended east of East Parkway to Early Maxwell to create blocks of development, and the latter two could even be extended to Hollywood to aid traffic flow. The residential on the west side of the property could be a combination of single-family houses (perhaps facing East Parkway as on the west side of the street) with mixed condo and apartment infill to the east. If it can work in old warehouses downtown, why not Midtown.

Mall of Memphis site: mid-rise office park. The site is big enough to support 4-5 15-20 story Class A office buildings. Surrounding the site is existing retail and hotel space and there is room for additonal midrange and upscale hotel and retail development. The area has excellent interstate access and it would be a great lure for medium and large businesses to build this space.

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As much as I'd like to see something more sophisticated and original on that site, I think they would have lots of trouble recruiting higher-end retailers to that site. Even though the "Mall of Murder" is no more, most of the suburbanites, midtowners or East Memphians that would frequent such places still consider the Perkins/American Way area to be the hood. Widely-reported violent crimes, like the convenience store clerk was just murdered at that intersection this week, will only solidify that reputation.

One problem in Memphis is that the predominantly black and hispanic areas of town are underserved by good-quality retail. A Wal-Mart Supercenter would probably be popular with the surrounding population. There is a small, older Wal-Mart about a mile to the east but otherwise people would have to drive 6 miles down 385 to get to a Supercenter.

An international market may be the way to go. Serve the ethnically diverse community. Done right, it could also serve as something of a market exchange for businesses, which I'm envisioning as something like the trade centers that cities like Dallas and Atlanta have, which attract pragmatic businessmen. Market it right, there's plenty of access via interstate and it's near the airport and FedEx. Combine the two (international market serving consumers and trade center serving shippers, importers, businessmen), make it a tariff-free zone. I think something like that would raise the status of the area without having to rely on patronage of the fearful.

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IMO Memphis loves to celebrate culture. Memphis in May has a diffrent country reperesnting it, the Greeks and Middle Easterners have festivals throughout the year, and Africa in April is always draws crowds. An international market will bring all these cultures in one spot so we can enjoy the diversity of our city year round. I like your idea of a trade center and theres more than enough room for Class A office space in the area.

We also have many foriegners coming in for treatment at St. Jude. Instead of the hospital staff taking them to Walmart or Kroger, why not the international market where they can actually get what they want easily and feel more at home?

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