Thursday, February 7, 2008
The Bass Pro Kiss-Off
More talk and less action means The Pyramid is likely to remain vacant.
Posted by John Branston on Thu, Feb 7, 2008 at 4:00 AM
So long, Bass Pro. It was nice knowing you or not knowing you.
Unless you are under the age of 13 or senile, you know a kiss-off when you see one. And the "development agreement" for The Pyramid is a kiss-off, no question about it. More time, more public money, more escape clauses, more unexpected costs. The details are irrelevant. When you're dumped you're dumped, and you can tell by the body language and the look in the eyes. The words are just to soften the blow.
The Pyramid is a white elephant, and Bass Pro was a finicky shopper, browsing at our riverfront yard sale at a time when Wall Street is holding a 70-percent-off sale over in ammo and camo. Bass Pro's super store and headquarters was once the number-one tourist attraction in Missouri, with 3.5 million visitors. But that was in 1998, when outdoor adventure retailers with grand visions were cool and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were kids. Today, they're, how to say it, overexposed.
The Memphis City Council will discuss the "agreement" in two weeks. Chairman Scott McCormick, putting a good face on it, says a development agreement is further along than a nonbinding letter of intent. Bass Pro could still wind up as a Pyramid tenant, but its role as master redeveloper is highly unlikely.
Last week (see my column, "The Week That Was," on memphisflyer.com), while a city-county delegation visited Bass Pro's headquarters, I asked several people involved with The Pyramid 20 years ago what they think of its current prospects. Former city mayor Dick Hackett said Bass Pro is "a fabulous organization" and could be a great family tourism magnet, but "the real issue now is the math." Former Shelby County mayor Bill Morris prefers Greg Ericson's plan for a theme park. Former county mayor Jim Rout likes the idea of a combination of Bass Pro and Ericson's idea, but "that's easy to say but maybe difficult to work out." Harbor Town developer Henry Turley said Bass Pro "is a great fit for Memphis." Pat Kerr Tigrett, whose late husband John was the Pyramid visionary, said, "If I had my druthers, I would like something with music potential." Sports Authority veteran Pat Carter said, "Ericson's proposal offers a lot more than Bass Pro is offering." And "Smart City" blogger Tom Jones, who was involved in negotiations for The Pyramid and FedExForum as a county mayoral assistant, makes a strong case for using The Pyramid as a convention center.
Nobody in this group is throwing his or her weight around. None of them has a dog in the hunt anymore. Nobody called me to sound off. I called them. But it's pretty clear that there is nothing close to consensus among well-meaning, well-informed people who have watched downtown ebb and flow for more than 30 years.
One of the troubling things about Bass Pro and The Pyramid is that company founder and owner John Morris shows so little overt personal interest in doing a deal. City point man Robert Lipscomb said he met with him for the first time last week, after years of largely unproductive and inconclusive meetings with subordinates.
Running a half-hearted, half-baked proposal through the gauntlet of point men, the City Council, County Commission, watchdog lawyers and citizens, and two mayors is a surefire recipe for a stalemate. The history of Memphis since 1980 suggests that the way big public-private partnerships get done in downtown Memphis is by employing a ramrod. A ramrod is someone rich, influential, determined, thick-skinned, adept at using the elbows, and willing to look political decision-makers in the eye and ask for the order.
Jack Belz was the ramrod for The Peabody and Peabody Place. John and Pat Tigrett and Fred Smith were the ramrods for The Pyramid. Smith and Billy Dunavant were the ramrods for the expansion of Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Turley and Belz were the ramrods for Harbor Town. Dean and Kristi Jernigan were the ramrods for AutoZone Park. Pitt Hyde, FedEx, and Jernigan were the ramrods for NBA Now and FedExForum. Take them out of the picture and those deals don't happen.
And every one of those deals has had its problems. Most did not meet expectations and attendance projections. Which is not to suggest that they failed. They were better than what we had. They were worth the gamble. But a city that has been burned, if not roasted, so many times is apt to be careful about getting burned again.
Comments (5)
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Although design compromises were made for the pyramid shape, the Pyramid functioned successfully as a bball court and concert venue, so it's still worth way more than any white elephant. Our "leaders" destroyed its value in an attempt to satisfy the NBA-ers' greed. Our "leaders" ought to be trying to legalize riverside casino gambling, but hell, they aren't doing anything effective to stop the ruination of this city by the hordes of hood thugs who are ripping us off and killing us. It's not just the Pyramid, but the whole city, that truly has become the Tomb of Doom.
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I must have gone to basketball games at a different Pyramid. There were 2,500 too many seats - a concession made to get a crucial county commissioner's vote - so the seats were smaller than comparable arenas and uncomfortable for a majority of fans. The suites were on the concourses, killing off much of their value. The sight lines were too long, especially from upstairs, where many seats were blocked by metal railing and the incline was too steep to encourage trips to the concession stands. There was pull-out seating on the floor, which wasn't found in any first-class arenas, provoking memories of fair rodeos. The building didn't meet ADA standards, and had to be adapted at great expense. It didn't live up to promises that it was easily NBA adaptable, prompting the FedEx Forum. The technology wasn't up to the standards of arenas such as North Carolina's. In other words, it was a bargain basement arena and it showed in myriad shortcuts in design and flaws in planning. It may not have been a white elephant, but it bore a strong resemblance to one, beginning with the first night when all of the toilets overflowed and flooded the arena floor. It was clearly a sign.
How many cities has Bass Pro stiffed besides Little Rock, Wichita, and Buffalo? What about the Ericson proposal, any predictions on potential "ram-rods"?
What a crock this article was. C'mon man, get your facts straight. The $75 million needed for infrastructure upgrades to the Pyramid will come from Federal funding. It will probably take the city a MINIMUM of one year to secure those funds. The city is currently 12 - 18 months away from being able to sign ANY binding Pyramid agreement, so lose it with the feet dragging BS already. No reasonable investor would sign a binding agreement with Memphis yet. Not until they were guaranteed the mutually defined improvements were made. Bass Pro's timeline is proper and well-thought out. Bass Pro is the right project for the Pyramid and both sides are progressively and mutually moving closer together. All over America unused sports arenas are being leveled. Only in Memphis are there a viable agreement and a promise of $35,000 per month rent. But hey, let's trash that, after all people are standing inline to throw money at the Pyramid, right? Mr. Lipscomb is achieving something that cities all across America are failing at. Lipscomb is a winner and Bass Pro is a winner. Now, for all you misguided souls who think Ericson's Illusion is the way to go, check this out; * Ericson's plan requires the I - 40 Ramps to be moved at taxpayer expense. Current estimates are $90 million. How long will that take? Who will pay for it? Can you imagine downtown traffic for those 4-5 years? * By his own quote in the Appeal, Greg Ericson admits that he does not have the $150 million boasted about to bring his plan up to $250 million. * Ericson wants control of all 90 acres of the park, AND THEN he will go hunt for money. Try this; go tell Chuck Hutton to give you title to a new Suburban and that you will come back with his money. Let me know how that works for ya! * Apparently, Mud Island River park is situated on public lands. It appears that the city cannot legally sign Ericson's fantasy without legal proceedings and public hearings that could take years to resolve. There is a time for debate and there is a time for citizens to put personal bias aside, to support their community and their leaders. It's that time now. I I look forward to the future success of a phenomenal Bass Pro store in the Pyramid.
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