Thursday, March 11, 2010
Fairgrounds Triage
"Green it and clean it" (but don't reduce parking) in Phase One.
Posted by John Branston on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 4:00 AM
Football fans will see a cleaner and greener fairgrounds and a lot more empty space around Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in September.
In the southwest corner of the fairgrounds, heavy-equipment operators are grooming the former site of Libertyland, turning it into a shady, grassy grove suitable for pregame parties and picnics. Meanwhile, on the fifth floor of City Hall, heavy political operators are performing triage on the property and putting first things first. Which is to say, football and parking, all 5,372 spaces.
City councilman Reid Hedgepeth, a former college football player determined to move the ball on this project, gathered the main players Monday. They included University of Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson, Steve Ehrhart, representing the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, Fred Jones, representing the Southern Heritage Classic, and Robert Lipscomb, representing the city administration.
(The full council was scheduled to take up the issue Tuesday after Flyer deadlines.)
The goal was to get an agreement on Phase One of the "clean and green" of the amusement park site and move on. The next phase includes demolition of the cattle barns and most of the other buildings west of the stadium so they can be replaced with a "Tiger Lawn" (aka "The Great Lawn") from the East Parkway entrance of the fairgrounds to the stadium. Hedgepeth and Lipscomb want to get that much done before the 2010 football season starts and the U of M takes the field under new head coach Larry Porter. The cost is approximately $2 million.
"We're not finalizing the fairgrounds. All we're tying to do is clean the place up," Lipscomb said.
Noting the recent flare-up, mainly by Jones, over fears of lost parking places, Lipscomb added, "If we have this kind of problem cleaning it up, imagine the problem we're going to have advancing the notion of what ought to be there."
Conspicuously absent at the table was Henry Turley, whose group Fair Ground LLC was chosen as developer of the fairgrounds by the city's appointed fairgrounds reuse committee and confirmed by then-mayor Willie Herenton in 2008. Turley, the developer of Harbor Town and Uptown (and a minority stockholder in Contemporary Media, Inc., the Flyer's parent company), has a national reputation as an expert in new urbanism. He has called Fair Ground "the best idea I ever had." But he can't get political support for his plan, which includes big-box retailers like Target and hotels like Hampton Inns to generate taxes that would pay for an amateur team-sports complex and fairgrounds and stadium improvements.
Also absent was anyone from the Memphis Park Commission, which operates the stadium.
Calling the shots, at least for now, are Lipscomb and former city councilman and architect Tom Marshall, who leads a fairgrounds redevelopment group that has the blessing of FedEx executives, the U of M, and most members of the City Council.
No matter who gets the job, it won't be easy. The lineup for the East Parkway side of the fairgrounds is set, with Fairview Middle School, the Salvation Army's Kroc Center for recreation, the grand entrance, and the greensward at the old amusement park. So is most of the north side, with the Children's Museum and the high school football field and track.
That leaves the stadium, the Mid-South Coliseum, and enough asphalt to land airplanes if Memphis International ever shuts down. At Monday's meeting, Marshall had a display board with six reasons to tear down the coliseum. Jones wants it to stay. He's a tough advocate, with friends on the council.
If the football crowd has its way, parking will reign, millions more dollars will be poured into the stadium for fans who don't come and for handicapped seating that isn't needed, and the U of M will cross its fingers that a new coach and players can turn the program around and get Memphis into a Bowl Championship Series conference — the latest Holy Grail.
Turley's mixed bag is also a long shot. A "Target tax" or "Trader Joe's tax" would probably pass in some affluent precincts in Midtown, but big-box retailers always run into resistance. His sports model is Bridges, the nonprofit that brings private and public schools together for season-opening football games, only he wants to do it regularly.
In a town where public more often than not means poor (schools, the Med, MATA, etc.), Memphis may not be ready for that leap of faith. We prefer our racial reconciliation and happy endings in small doses, à la The Blind Side — or on the sports page or the football field.
Comments (11)
Showing 1-11 of 11
Why no mention of the fake grass proposed by Lipscum and Marshall? Why no discussion of how shade trees can co-exist with a "Great Lawn?" How many trees are being razed? Why no investigation of the destruction of a wetland -- the lake at the center of the park site -- or is "alternative" journalism as dead and decaying as mainstream journalism?
like
dislike
I have a crazy idea.
Looking at Google Maps, it appears to me that the fairgrounds property is roughly three times as big as the Zoo property. I know it would be expensive to move the zoo, but it sure would give them all the room they'll ever need to expand.
Besides, which is more important to the local economy - maintaining a D-list bowl game or an A-list zoo?
Why dont you write the story if the paper isn't doing a good enough job for you, Denise? Jerk.
This is a story of a lifetime about corruption of epic proportions, yet journalists choose not to cover it... Perhaps they cannot see the Forest for the Great Lawn.
Denise, maybe the journalists aren't covering the story for the same reason you aren't answering those who ask you to back up your bizzarre claims...
Maybe there is nothing of substance in either case?
The whole Fairgrounds deal is crooked and the memo that proved it (from the CFO) was handed over to Flyer editorial staff which then turned it over to an intern who then busted out the name of the whistleblower to the MidSouth Fair Board which then kicked the CFO off the MidSouth Fair Board and none of the CFO's allegations were ever investigated. Is that clear enough?
Denise, you are a master of revisionist history. And quickly entering tinfoil hat territory.
Denise the only thing that is 'clear enough' is that you have made a lot of claims, and that your support for those claims is to make more claims.
I think the fact that there was no forensic accounting audit of the MidSouth Fair (despite our calling for one at the parks committee meeting of the city council YEARS ago), and now the Fair is combining with its competition and kicked out every rent-paying tenant and money-making operation, and seeks to demolish every structure on site WITH NO PLAN in place for what the finished "park" will look like, all proves that this is crooked, or if not crooked, then insane. The Mid South Fair board is packed with past and current politicians including people like Kevin Kane who make $ off of deals with the city. It doesn't take a tinfoil hat to wonder why the Fourth Estate has not called for an investigation into the destruction of what could have been a jewel of a park and a destination for Midtown families. Now I guess it will be an astroturf parking lot made up of stuff like those commercial for the little "grass" squares that dogs can pee on inside the house.
THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUES
