Friends For Our Riverfront - Memphis, Tennessee

The Commercial Appeal: RDC should put a chunk of Tom Lee Park up for sale
September 20, 2004

If the Riverfront Development Corporation is hell-bent on selling public land for private development, perhaps it should consider selling off part of Tom Lee Park.

RDC's refusal to plant additional shade trees, install picnic benches or gazebos or shelters results in an open expanse of land on which to build condos and office buildings, with plenty of space remaining for Memphis in May festivities.

RDC could easily exercise its power of eminent domain because Tom Lee Park doesn't have the easement restrictions the City of Memphis must overcome to promote private development of high-rises on the public promenade.

Tom Lee Park would likely "lease" to private developers for enough money to relocate the fire station and two parking garages from the public promenade. And devel oping a small part of Tom Lee Park might be what the RDC needs to bring "critical mass" to the riverfront.

Bill Tillner
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Promenade development would deny preservation
May 18, 2004

It is very apparent that the writers of a May 15 letter to the editor and your May 16 editorial ("Turning the city's face to the river") have both missed the point of the Public Promenade being placed on the list of Tennessee's 10 most endangered historic sites.

The promenade's nomination and its selection to this very important listing are based on the fact that the blufftop area along the west side of Front Street called the Public Promenade was given to the citizens of Memphis as a public open area to be used and visited by all. This listing by the Tennessee Preservation Trust serves to make clear the fact that for over the last 50-plus years Memphis has not been a good steward of the promenade and now is the time to correct the years of inappropriate development, not to add to it.

If the newest development plan by the Riverfront Development Corp. is approved by the City Council as early as today there will simply be no more public bluff/promenade. It will become a squared-off concrete structure with no appearance of the natural green bluff that once stood as a historical part of Memphis history.

June W. West
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Support of RDC proposal not in best interest of city
May 18, 2004

The Commercial Appeal has again come out against what is good for the city. Instead of supporting what is good, it is supporting what the Riverfront Development Corp.'s monied interests want.

You first opposed, before coming around to support, the Bluffwalk, which is a great addition to our city. Now you support the RDC plan to "sell off" our public riverfront land (promenade) to provide income for the RDC.

Leasing the promenade for a 40-, a 30- and a 15-story tower is contrary to the 1828 deed that gave the land to the citizens of Memphis for public use. The founders of our city had a far better vision of our city than you have. Shame on you.

Bergen Merrill
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal
May 16, 2004

I was one of approximately 70 people who attended the Promenade walk conducted by the planner for Cooper-Robertson. That walk was the only public meeting the RDC held in which the public was actually asked for input.

If you review the summary of the walk's input on the RDC Web site, it's clear the RDC disregarded the public comment it received about its plan and tried to avoid any negative input on its presentation.

The RDC plan was presented at the third public meeting, and the audience was asked: ''What do you like about this plan?" Participants weren't informed of the Founders' vision until this final meeting, when the attorney who had filed the case to block hotel development, leading to the 1965 Supreme Court case, disclosed that the land was held as an easement for public use.

The RDC claims its plan increases public space by 60 percent. While it calculates the space added by wider sidewalks, it fails to calculate all of the ''public space" space created by existing sidewalks and other areas. There is no minimum amount of walking space dedicated to the public in its proposal. It labels ''public areas" as green in its plan, when they won't contain grass, but rather add to the concrete and brick that already dominate downtown.

Thankfully, citizens have the right to have another vision. The City Council should have the wisdom to pursue the original alternative.

Sue A. Williams
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal
May 16, 2004

Why do I feel I am not part of the "public" as described by our city's leaders? I am a Memphian. My family lives within the city limits. I love downtown. My family plays, worships and entertains there. So why we are denied access to the sidewalks and egress that my tax dollars built for ''public use"?

Is it Henry Turley who did not want my family to access public use areas because it would disturb him for one month out of 12? Was it Kevin Kane who did not want my family to use the public sidewalks in front of his home? Did Mayor Willie Herenton order the closing of the stairs to Tom Lee Park?

Surely it was not the participants in Memphis in May. They would not have asked to walk to the far ends of the park to gain access. They bring visitors, income and a positive image to a city that desperately needs anything positive. Who locked these gates?

Is this what we are to expect if the city gives away the land that has been set aside for "public use" for 185 years? How far will we have to walk to get a view of the river then?

Memphis has done a fabulous job renewing downtown without losing sight of the history and feel of a Southern river city. Please do not spoil the efforts that have gone into these improvements. Do not try to pass off the renovation of the bluffs as a "public" service.

William McBride
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal
May 16, 2004

Don't ruin the best bluff view in Memphis with bank and office buildings and condo penthouses for the few elite who can afford them. The Founders meant the Promenade to be green space, ample and open to the people, forever. The RDC should sit down with concerned citizen groups and find out what the people want on their land.

Humans who live and work in cities need large green spaces, not little strips at the edges of concrete walks. Maybe even a space as large as three Confederate Parks stitched together, in the heart of downtown, where they can see it from their offices and apartments and get to it easily for a bite of lunch. When you have only 30 minutes, you don't have time to go to Tom Lee Park or Mud Island, but you can be on the Promenade in an instant.

Through legal machinations, the RDC would have Memphians pay for this land even though it already belongs to them. The RDC plan is up for approval by the City Council, although no ecological or environmental study has been done to determine the impact the plan might have on the Wolf River or the Chickasaw Bluffs.

The fate of this land has been decided, in 1828 by the Founders, in 1867 and 1965 by the highest court in Tennessee. The Promenade belongs to the people of Memphis, not to the highest bidder.

Mimi Harris Waite
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Skip a meeting, and somehow plans change
April 25, 2004

I attended the first two of three public meetings presented by the Riverfront Development Corp. last year. I was pleased and intrigued with the plans for the four-block area of the public promenade between Union and Adams avenues.

To my relief, a land bridge/dam across the former Wolf River channel that had been proposed earlier as part of the riverfront development had disappeared. The inappropriate parking garages, fire station and the ugly modern addition to the Cossitt Library were to be razed, while keeping and refurbishing the beautiful, historic post office.

In their place along the foot of the bluff, an array of shops, bars, boutiques and restaurants were to be built, tiered into the face of the bluff and extending east to Front Street. As I recall, this proposed development was to be low level, no taller than one or two stories on the west side of Front.

After missing the third RDC meeting, I attended a presentation last month by Friends for Our Riverfront.

The RDC's attractive plan appears to have been drastically changed. It is now dominated by three skyscrapers, from 150 feet to 400 feet high, on the river bluff. Where did these leviathans come from? They were not part of the RDC presentation that I found so attractive. Is this bait-and-switch on the part of RDC?

With considerable empty downtown office space available, do we need more office buildings? Who will pay for them? Do we need the river views from existing buildings blocked by front-row monsters?

How can anyone vote on a proposal that seems to change drastically almost every time it is presented?

As for the open promenade and park plans proposed by Friends for Our Riverfront, I don't think Memphis needs more parkland on our riverfront. With Martyrs Park, Tom Lee Park, Jefferson Davis Park, the Tennessee Welcome Center and the residential portion of Mud Island, we already have almost three miles of open riverfront parkland, in addition to the riverwalk along the bluff.

The four-block, tourist-friendly bistro/shopping development in the face of the bluff with a low level development on Front makes sense to me. Isn't it a reasonable compromise?

William B. Strong
Germantown

The Commercial Appeal: Legal questions demand answers
April 25, 2004

In 1819, Memphis's founders (being developers themselves) employed a checks and balances mechanism to protect the promenade from future developers.

They gave Memphians a perpetual easement, with the stipulation that the property always be a public promenade. They allowed the underlying land to pass to their heirs, who for all practical purposes cannot do anything with it while the easement remains.

If an easement's stipulations are violated, the landowners may sue to stop the violations or ask the court to dissolve the easement. In the 1960s, the heirs sued the city to prohibit leasing a portion of the promenade to a commercial developer. The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the heirs.

Given that precedent, what does the RDC plan to do? It seems they would abandon the easement, reverting full control of the property to the heirs. Then they would have the city take the land by eminent domain, paying the heirs current market value.

That raises three disturbing questions:

Should the RDC and the city be allowed to destroy a valuable possession of the citizens of Memphis (the easement) without appropriate public process?
Will Memphians then be forced to pay for something that was already theirs?
If the proposed development fails to provide sufficient revenue to cover the debt service, will future generations of Memphians foot the bill?

Arguably, the only logical purpose of abandoning the easement, then buying the land at today's prices, is to enable commercial development. It appears that taxpayers, not developers, would bear the brunt of the business risks.

Regardless of how one feels about the esthetics of the proposed development, these questions demand to be answered.

Michael Cromer
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Honor city's heritage, not costly 'urban fantasy'
April 25, 2004

The promenade proposal would transform our riverfront into a construction site for years to come. Memphis does not need a tall "world-class" urban skyline on the bluffs. Our soil and climate support tall trees and lush vegetation, not tall buildings and concrete walkways.

This project could be the most costly of all downtown schemes yet, and it could ruin the riverfront forever. It is a bad, expensive urban fantasy. It is not home-grown. It will mostly benefit the developers.

It also raises a number of very serious environmental questions, including these:

Have there been independent environmental impact and engineering studies on the effect of tunneling into the loess bluff to create a parking garage? What about seismic activity?
Has anyone studied how the proposed tall buildings would cast their shadows, and how they would affect the quality of life for occupants of the historic buildings on the east side of Front?
What wind currents would this man-made canyon create?
How hot would the paved promenade get in the baking summer heat? How would all this new paving and stone affect the rest of the city as the hot air rises?
Has anyone studied the actual need for newly built offices and shops? The office vacancy rate is high already.
How many supporters of the project live and pay taxes in Memphis? Would there be absentee landlords?

The Mississippi River is a world-famous attraction and an awe-inspiring force of nature. It should be left alone and respected.

The land along the river could become a world-class playground for people from all walks of life and all corners of the globe - a setting to celebrate the rich Memphis heritage, a green and wholesome place to relax, enjoy and admire Ole Man River, with all its moods and might.

A world-class greenbelt would cost less, it would create jobs, and it would be a lasting gift to the citizens of Memphis.

Front Street can be revitalized by funding a push toward good renovations. New construction belongs away from the bluffs.

Renate Rosenthal
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal
April 25, 2004

The RDC's promenade plan provides for erecting commercial buildings all along Front Street. The plan obviously restricts all but the tenants thereof from viewing the river and its vistas.

Could this plan be anchored in money-making projects and not the esthetic values of the citizens?

Curtis Parham
Czech Republic

The Commercial Appeal
April 25, 2004

Defense of Place is committed to assuring the nation's protected lands stay protected forever. We have watched from afar as Memphis citizens fight an ill-conceived scheme to build a shopping mall on the promenade.

Other cities have realized that even one violation of a protected landscape can lead to dire consequences.

If New York City accepted every proposal to carve off a sliver of Central Park it would have paved the park over 17 times by now. Memphis must abandon these plans and assure permanent protection for the promenade.

Jason Kibbey
Director, Defense of Place
San Francisco

The Commercial Appeal: You bring the food, RDC; we'll supply the ideas
April 25, 2004

Recently on the nearly vacant block of Main Street between Union and Gayoso, I was among a festive crowd that gathered to hear live music, drink wine and celebrate the possibility of commercial development in renovated historic buildings.

Later I took a bike ride downtown. Main Street from the Cannon Center north to the Greenlaw neighborhood offers a nearly unbroken vista of empty buildings, parking lots and grass-covered lots with "for sale" signs.

And the RDC has a controversial plan for commercial development of public land that is not even legally available?

Instead of pushing its unpopular plan, let the RDC partner with the music commission and the Center City Commission to highlight available real estate downtown by sponsoring weekly free food/live music parties.

I bet a crowd of young, creative Memphians unwinding at a party could riff on some better ideas for downtown than what the RDC has paid out-of-town consultants a lot of money to do.

Drew Long
Memphis

The Memphis Flyer: More on the RDC
March 18, 2004

The Riverfront Development Corporation board has approved and announced its plan for the riverfront promenade. They would lead us to believe that by turning a significant portion of the Overton land over to private developers Memphis will gain wonderful river views and improved use of this underutilized area and that the cost of doing so will be paid for by the developers. Before this plan receives further approval, the RDC board needs to address:

1. Who will pay for the demolition of the fire station, library, and post office and the reconstruction of new facilities -- or is it the RDC's intent that we will no longer have these facilities downtown?

2. What will happen to the harbor and river views of the people who committed years ago to move downtown and live in places like the Shrine Building?

3. With the development of these high-rise condo/apartments, what will happen to the efforts of interested developers in rebuilding the empty and underutilized locations along Front and Main streets? The Advisory Report of the Urban Land Institute commissioned by the RDC advised that building rental/condo units on the promenade could impact the ability to successfully complete other efforts to rebuild downtown.

4. The RDC states that it intends to go to court to establish the right to do what it wants. Who will pay the legal costs for the RDC to sue for the rights of developers over that of the Overton heirs attempting to maintain the public use of the promenade? It seems that public money will be used to take away public property and put it in the hands of the developer. Does this make sense?

I believe the RDC owes us a picture of what could be done with the same public money without taking 40 percent of the land away from the public. Intelligent decisions can only be made when the choices are known.

Thomas Kroll
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Riverfront development continues mixed reviews
March 13, 2004

It is not often I can wholly agree with a local architect, but the Feb. 3 guest commentary by architect James Williamson was a very commendable analysis of how Memphis's "front door" should be improved. The RDC proposal is way off base and evidently influenced again by nonnative Memphis residents who have never known the feeling of the Memphis past.

I am fortunate to carry with me vivid remembrances of the Main Street, Front Street and Riverside Drive from Memphis past, areas my father took me around when I was a young child.

The most pitiful aspect of the whole bluff is that past city governments allowed developers to abscond with our most precious land along the precipice edge of the outstanding high bluff from Georgia Street to Adams Street, without providing for a grade level "Top of Bluff" public promenade and other features.

We need to maximize the visitor appreciation of our downtown and let the developers' commercial towers form a background, set back a few blocks from Front Street.

I predict that one day in the future, the railroad, the houses and Rivermont Apartments will be removed and relocated for the public good, and "Ole Man River Keeps Rolling Along."

Frank Ferguson
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Riverfront development continues mixed reviews
March 13, 2004

Shepherd, a lifelong Memphian from my old neighborhood around East High School, knows Memphis. Her decision to build a home in a new and risky area off the South Bluffs downtown helped revitalize the downtown area. This at a time when only the Belz family was prepared to invest in downtown redevelopment.

Finally, after the investment by these lifelong Memphians, the Memphis in May barbecue contest became astoundingly popular in old Tom Lee Park. Thus, it became apparent, after years of abandonment by corporate developers and the eastward-obsessed Memphis residents, that Memphis proper had something to offer.

With the extension of Tom Lee Park and the Memphis Harbor and Mud Island residential development projects, the pendulum has now swung too far back, however. And I agree with Shepherd that further destruction of the natural riverside and its flora and fauna is detrimental.

This belief has been emphatically endorsed by nature, with the unprecedented arrival of devastating straight-line winds from across the river - winds which used to be repelled by the high bluffs and the surrounding vegetation.

Let's continue to build exciting projects like Peabody Place, convert beautiful old buildings to new uses, and even put up new skyscrapers. But let's do it stair-step style toward Midtown, leaving a natural riverside area open to the public.

That way, more folks will be able to enjoy more of the Memphis advantage.

J. D. Kinney
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Riverfront development continues mixed reviews
March 13, 2004

I have just read Cybill Shepherd's March 11 letter to the editor and agree with her 100 percent. Extending the Riverfront Walk from the Metal Museum to the Greenbelt Trail would provide access for city residents and visitors to walk the bluff from one end to the other and view the wonderful Mississippi River and harbor as well as Tom Lee Park and other attractions. This sounds more in keeping with what our forefathers had in mind. No matter what the Riverfront Development Corp. says, there would be "security" restrictions implemented with this new development "for protection of the properties" that would deny the general public the kind of access to the riverfront that we now enjoy.

Pamela Cate
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Sides dig in on promenade plans
March 8, 2004

Thanks to Cybill Shepherd for being the one Riverfront Development Corp. member to dare to condemn the promenade and land dam/lake plans (March 5 article, ''Cybill condemns promenade plan; RDC member has missed all meetings").

We did attend the public sessions; these projects do not reflect Memphis's unique history and character.

Memphis is not Atlanta, New York or the RDC's public promenade plan. Memphis is a proud city on the high bluff with spectacular views of its waterfront, harbor and the mighty Mississippi River.

What makes Memphis unique is the foresight of its founders in giving command of the bluff and priceless riverfront views to the people of Memphis. The fact that public servants have not been good stewards of the people's treasure is no reason to give it away - ever. Far better to spruce up and improve access to our public spaces.

Let private investment in the continued rebirth of downtown and uptown - both residential and commercial on existing, available land - provide the ''critical mass" of people needed for Memphis to enjoy fully the magnitude of this gift.

Patricia Merrill
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Sides dig in on promenade plans
March 8, 2004

We have two plans for riverfront redevelopment: architect Jim Williamson's advised Center City Development plan and Benny Lendermon's RDC alternative. It seems the 1987 Center City Plan is more in keeping with the intent of city founders to reserve in perpetuity the river bluff area as "forever public." The RDC plan appears to disregard this valuable trust left to the city and its citizens as benefactors.

The features described in the RDC concept, among them stringent building setbacks, grand staircases to upper-level pedestrian walkways, view corridors and more open spaces between and around buildings, suggest the understated feature of the plan is the buildings, with their undetermined height block ing the river view rather than returning it ''to the forefront," as Lendermon said in a Feb. 26 Viewpoint guest column.

The Center City plan, despite Lendermon's prophesy, would not be "an embarassing collection of buildings, broken sidewalks and guarded parking lots that serves as a barrier rather than a connection to the river." It would retain in essence the wishes of the city's founders, who put their trust in those who were to come later.

Jeanine E. Mah
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: Talk riverfront restoration to me

I love my hometown and my home in Memphis. So I studied in depth the Riverfront Development Corp.'s final draft of its plan dated Feb. 17. It is historically and esthetically inappropriate.

The area considered between Riverside Drive, Front Street, Union Avenue and Auction Avenue has never profited private investors. All Memphians are its true owners.

High-rises there would radically change the look of our city. We need restoration, not a fake lake that would alter our historic riverfront. To imitate the Promenade Plantee in Paris or the Embarcadero in San Francisco would be a mistake. We need a plan that uniquely suits our city. I beg the Riverfront Development Corp. board members, our Mayors Willie Herenton and A C Wharton, the City Council and anyone else who cares to fight for another plan that reflects the original look and feel of the bluff.

We need no lake. We need no other land bridge. We should complete the Riverwalk south to the National Ornamental Metal Museum and north to the Greenbelt Trail on Mud Island. I joined the board of the Riverfront Development Corp. to address this issue, but it has not been considered a priority.

I hope all Memphians can continue to enjoy our unique riverfront in its natural, historical and esthetic grandeur.

Cybill Shepherd
Memphis

The Commercial Appeal: City's founders planned promenade correctly
February 5, 2004

I couldn't agree more with the views expressed by local architect James F. Williamson in his Feb. 3 Viewpoint guest column ''Respect original vision for riverfront."

The public promenade should be preserved as it was intended by the city's founders. For centuries indigenous peoples, the earliest European explorers, the famous and not so famous frontiersmen and just plain ordinary folk have stood on this bluff and witnessed some of the greatest events in history. More than half of America's presidents have shared this same space at one time or another. The timeline of chronicled events at this particular location is of greater importance than any other site in Tennessee.

It now would appear that the Riverfront Development Corporation was created almost entirely to orchestrate one of the greatest land grabs in local memory. Not satisfied with the best land with the best views, developers have concocted an absurd plan for even more space with the creation of the proposed land bridge.

It is encouraging that Williamson, the Overton heirs, environmentalists and preservationists are finally speaking out.

Jerry Palazolo
Memphis

The Memphis Flyer: Truly Alternative

The Memphis Flyer is supposed to be different, yet where is your coverage of those of us who want to keep the "public" in the public promenade on the riverfront? You need to know that the Riverfront Development Corporation is not the only riverfront group in town. They are just the ones with a gazillion tax dollars.

The other group is Friends for Our Riverfront, a grassroots organization that wants to keep the promenade public. FfOR isn't just the old-line Memphians who took the most valuable land in Memphis and dedicated it to the people to use forever, although that is part of the story. You don't have to be an Overton or a Winchester. You just have to love Memphis, to love that old muddy river, to long to restore peace to your soul as you watch the sun set over the Arkansas farmland. We are the real Memphians, who remember when the cobblestones were littered with long staple cotton, spilling from the wagons headed for the classing tables on Front Street, where my Daddy used to take me when I was so little that I could barely see over the wooden rim which contained the white gold.

The RDC is all about Kristi Jernigan, who wants to outline the glitzy new high-rises in neon blue lights, and Benny Lendermon, a bureaucrat whose goal is to make Willie Herenton's legacy for him, no matter the cost to the taxpayers, no matter the destruction to the ecology and to the sacred covenant between the city and its founders. These are people who have no sense of the history of Memphis. They cannot imagine why three wealthy men, Winchester, Overton, and McLemore, would give to the people the right to use the most valuable land in the city in perpetuity. They have no sense of altruism and no desire to preserve what is good from the past. They can see only that which is new and shiny and which will make them rich.

Got the difference?

Mimi Harris Waite
Memphis

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