Image courtesy lauderdale collection
Editor’s Note: For almost two years now, urban planners and other city officials have presented various plans for dramatic changes to Tom Lee Park and Riverside Drive. Throughout our city's long history, it seems we can never quite decide what to do about our riverfront, and over the years we considered — and rejected — some very ambitious concepts for it, and other parts of our community as well. This story originally appeared in our November 1993 issue.
A heliport on Mud Island. A Teflon tent over the Mid-South Fairgrounds. A soaring obelisk on the Mississippi River. These are just a few of the wild dreams and wacky schemes that developers and promoters have unveiled over the years for Memphis. Ed Frank, curator of Special Collections at the University of Memphis, keeps a manila folder in his department at the library, stuffed with old newspaper clippings, architects’ renderings, and photographs he encounters.
“I always thought these ideas were quite interesting,” he says, “and some of them, because of their lack of information, are really mysterious.” One example: A worn old black-and-white drawing showing a futuristic “space needle” and hotel complex erected on the South Bluffs — almost exactly where this magazine’s offices are located today [Tennessee Street] — but with no other documentation to tell who, what, when, or why.
Here we present pipe dreams for Memphis that turned into nothing but smoke. Maybe we’re better for it. Maybe not.
The Riverfront — 1924 Version (top)
In 1920, the City Planning Commission asked Harland Bartholomew & Associates, a nationally recognized urban planning firm headquartered in St. Louis, to redesign Memphis. Bartholomew made detailed suggestions for building designs, street layouts, intersections, even public lighting fixtures, and paid special attention to the river.
“The chief criticism to be made of the riverfront from the standpoint of appearance is its disorder and general shabbiness,” Bartholomew reported in their initial plan. “Today the riverfront is not only unattractive, but represents a flagrantly unprofitable use of the property.”
The view above is what the firm recommended — a graceful series of arches forming a promenade (“such as was intended by the early founders of the city”) stretching for blocks along the bluffs, with acres of public parking along the riverside, and a handsome bridge linking Downtown to Mud Island. The island in this vision has been converted into a spacious public park, with a tree-lined wraparound pier, baseball diamonds, tennis courts, and what Bartholomew described as “some formal treatment at the southern extremity.”
Although admitting this was an “ambitious scheme,” Bartholomew predicted: “No immediate steps are necessary. As private improvements are made and as public funds become available, the various improvements can be accomplished.” Well, maybe. Riverside Drive was built in the 1930s, and Mud Island was finally developed in the 1970s, but most Memphians today would admit the riverfront doesn’t quite resemble the dream Harland Bartholomew & Associates envisioned for us.
The Riverfront — 1955 Version
Harland Bartholomew & Associates tried again in the 1950s. “The riverfront opposite the central business district offers a challenging opportunity to create an outstanding civic development,” they reminded us. The view here, taken from the firm’s 1955 plan, gives some idea of just how outstanding the plan was: a complete reconstruction of the southern end of Mud Island, with a riverfront expressway, harbor, playing fields, and even a riverside baseball stadium with parking for 5,000 cars.
“It is proposed to divert the channel at a point near Poplar, to fill the old channel, thus creating a very large area to be used for the purposes shown on this plan,” the Bartholomew report explained. “The major street plan proposes an interstate route which would be located on Mud Island. With the proper connections to the Downtown street system, this expressway would offer a new and impressive approach to the business district from the north and south.”
Sometimes they guessed wrong about the future. “In addition to the enlargement of Jefferson Davis Park,” the plan continued, “a helicopter landing field and terminal are provided directly to the west of the park. This would make a conveniently located facility for helicopter transportation, which — while now in its infancy — is progressing very rapidly."
Harland Bartholomew & Associates must have hated us — we just wouldn’t listen. Despite several attempts, we ignored their best efforts to convert our Downtown into a city that George Jetson would have loved.
Image courtesy lauderdale collection
The DeSoto Memorial Tower
In 1960, Downtown planners unveiled a dramatic new vision for the Civic Center, “a center for cultural life in Memphis, as well as a center for governmental activities.” Besides the typical governmental buildings — a city hall, police station, assorted office buildings — the plan also included something called the DeSoto Memorial Tower, which (at least from the renderings), seemed to be a 300-foot-high obelisk on the riverbluff at the foot of Washington.
“Pavilion” was a 1960s buzzword, it seems; the development also included “two new concession pavilions and a restaurant pavilion,” along with something described as a “display pavilion with offices for the City Beautiful Commission.” The entire district would be located “in a corner formed by the Riverside Drive Expressway.”
A January 3, 1960, newspaper article proclaimed, “Building this Center is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken in Memphis, and will require several years to complete.” Longer than that, actually. Parts of the plan — such as City Hall and the Shelby County Office Building — eventually came to life, but the soaring DeSoto Memorial Tower never got off the drawing board.
image courtesy special collections, university of memphis libraries
Beale Street Tourist Plaza
In February 1967, a group of investors revealed plans for a $5 million bank and hotel building that would occupy an entire block Downtown, bounded by Main, Beale, Second, and McCall. The Beale Street Tourist Plaza was hailed as an “aggressive and forward step for the business community.“ The 15-story structure would house a 200-room Holiday Inn, with the ground floor occupied by Tri-State Bank. Above that would be three floors of parking and two floors of office space.
Developers pushed the tourist plaza as a key element in a complete 175-acre renewal plan for Beale Street, which would someday include a “harbor beacon, marina, four-block enclosed shopping mall, outdoor shopping plaza, new MLGW building, and a blue-light entertainment district.”
The director of the Memphis Housing Authority announced construction would begin in one year. And almost one year later, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, casting a pall over Downtown development for years, and developers dropped their plans for the Beale Street Tourist Plaza.
image courtesy special collections, university of memphis libraries
The Chickasaw Gardens Apartments
Just two years after founding Holiday Inns, Memphis developer Kemmons Wilson tried a new venture — an apartment complex at Poplar and Tillman. The 1954 project would include three eight-story apartment buildings and a smaller commercial structure on Poplar.
The problem with this scheme lay across the street — Chickasaw Gardens. “Chickasaw Gardens is a subdivision of which the whole city can be proud, and it depends upon the zoning laws to protect it,” argued the head of the homeowners’ association. “It would not be intelligent city planning to create an area of congestion such as the apartments would create.”
Besides, he continued, “Such projects should be within walking distance of the Downtown area.” This was in the 1950s, remember.
Mayor Henry Loeb even jumped into the fray. According to newspaper stories, he “spoke as a Chickasaw Gardens homeowner, and declared that although he owned commercial property at Tillman and Poplar, he was opposed to the Wilson project.”
So was the zoning commission, who vetoed Wilson’s apartment complex. Over the years, however, that site on Poplar was zoned commercial anyway. Stringer Brothers opened a large nursery, and next door J.B. Hunter department store opened there in the late 1960s. That building later became AutoZone’s headquarters, before it was demolished to build the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.
image courtesy special collections, university of memphis libraries
The Center City Tower
The Downtown block bordered by Main, Poplar, Second, and Exchange fell to the wrecking ball during the urban renewal craze of the 1960s, and the city invited proposals for a replacement for that area. In 1963, the Memphis Housing Authority announced it had narrowed its selection down to three proposals. The first, unveiled by Bloomfield Building Industries, would call for a 25-story apartment building on the site, with ground-level offices and five levels of parking. A second plan, devised by Dave Dermon Company, would involve two separate buildings — a 110-room hotel and a 10-floor apartment building — with underground parking for both.
The third proposal, presented by a group of investors calling themselves Center Building, Inc., called for a 29-story office building and “apartment hotel” (shown here). Ten floors would house office space, and the tower would also contain a penthouse, restaurant, health club, and observation deck.
MHA officials eventually voted for a modified version of the first plan, and 99 Towers apartments was built on the site.
image courtesy memphis press-scimitar
Country Club Estates
The May 1, 1953, edition of the Memphis Press-Scimitar told readers about “a development of the future … not just another housing project, but a design for living.” Country Club Estates would be a $22 million, 542-acre suburb laid out in the East Memphis area bounded today by Park, White Station, Quince, and Estate.
Modeled after a futuristic community built in Radford, New Jersey, the new subdivision would cluster small houses (described as “contemporary architecture of the Nth degree”) around a network of more than 100 cul-de-sacs. Pedestrian “feeder” walkways would tunnel beneath Quince and White Station, allowing residents to walk to the community’s own school, 77-acre park, lake, swimming pool, church, and baseball fields.
Developer J.A. Montgomery claimed Country Club Estates would “serve present-day requirements of good living in a more practical and pleasant way than does the conventional pattern of subdivision planning.” It would serve as a showcase, he hoped, for other neighborhoods throughout the city.
The never happened. Country Club Estates never broke ground. The local planning commission objected to the small houses on small lots and fretted that “this type of home will be slums in a few years.” Memphis eventually built Sea Isle School in the proposed park area, and other developers over the years planted rows of houses throughout the area, but the neighborhood today bears no resemblance to the original plan. The only vestige of that is the name of the road that would have served as its eastern boundary: Estate.
