DOWNTOWN GETS ANOTHER BOOST

"It ain’t over until it's over," baseball's Yogi Berra once said, accidentally creating a sports proverb about the value of perseverance in the face of hardship.

That same proverb applies to Downtown development, too. In particular, it applied to renovation plans for three historic buildings next to Court Square.

A private development team plans to spend $49 million to refurbish the former Lowenstein Department Store, Court Annex Warehouse and Lincoln American Tower. If all goes according to plan, the buildings will reopen within the next two years with a mixture of retail, residential and office uses.

It'll be a terrific lift for a block of Main Street in dire need of a makeover. It'll likely be a catalyst for other new projects along Main and elsewhere in the immediate vicinity.

But it hasn't been easy.

Although this project has been on the drawing board for several years, it had been bogged down with the costs and complexities involved in putting historic buildings back into use without sacrificing modern safety or convenience standards. Robert Lipscomb, the city's chief financial officer, said the deal wouldn't be moving forward without "perseverance, collaboration and creativity" shown by the developers, their lenders and the government officials who helped secure public incentives.

To make the deal work, the developers and their advocates had to apply for and receive an alphabet soup of federal credits and local tax freezes. They had to make repeated appearances before the Memphis City Council to get extensions to their development contract.

And while they were working through those other issues, they also had to convince Environmental Court Judge Larry Potter that two of the buildings shouldn’t be torn down as safety hazards.

"If this one (project) can be done, I'd say that bodes well for many others in the days ahead," said Jeff Sanford, president of the Center City Commission. "From a financial standpoint, this is the most complicated one I've seen."

The difficulty in making the Court Square Center project happen proves that, despite Downtown's many successes over the last two decades, it's still a neighborhood that requires a little extra TLC.

Don't forget that as recently as last December, Los Angeles Lakers basketball coach Phil Jackson haughtily dismissed Downtown Memphis as looking like "Dresden after the war."

We're guessing the coach/Zen master must spend much of his time in Memphis in a deep meditative trance, but the underlying point remains.

Sanford tries to keep the ups and down of Downtown development in perspective, which is good. As he suggests, the rebuilding process is one that requires patience and an ability to remain upbeat despite occasional setbacks.

And when he talks about the need to avoid complacency concerning Downtown, Sanford even sounds a bit like that great philosopher, Yogi Berra.

"We've come somewhere from nowhere," Sanford said. "But we still have a ways to go."

Commercialappeal.com
Memphis, Online
Editorial, August 9, 2006