A new big redevelopment plan for the Pinch District in downtown Memphis might mean the end of a 2-year-old ban on all development in the area. Local 24’s Mike Matthews has the story.
Berlin Boyd, Chairman of the Memphis City Council, has a philosophy about developing an area. You’ve got to do it right. “You only get one real true bite of the apple,” he says.
In 2015, Boyd pushed city council for a ban on all development in the city’s Pinch District. Bass Pro’s Superstore had just opened in the Pyramid, and there were a lot of people who felt it was the time for quick development. Not Boyd. He asked to see all the plans that the city had on file to redevelopment the Pinch District. “Originally,” he said, “there were more than thirty-five plans on my desk.”
He wanted to make sure the folks at St.Jude Children’s Research Hospital were ok with plans. He wanted to make sure others were ok.
Bottom line, he wanted to find a plan that could work in a city where every budget year gets tougher and tougher.
“My goal was to find the highest and best use”, he said. “Another goal was to protect one of the jewels of our city and that was St.Jude. We didn’t want to have a bunch of liquor stores, service stations, pawn shops to just pop up in the Pinch District.”
Finally, a development idea is now in place that pleases St. Jude folks, pleases Memphis City officials, and pleases Berlin Boyd.
He says the ban on development will soon be gone.
