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Across from Stax, a commercial and residential Towne Center

By Pamela Perkins
perkins@soulsvilleusa.com

Construction of an $8 million commercial and residential development in the Soulsville USA community could begin this summer.

The nonprofit LeMoyne-Owen College Community Development Corp. is completing plans to build the Towne Center at Soulsville, a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use development with a commercial "lifestyle center," single-family homes and townhouses on McLemore facing the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

Construction on the 8-acre site is targeted for June and the grand opening for early next year, said Jeffrey Higgs, executive director of the LeMoyne-Owen agency. Self-Tucker Architects is designer of the project.

The planned Towne Center would be the latest of several revitalization projects coordinated to create a safe, self-sustaining community. Those projects -- including the nonprofit Soulsville’s $20 million Stax museum and music academy as well as the $75 million College Park community developments -- already have poured about $150 million in public and private funding within a half-mile of LeMoyne-Owen College.

"In the old days you had grocery stores, furniture stores and everything in the neighborhood," said Robert Lipscomb, the city’s director of the Housing and Community Development. In his youth, he sacked groceries at a store on the proposed development site.

Businesses began to leave the neighborhood about 30 years ago, pulled away by suburban sprawl and malls.

The proposed development is projected to bring 10 new businesses and 105 new jobs into the area.

Its residential piece includes nine to 12 market-rate single-family houses and 24 townhouses, four of which could have ground-level retail space.

"That’s based on the demand we’ve been getting," said Higgs, whose agency has creating several affordable housing units. "We’re trying to create a mixed-income community. We’re just trying to further that."

The planned 61,000-square-foot Towne Center would have space for two police substations, an outdoor plaza performance area and a rooftop patio for dining.

The agency is targeting tenants for a restaurant, a full-service bank, a casual dining restaurant, a sports and leisure wear retailer, a doctor’s office, a boutique-style grocery store and general office space.

Higgs declined to discuss negotiations with specific tenants.

Lipscomb called the planned Towne Center and the area developments "a wonderful statement about how a neighborhood can come back and it takes partnerships. It’s also important to have a neighborhood development corporation like (the LeMoyne-Owen agency) that people believe in."

The agency is independent of LeMoyne-Owen College, which founded it in 1989 to raise public and private funds for neighborhood revitalization. But the agency remained inactive until 1999, when the Stax project began developing.

In 2000, Soulsville officials announced that a town center would complement its plans to develop the Stax museum and Stax Music Academy.

Since then, LeMoyne-Owen agency has constructed or renovated 15 homes in the neighborhood, and transformed a once-dilapidated historic home into the J. E. Walker Resource Center, providing entrepreneurial training and low-interest loans for small businesses. It also got NBC bank, now SunTrust, to open a small bank branch across from the college.

Meanwhile, the agency has been developing the Towne Center project -- acquiring property on McLemore between College and Neptune in bits and pieces. Demolition of apartment units on Neptune is under way and plans are for a former grocery store on McLemore to make way for the development. The city must also approve rezoning the site.

Higgs said the proposed development’s funding comes from local foundation funding and government grants such as a $350,000 federal grant in 2002 and $300,000 loan from Memphis Community Development Partnership in 2004.

-- Pamela Perkins: 529-6514

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Other major developments in and around the LeMoyne-Owen College area include:

The redevelopment of LeMoyne Gardens into a socially and economically mixed housing development with 340 privately managed townhouses. Includes 80-unit senior citizens building, community services center, technology center run by the college, gymnasium, day care center and office space for neighborhood and social services agencies. $75 million.

The nonprofit Soulsville agency’s development of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in 2003 and Stax Music Academy in 2002. $20 million.

The LeMoyne-Owen College Community Development Corp., the nonprofit community redevelopment spawn of the college, revitalized housing on College Street. $450,000.

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