B$L - Numbers in Disarray

Time to call a "time-out", get independent audit and analysis!

Sports fans all know that a time-out is a good thing - a chance to see what's working, what's not working, and make adjustments. Memphis definitely needs one on the riverfront.

The numbers are in disarray. They keep changing and the city's share keeps going up. No one is clear what's been spent, what the earmarks are actually for, or what contracts have actually been signed. And no answers have been given to the important questions about paying for future maintenance and operation of the boat dock.


May 2009 Hand-out to City Council during budget hearings showed:

Total estimated cost of BSL - $33M
City’s share: $22.3M
Breakdown:
$ 7.4M City money spent
$ 3.6M State money spent
$14.9M City money, not yet spent
$7.9M Federal money, not yet spent
(Click image at right to enlarge hand-out)

Dec. 13, 2009 Commercial Appeal reported:
$8.9M additional funding request to City as a result of $8.2M in cost over-runs and $1.4M reduction in federal funds.

Based on those numbers, it looks like the design and construction cost of BSL is now around $41.3M, with the City’s share at $31.2M. And that doesn't include what we'll have to pay to operate and maintain the boat dock if it's built.

[Click here to read more...]

Vibrant Riverfront for Less

A letter-to-the editor at the Commercial Appeal had
5 good suggestions for how to reduce the cost of BSL and get more bang for the buck on the riverfront.

Check them out HERE and share your ideas. Several comments so far: make it a deck not a dock; get rid of the “pods/islets” and put a playground at the N. end of Tom Lee Park; convert it to a skate park; make it a plaza with food vendors.

You can add your comments at MemphisCobblestones.com or e-mail your suggestions to us at info@friendsforourriverfront.com

[Click here to read more...]

"Baby, It's Cold Outside"

And the perfect day to stay inside and
read John Branston's "Frozen" in February's Memphis Magazine.

In fact, don't miss it!! It sheds some much needed light on the controversial Beale Street Landing and raises questions that need attention before the City decides whether or not to sink more money into the boat dock. Brandon Dill's spectacular photos capture the immensity and power of the winter Mississippi. For non-subscribers, the magazine should be just-out on the newsstands or coming soon.

[Click here to read more...]

2 FfOR Board Members Profiled on City Beat

June West, Executive Director of Memphis Heritage, and Virginia McLean, both founding members of FfOR, were profiled on City Beat as preservationists to be reckoned with. Added to a long list of women who have stood up for their communities, congratulations June and Virginia!

Preservation is not about protecting old buildings as relics; it's about saving our significant places for present and future use. At the core of new urbanism and smart growth, the preservation movement is about revitalizing our cities and neighborhoods as places people want to be and live. It's why people advocate for protecting the Old Forest, the Cobblestone Landing, the fabric of downtown, and neighborhoods citywide.

Hooray for the work and voices of a long list of Memphians, men and women! Today Memphis retains an authenticity and vitality that is the envy of many cities who have lost their sense of place to the wrecking ball and short-sighted decision making. Check the post out HERE.

Preservationists: Women on a Mission
Posted by John Branston on Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:03 PM

Preservation is about persistence and patience in this city that stopped Interstate 40 from going through Overton Park.

Like the women activists who led that fight that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 1971 and was not resolved until ten years later, Virginia McLean and June West have plenty of both, as Memphians who have been following the riverfront and Overton Square stories know. McLean is head of Friends for Our Riverfront. West is executive director of Memphis Heritage. Like them or not, those are organizations to be reckoned with.

So who are they?

Virginia McLean is 62 years old, married to attorney Hite McLean. They are parents of two grown children. She graduated from Hutchison School, a private school for girls, and Vanderbilt University, and she has a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Virginia. She once worked as a columnist for Newsday while living in Washington D. C. in the 1970s and has written a guide book on Memphis.

Born and raised in Memphis, McLean is sometimes referred to as an "Overton heir," a term she doesn't like because "it makes you sound like some rich kid." She prefers the term "Overton descendant" for her fifth-generation connection to city cofounder John Overton, a law partner of President Andrew Jackson 180 years ago. There are more Overtons in Nashville who are her kin. She describes them as "the ones who want to make money off the Promenade, not keep it a public park." Getting the Overtons to agree among themselves, much less with the city or proposed developers, has so far been impossible.

The promenade is the west side of Front Street downtown along the Mississippi River, dedicated to public use by the city founders, including Judge Overton. McLean got her unpaid job as head of Friends for Our Riverfront in 2003 when the Riverfront Development Corporation floated a plan for private development of the Promenade to finance public improvements along the river. Friends and the RDC have been at odds ever since, with websites with similar names but opposing views.

"Friends needed a poster child, and I was too stupid to say no and I had standing in court," she says. "The descendants have no control over the property other than to protect it. The city is the trustee. I would like to see it set up in a conservancy."

Despite her historical pedigree, she said the house she grew up in near Poplar and Highland did not have hoary pictures of the judge hanging on the walls. When she shows up at public meetings, McLean is usually dressed casually in an outdoorsy way. Her son has worked as a Nantahala River guide. She's always up for a beer or hunting an obscure restaurant.

But there's iron in her veins, too, as the RDC and its board have learned. Her insistence of keeping the Promenade public has galvanized preservationists and frustrated would-be developers. She occasionally gets lambasted in letters to the editor of the newspapers.

"I'd never been attacked before, and I don't like it," she says.

She says Friends has a list of 3,000 names in its data base, thanks to the aborted land bridge idea that rallied opposition six years ago. When I asked her if most preservationists are women, she agreed. She also believes there is a strain of sexism in the criticism of preservationists.

"I am beginning to learn that I need to take a man with me to public meetings," she says. "They listen to me, but they don't really listen."

June West does not agree that most preservationists are women. She cites the late architect Jack Tucker, Memphis Heritage board chairman Marty Gorman, and attorney Charlie Newman as supporters. West has been the paid executive director of Memphis Heritage since 2002. She has one part-time assistant and a budget of $110,000. According to the most recent available tax form, the nonprofit paid about $60,000 in salaries.

West, 58, was born in Arkansas but grew up in Memphis and graduated from Lausanne private school. She attended Memphis State University for three years before dropping out to pursue her interest in riding, training, and grooming horses.

"I was a hippie," she says. "I grew up in a very conservative family, and I consider myself very liberal."

Her father, a farmer, was a close friend of segregationist Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, famous for his role in the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957.

She went back to college and earned a degree in sculpture and art history from the University of Arkansas.

"I went into art out of rebellion, not talent," she says.

Most of her career has been in social work, specializing in services for senior citizens, with stints at St. Peter's Manor, the Memphis Park Commission, Kirby Oaks Guest House for Assisted Living, and working as a consultant for government and nonprofit services for Alzheimer's patients. She lives in Midtown with her two Jack Russell terriers. Both her home and office are within walking distance of Overton Square. She recommended McLean for the leadership of Friends for Our Riverfront.

"I'm a networker," she says. "I'm a community organizer. It's what it takes to move things forward in this city, and I'm sure I drive a lot of people crazy."

Memphis Heritage claims 400 members, and West says Facebook and other social networking websites, along with the publicity generated by Overton Square, "has been a tremendous benefit to us."

Just as Virginia McLean doesn't like the term "Overton heir," West resents the charge that Memphis Heritage only cares about boarded-up buildings. She notes that warehousing historic buildings can pay off over time, as in the case of South Main District downtown, but agrees that it can also result in stagnation, such as the Sterrick Building, an empty skyscraper built nearly 80 years ago.

"We pick our battles," she says. "We don't try to save every building. If somebody meets me and talks to me they realize I'm grounded. I'm not nuts, and I'm not a brick-hugger."

Her "dream job," she says, would be working for a think tank to come up with solutions to problems. She said she would be opposed to the current plan to redevelop Overton Square with a grocery store and other new buildings even if some catastrophe leveled the empty buildings on the south side of Madison.

"If you buy property high, then you have got to build cheap," she says, confident that a better plan will come along if opponents stand firm.

The owner of the property has said it is ending talks with the grocery store.

[Click here to read more...]

Opportunity to Protect Old Forest

Great news from Citizens to Preserve Overton Park: Rep. Jeanne Richardson and Sen. Beverly Marrero have sponsored legislation that will provide legal protection to the old growth forest of Overton Park!

Citizens to Protect Overton Park (CPOP) is asking that Memphians stand up for the Old Forest by writing letters supporting the bills, SB 2415 and HB 2563. Click HERE for more information and the names and e-mails of those to contact.

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1 family has captained local fleet and given Memphis proud tradition

Photos of Dale & William Lozier by Amie Vanderford.

For the late Capt. Thomas Meredith Meanley, his daughter Dale Meanley Lozier, and now his grandson, William Lozier, a love of the river has provided Memphians and visitors a trip on the “Mighty Mississippi.” They’ve built, owned, and operated a fleet of boats that have headed out from the Cobblestone Landing for 50 years. And they’ve done it with little support from the City.

After a stint in the Navy, Capt. Meanley, the grandson of newspaper tycoon E. W. Scripps, moved to Memphis and (click read more below) became a reporter for the now-defunct Memphis Press Scimitar. Assigned to cover outdoor news, he became intrigued by the Mississippi River and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his stories. In the early 1960s he traded his press pass for a captain’s hat, bought a fleet of riverboats, and launched a new career.

His love of the river became a family affair. As he taught himself how to design and build boats, his family learned too. “We all have mud in our blood, and catfish in our bones,” said Dale Lozier. “Our goal is to give the passengers of these vessels a glimpse into the soul of this city.”

The boats have delighted Memphians and offered a chance to experience the Mississippi to out-of-town visitors including such well-known public figures as Mother Teresa, Ringo Star and Al Gore.

[Click here to read more...]

Unrealistic to expect local company assume cost increases of switch to BSL

With overnight riverboat companies out of business, our local Memphis Riverboats will be the only company using Beale Street Landing. Right now they pay to dock at the Cobblestone Landing, but plans for BSL call for ticketing and boarding of local tours to shift to the new boat dock.

Q: Is there a need for Beale Street Landing, or would the cobblestone landing we already have, with improvements that would cost less, suffice?

A. In an interview for the Daily News in 2006, the current owner of Memphis Riverboats Inc., Capt. William Lozier, said he thinks the cobblestones are a better investment. “We like where we’re at,” Lozier said. “Yeah, we’d like a new facility, but a new facility comes with new problems.”

BSL will come with serious debt (roughly $2M in annual interest alone) and new maintenance and operating expenses. What will those costs increases be? No one has said, but it’s unrealistic and unfair to expect our local company to assume them.

[Click here to read more...]

BRRRR - Ice Flow

Even in the coldest weather, the river is beautiful and fascinating. Here are two photos by Joe Royer taken while kayaking earlier this week.

[Click here to read more...]

Memphisshelbyinform.com Looks at B$L

Calls for Change on Riverfront

New citizens' group, led by Memphis watchdog Joe Saino, looks at Beale Street Landing, RDC finances, and says WHOA-Beale Street Landing? $$$$

The Riverfront work is only about 20% complete and now is the time to put it on hold, call for an audit of money spent and committed and form a citizen RIVERFRONT CONSERVANCY group to make a plan that has broad public support, contains no self interested parties and with the objectives of a lower cost, lower maintenance, historically accurate and publically usable and accessible riverfront. The present plan keeps growing in cost and now is the time to put it on hold and come up with a plan that makes sense and that is not so costly and controversial.

Memphisshelbyinform.com's goal is to monitor and investigate government activities, conflicts of interest, waste and abuse, ordinances, and regulations “in the hope that a better-informed electorate will lead to better government."

[Click here to read more...]

Setting Development Guidelines

FfOR is committed to good urban design, strong neighborhoods, and a revitalized/healthy downtown.

This Sat., Jan. 16, from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. at the Memphis College of Art Memphis Heritage, Memphis Regional Design Center, and Memphis & Shelby County Division of Planning & Development will hold an open public meeting to discuss:
* Status of the Overton Square Redevelopment Application
* Questions from Citizens on the Status of Application
* Work beginning on Special Guidelines for future Infill Development in Midtown
* Citizen Comments & Ideas for future Development in Midtown.

It’s an opportunity to learn more and participate in setting good design principles. For more info. call 272-2727.

[Click here to read more...]

Law School Opens

Students are downtown! It’s a promising new burst of energy, and the U of M renovation of the historic Customs House on the Public Promenade is something all Memphians can be excited about.

An opening reception will be held this Sat., Jan. 16 to celebrate the move.

[Click here to read more...]

Is it too late to rethink B$L?

With project costs up, overnight riverboats out of business, the city budget stretched, and a tax increase under consideration, the answer is NO. It's time to pause, get accurate information and do a cost benefit analysis of the project before approving any more money or signing any more contracts.

MemphisCobblestones.com looks at "How far is too far to turn back?"

Memphis is not alone in the dilemma of how to deal with expensive projects in this down-economy.

The economic downturn has reined in a lot of ... big dreams and has also led to questions about whether ambitious building projects from Buffalo to Berkeley ever made sense to begin with

according to a New York Times article.

[Click here to read more...]

How much $ is BSL really going to cost?

In December we learned there have been cost overruns and federal reductions, and that the City has been asked for $9M more dollars for Beale Street Landing. But exactly how much money has been spent? How much money will be spent? What share of that is City money? One blog, Memphis Cobblestones.com, has been trying to figure it out. Click HERE.

[Click here to read more...]

B$L - The Inconvenient Truths

John Branston exposes fiscal incompetency on the riverfront and reveals why we are where we are:

• Recipe for Screwing Up a $35M Boat Dock

• Beale Street Landing Not on Time; Not Within Budget.

Recipe for Screwing Up a $35 million Boat Dock Posted by John Branston on Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 1:00 PM

The Riverfront Development Corporation has posted something called “the truth about Beale Street Landing” on its website.

I have not been a fan of this project since it was conceived. I thought it was grandiose and likely to take several years to complete, cost more than advertised, and overshadow quicker and simpler riverfront improvements. But now that it is underway I hope it is a success. Really. I work half a mile away and walk on the riverfront several times a week.

But I also think the way the project got to this point has been a recipe for how not to do things. Here are some inconvenient truths not included.

Start with a “master plan” with a price tag of $270 million and an infinite timetable that assures there will be no accountability.

Create a Riverfront Development Corporation staffed by three former Memphis public officials and the wife of the city attorney, conveniently making RDC stand for Retired Directors Club.

Repackage same as a focused group with more flexibility and brains than the incompetent public sector.

Pay the executive director, Benny Lendermon, more than the mayor of Memphis but give the agency less responsibility than the mayor or even the Memphis Park Commission.

Gut the master plan by removing its centerpiece, the land bridge to Mud Island and the enclosed harbor. Discuss the ramifications of this rather important and far-reaching decision for less than three minutes at a board meeting.

Pack the board with fishing buddies of the executive director, friendly city council members, and celebrities like Cybill Shepherd, John Calipari and Jerry West who had no stake in the riverfront and didn’t come to many meetings and do not live here any more.

Find a place on the board for the proudly bellicose (ex) president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association, Tommy Volinchak, but no place on the board for anyone from Friends For Our Riverfront or Joe Royer of Outdoors Inc, the founder of the canoe race and Cyclocross.

Act exasperated when they do not rise up and call you blessed.

Ignore the demonstrated popularity of minimalist Greenbelt Park across from Harbor Town, which costs little to maintain beyond cutting the grass and has virtually no capital improvements.

Ignore the lessons of Mud Island River Park, an architecture-driven white elephant plagued by delays and cost overruns and now closed half the year.

Ignore the lessons of Chattanooga’s popular riverfront, which has $42 million of private donations.

Take bids for a boat dock but ignore the possibility of a recession (check), the disappearance of overnight riverboat companies (check), the difficulty of building anything in the river especially at the mouth of a harbor and the likelihood of delays, cost increases, high maintenance, and fragile funding from Washington (check, check, and check).

Hire an architect from Argentina.

Use federal funds to leverage at least $20 million in city funds. Remind council members that the project was approved by previous council members, most of whom are no longer serving and who approved the worst administrative outrage in the history of Memphis, the 12-year pension bonanza. Leave current council little choice but to throw good money after bad.

Greet any shred of media skepticism with letters to the editor from board members, orchestrated by the RDC staff.

Lowball the cost of the project to the city council in the face of higher estimates from the city administration, ‘fess up seven months later, but accuse critics of being zany naysayers even if they actually use the riverfront, unlike the RDC board celebrities.

Ignore the probability of more price increases before project is completed in the summer 2011.

Be as adversarial as possible with regular users of the river and the boat docks like Joe Royer.

Go to war with Friends For Our Riverfront even though they are natural allies because 90 percent of the rest of Memphis doesn’t give a hoot about the riverfront after Memphis in May or worry much about tourism when they can’t make ends meet.

Insure thereby that no improvement to the overrated pile of rocks known as the cobblestones will be made for another decade and that attention will be diverted from the more important issue of Front Street.

Allow the corner of Beale and Riverside Drive to persist as a fenced-off weed yard that every tourist walking from The Peabody or Beale Street to the river can see before making that daring and challenging walk across Riverside Drive to Tom Lee Park.

Ask city council to “cough up” the “holdback” in federal funds at a time when household budgets and paychecks are being cut.

Take no blame.

Insist everything will be great.


Beale Street Landing: Not on Time, Not Within Budget Posted by John Branston on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 10:43 AM

The mantra for FedEx Forum was "on time, within budget, and exceed expectations." The mantra for Beale Street Landing might be the same with the addition of the word "not" a couple of times.

The Riverfront Development Corporation says the cost of former mayor Willie Herenton's signature riverfront project has increased by $8.9 million and the completion date is now the summer of 2011.

The cost overrun was not unexpected. When BSL came before the Memphis City Council in May, RDC director Benny Lendermon insisted the project cost, originally pegged at $27.4 million, was $31 million even though various documents from City Hall showed the cost was in excess of $33 million. When Councilman Kemp Conrad asked about "the delta" between the numbers, Lendermon said reports about the higher number were inaccurate.

It is now clear that they were, but on the low side, not the high side. The RDC now says the "current construction estimate" is $35 million.

The RDC reported the bad news last week in the fourth paragraph of a story on its website headlined "Beale Street Landing answers call for reunion of Memphis and the Mississippi."

"RDC has been especially prudent in managing its operating funds and careful in value-engineering various aspects of the project to reduce costs. Increases are due to a combination of delays, redesigns related to historical preservation issues, and cost escalation related to schedule delays. In addition, unexpected Congressional holdbacks have meant that federal funds designated for the project have been reduced by more than $1.4 million below what was anticipated and budgeted. Due to this nearly three-year delay, the RDC expects about $9 million in combined cost increases and funding decreases."

"Roughly $7 million of the cost increase is directly related to construction inflation, which was exacerbated as a result of Hurricane Katrina."

The federal funds "holdbacks" mean Memphis taxpayers will be asked to pay the difference as well as the cost increase. The project is underway at the north end of Tom Lee Park.

[Click here to read more...]

B$L - City asked for $9M More to Cover Cost Overruns

The cost of Beale Street Landing was up - to $33M, the City Council was told in May. Memphis's share would be $22M.

Now, 6 months later, the cost has gone up again. The Commercial Appeal reports that the federal share is down, cost is up, and the City is being asked for another $9M to pay for Beale Street Landing.

Letters-to-editor raise questions; point out more problems; and urge City to investigate and get answers before committing any more money.

First, nail down all the costs
Letters-to-the-editor, Commercial Appeal, Sunday, December 20, 2009

Troublesome delays are primarily the absence of full accounting of all the costs of the Beale Street Landing project (Dec. 13 article, "Beale St. Landing delays add cost / Need for more money arises as riverfront project drags on").

In May 2009, the Memphis City Council was informed that the project's cost had risen to $33 million from $27.4 million, increasing the city's share to $22 million instead of $17.4 million. Within six months, the city's share has now climbed to $26.3 million, absorbing $8.9 million of the recent $9.6 million increase. State funds of $3.6 million have been spent. Federal funds ($7.9 million), not yet spent, are likely to be reduced approximately $1.4 million.

"Total cost" of $35 million is misleading, as that amount is only the cost of design and construction, excluding postconstruction sustainability costs, such as routine maintenance, operating expense, security and debt service payments on bonds estimated at $1.7 million per year. The actual total cost of the project has not yet been published.

Until all of the project costs are identified in detail and verified in an accounting of the total financial package, the City Council and Mayor A C Wharton cannot make a fully informed, fiscally responsible decision on the project: to approve it as-is, curtail it or modify it. It is necessary to know specific line-item costs of the landing's postconstruction sustainability -- its source of revenue and impact on our city budget. These urgent fiscal matters transcend considerations regarding other delays, a post-Katrina construction crunch or popularity of the design.

Lynda Ireland*
Memphis

RDC excuses don't add up
Riverfront Development Corp. president Benny Lendermon owes taxpayers (and not just those in Memphis, as federal monies are also involved) an explanation regarding his request for an additional $8.9 million to complete the Beale Street Landing project. Lendermon blames a two-year delay in construction commencement for an almost 30 percent cost overrun. His statements do not add up.

Lendermon blames the dramatically increased construction costs after Hurricane Katrina for bids that were higher than initially expected. Indeed Katrina did cause an increase in construction costs, but Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, almost three years before construction began on Beale Street Landing in July 2008. How could the construction bids not have reflected post-Katrina construction costs?

Lendermon continues his excuses by stating that costs have gone up as the project has dragged on. Almost anyone involved in commercial construction knows that construction costs have fallen dramatically in the last two years. Inverse from historical trends, any construction delays over the past couple of years should have proven cost-beneficial, and significantly so at that.

If Lendermon worked in the private sector, his behind would be in the CEO's office to explain why his project is almost 30 percent over budget during a time of construction cost deflation, and his project management ability would be brought into serious question, and rightfully so. Lendermon's excuses offered so far simply make no sense, and the City Council should investigate thoroughly before committing any more money to a project destined to be a boondoggle designed to serve a now virtually nonexistent riverboat excursion industry.

G.S. Fraser
Collierville


* In the interest of full disclosure, Lynda Ireland is a member of the board of Friends for Our Riverfront and lives on the riverfront.

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