Soulsville rising in South Memphis

Soulsville rising in South Memphis
Backers hope $11.5 million project revitalizes neighborhood
By Daniel Connolly
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Drive down Mississippi Boulevard in South Memphis and you'll see overgrown lots with discarded tires. Turn onto a side street and you might see a liquor store with an old sign for Gordon's Gin.
But keep going and you'll pass the neatly groomed campus of LeMoyne-Owen College and the new mixed-income College Park residential community. And you may see a construction site near the college campus that could bring more jobs and commerce to the area.
It's part of an overall plan to turn a decaying neighborhood into a destination.
The development, dubbed "Towne Center at Soulsville USA," draws its name from the old Stax recording studio.
The building, once a movie theater, is now a museum that remembers the musical stars who made records there, such as Otis Redding and Booker T & the MGs.
Jeffrey Higgs stood near the museum on a blazing hot day earlier this summer and explained what's happening in the construction site across the street.
"The whole idea is to create this whole town center feel," he said, pointing out the development's Building A, which will become a grocery store operated by local businessman Michael Williams.
Higgs also pointed out Building B, which will have food vendors and a full-service restaurant on the first floor and office space on the second -- including a call center with up to 100 seats.
There are also plans to build 11 nonsubsidized houses in the development.
All told, the businesses here are expected to employ 267 people, Higgs said. The 50-year-old head of the nonprofit LeMoyne-Owen Development Corp. also leads New Towne Center Inc., a private development company.
The $11.5 million project is funded through a mix of private funds and contributions from the federal, county and Memphis governments.
The progress so far is the result of years of effort for Higgs and others.
"It's been a long project, man," he said.
Shelby County Commissioner Henri Brooks said the development will mean a lot.
"It's going to bring back the culture, the (revitalization) of that area," she said.
There are also plans to tear down a nearby tire shop to make way for a building to house the Soulsville Charter School, and LeMoyne-Owen College will build a dormitory nearby.
The nonprofit Veterans Corp. led by Jim Mingey is also working with the Towne Center. Mingey’s National Economic Opportunity Fund, and his partners are working on a call center, where operators will handle calls for companies and government agencies. The center will emphasize hiring veterans, but will also hire people from the neighborhood.
Mingey said the business will have its own training center, and though workers make as little as $8 per hour to start, they can earn up to $15 or $20 per hour over time, plus benefits.
"It's an upwardly mobile, skill-set-building type job," he said.
The Towne Center project is about 70 percent done and should be complete in late October, Higgs estimated this week.
"It's coming together pretty quickly now."
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http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/aug/15/soulsville-rising/