View from urban eyes -- Medical center overlay boasts 'city' character

The Commercial Appeal
August 27, 2006
By Amos Maki

As "new urbanism" gains momentum in Memphis, city and business leaders are seeking a temporary zoning plan for the medical district that will preserve the area's urban character.

Planners and area stakeholders are pursuing a medical center zoning overlay that promotes pedestrian-friendly development, restricts planned developments, encourages more mixed-use projects and supports the $1.1 billion in private investment planned or under way in the area.

"Because of the investment by all these institutions, what we want to do is protect it as an urban medical center," said Louise Mercuro, deputy director of of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development. "We don't want uses coming in there that are not in character with the neighborhood."

The zoning overlay is a temporary tool planners will use while a larger effort to draft a new code to replace the city-county zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations continues. However, many aspects of the zoning overlay could be made permanent in the Unified Development Code.

"It's not to prevent anybody from coming in," said Gary Shorb, president and CEO of Methodist Healthcare, which will be investing $250 million - including at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center - in the medical center in the coming years. "It's to say if you're going to come to the medical center, let's have some standards we're all going to follow.

"Let's have some consistency and architectural beauty that is immediately recognized when you hit the medical center and that is the goal."

Steve Bares, president and executive director of Memphis Bioworks Foundation, is in favor of the zoning overlay.

"It's critical to the success of the efforts that we have in biosciences," he said. "Number one, it focuses development in the medical center toward things that are consistent with what medical centers need to be successful. Number two, it has design guidance that allows an urban medical center to look like an urban medical center."

According to the zoning overlay, new buildings would need to be built closer to the street. It requires 60 percent to 80 percent of a building to be within 15 feet of the right-of-way, which is typically the back end of a sidewalk. Planners say that would eliminate huge surface parking lots, encourage walkability and preserve the area's urban character.

Many retailers, however, prefer to use their big-box suburban designs.

"That's what you do out in Germantown but it makes no sense, from a design and parking structure standpoint and all that, in an urban area," Bares said. "Suburban has a certain look and feel and urban has a certain look and feel. If we want to get the density and critical mass necessary, this has some of the guidance necessary to do that."

Some retailers do have stores designed specifically for urban neighborhoods. Target, for instance, has developed stores that are made to fit into urban environments. These locations are typically multistory stores with small footprints in heavily trafficked areas. Even fast-food chains like McDonalds have urban models, which are usually more expensive than a typical store.

During a Land Use Control Board meeting two weeks ago, Loeb Properties asked that approval of the overlay be delayed for 30 days.

"As written, I have some serious concerns," said Frank M. Dyer III, senior vice president of brokerage and tenant representation at Loeb. "I think bringing the building up close to the street could be very difficult on certain tracts of land because most retailers of the modern age don't choose to develop their sites that way because that is what their customers demand."

The overlay also mandates that in certain areas 60 percent of a lot's width must have a building on it.

"It starts to dictate the footprint of your building," Dyer said.

That's the idea, supporters of the zoning overlay say.

"I'm not discounting any feelings or frustrations about the changes, but if we're going to create a first-class medical center, we have to make changes, and it is not going to be without discomfort," said Frank Ricks, a founding partner of Memphis-based Looney Ricks Kiss, which has been working on the overlay and other planning issues in the medical center for the last three years. "Are we going to raise the bar and try to build a better community? That's what this is really about, creating a better place. As a community we have failed to raise the bar."

The zoning overlay also prohibits open agricultural uses, motor vehicle sales, greenhouses and nurseries. The overlay would ban heavy industrial and transportation uses like freight terminals, bus terminal, landfills and railroad yards.

All of those uses are currently allowed.

Developers of group shelters, parking lots, service stations, night clubs and taverns would have to seek a special use permits.

While the overlay prohibits or restricts some uses, it actually encourages others.

It would allow for more residential space on upper floors, which is currently prohibited in some areas.

The overlay would also allow more height in the core medical center area, while restricting it in areas like The Edge and Victorian Village neighborhoods.

"We don't want a 20-story building next to Sun Studios," Mercuro said.

Dyer said Loeb - which owns several properties in the affected area and is working with other clients interested in doing projects there - was not involved in the planning of the overlay and wants more time to digest it.

Dyer has met with city and county staff about the overlay and hopes some sort of compromise can be reached.

"We certainly are for the medical center being a world-class district," he said. "We're encouraged they're working with us, but it remains to be seen whether we will be supporters in the end."

- Amos Maki: 529-2351