TN Politics: The City of Memphis Has a Big Shopping Cart

WKNO TRANSCRIPT

CHRISTOPHER BLANK (HOST): You might think the Memphis City Council has won the lottery the way members got to talking about spending money this week. What’s in their shopping cart? With us again is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.

OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris, good to be with you.

BLANK: As you know, the city put about $200 million into renovating the convention center Downtown a few years back. But the Sheraton Hotel that’s attached to it is in a poor state. So mayor Paul Young has proposed the city buy the hotel for $22 million. It’s one of the biggest hotels in the city. The tourism folks say conventions need these rooms, but at least one hotel consultant told the Daily Memphian that “no hotel company wants to own this hotel.” So, would this be a good value for taxpayers?

SANFORD: I think so when you look at all of the money that has already been spent for the convention center. You have to make sure that the hotel — and it’s, you know, potentially 600 rooms there — that needs to be brought up to date. It is a — almost a dump. But we have a pretty nice Cadillac next to it. This is, I believe, Mayor Young’s most ambitious proposal since he became mayor.

BLANK: The city has also been investing in another building project, 100 North Main. It’s the tallest building in Downtown Memphis. Used to be an office building. This new redevelopment will have it all: office space, apartments, a four-star Marriott Hotel, and probably, best of all, they’re going to revive that rotating rooftop bar. First Otis, I’ve got to know about the bar. Did you ever visit the spinning bar? And what do you think about this investment?

BLANK: Oh, absolutely I visited, most of the time for lunch. I used to be a federal court reporter for the Commercial Appeal. I did that for seven years and I spent a lot of my lunch time looking at the city from East to West, North and South. I love that place.

BLANK: Oh, so it’s a good investment?

SANFORD: Oh, I think so. People might look at what we’re talking about here, Chris, and think “Boy, you just spending a lot of money here.” But we have to look at return on investment. This is absolutely a project that has vision. And when we’re talking about hotel space, we need all we can get. And so this would be a good complement not very far from the convention center.

BLANK: Well, also this week 6 million bucks is going to some improvements at AutoZone Park mainly to bring the venue up to Major League Baseball standards. Now, that money is a lot less than what’s going into the FedExForum and Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium at the moment. Otis, you are such a sports fan. And so my question is, how can you objectively tell me this is good policy?

SANFORD: Well, I’m not sure I can be objective and I’m not going to even try to be objective. Yes, I am a fan. But again, Chris, I think when you look at these projects, you look at whether it’s good for the overall good of the city and whether there will be some money realized from the investment either through sales taxes or other things. And I know some people will say “Well, what are you doing about neighborhoods? And what are you doing about the schools? And what are you doing about this and that?” I get that, but we can’t be pennywise and pound foolish when we’re talking about entities that will be a return on that investment that I’ve been talking about.

BLANK: All of these aforementioned investments are coming as the city council has what they call “serious concerns” over the Memphis Area Transit Authority. MATA has proposed laying off about half of its employees to get out of its debt. The city council has been very unsympathetic. It seems like attitudes are changing about public transportation here.

SANFORD: Well, I mean, I think attitudes are changing about making sure that MATA is responsible. What I’m reading in the latest news developments about this is that the city council and the administration both want to make sure that MATA is running fiscally as well as they can. And that means turning over to the city financial records and financial information for the city to make some sound decisions and judgments about what it should do going forward. I see the city council and the administration actually in lockstep on wanting to hold MATA accountable. And again, we talked at the top of this discussion about the convention center and Sheraton. If we’re going to get larger conventions to come to the city, we need the trolley system working again. MATA has to do better, be better, and be more accountable.

BLANK: You know, former Mayor Jim Strickland was very much a development guy. He put a lot of money in the parks and PILOT programs. How might you compare current Mayor Paul Young on development issues?

SANFORD: Well, I think it’s too early to compare right now. You can’t compare nine months to the eight years Strickland was there. And plus, I think Mayor Young got sidetracked with a lot of other issues, dealing with crime and all of that. So, I think you have to wait til his second year to make some really good judgments about that. I will say that the effort to purchase the Sheraton is a bold move, and it could be his — up to this point — his signature initiative to make sure that he has a decent track record when it comes to development.