Weekly Update

Friends,

As a reminder, the City (in partnership with City Council) issued $200 million in bonds to facilitate catalytic community projects in three focus areas (Activating Memphis 3.0, Improving Our Parks, and Revitalizing Citywide Assets) all across our city as a part of our Accelerate Memphis program.

Today, I want to highlight one of those fantastic projects— the new Gaisman Community Center.

As a quick refresher, below is the site plan for the Gaisman project.

The new $12 million project has multiple amenities including: a game room, computer room, art room, conference room, fitness room, flex room, and a large gymnasium with an elevated walking track with plenty of natural light, and a beautiful mural on the western end of the building.

In addition to the new community center, new soccer fields were constructed.

We held the ribbon cutting for this beautiful facility last weekend.

Tillman Cove: As you may remember, the Tillman Cove Apartments (located in the Binghampton neighborhood) had been vacant since 2016. They were blighted, a nuisance for the area, but also posed a huge opportunity for a catalytic redevelopment for the neighborhood. This article gives a good synopsis of the property’s background.

These pictures are what the property looked like before demolition:

And this is what they look like now:

Since 2016, we have built, rehabilitated, or incentivized the building or rehabilitation of around 18,000 affordable, quality housing units. This is just one example of many, but as you can see in the pictures above, the transformation of this area of the Binghampton neighborhood turned a blighted, magnet for criminal activity into a beautiful new development and a beacon of hope for this community.

What We've Done Together: To see a complete list of the work we have accomplished over the last eight years, go here.

Looking for a podcast?: I had lunch recently with a good friend of mine who happens to have a pretty successful podcast. My friend’s name is Bill Courtney, and his podcast is called An Army of Normal Folks. You will remember Bill from the Oscar-winning documentary, Undefeated. The podcast focuses on everyday people working to solve some of society’s pressing issues.

If you’re traveling this holiday season or just looking for something good to listen to, give his podcast a try.

Enjoy the rest your day!

Yours,