- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The new head of the Downtown Memphis Commission, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by Chandell Ryan, the new President and CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission.

Thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

- Along with Bill Dries, Reporter with The Daily Memphian.

You got the job sometime January and time has no meaning anymore, but just recently after a year and a half or so as COO under the Strickland Administration, Deputy COO before that with Doug McGowan, who's a frequent guest here.

You're I think we figured out the fourth head of the Downtown Memphis Commission we've had on over the years.

And one thing I'll start with is Bill and I, you of course in your old role, certainly in this role, are very close to Downtown Memphis Commission.

We've had other guests on, but let me ask you, if someone who doesn't know what the Downtown Memphis Commission, maybe a friend or family like, oh, congratulations on the new job, what is that?

What is the Downtown Memphis Commission?

- I do get that question quite a bit.

And so what I say is we pretty much have two areas of function.

One is ensuring that we are doing what we can to incentivize development downtown, giving incentives and grants to activate certain spaces downtown, creating beautiful spaces, creating an overall vibrancy for downtown that will attract people to either invest or live in or visit downtown.

And then the other side of the house I feel is sort of like the operations of DMC, where we do what we can to impact the cleanliness of downtown, the vibrancy of downtown.

So we have people like the Blue Suede Brigade who help to aid tourists or people who live downtown in their everyday life.

So it's a combination of those two arms.

- And let me ask the flip side of that question, what is it not, the misperceptions even of what the Downtown Memphis Commission is not, you are not the mayor of downtown, right?

Your predecessor Paul Young, now Mayor of Memphis, we talked about this, but what is it not and what are those common misperceptions?

- So we work in partnership with government.

So there are a lot of things that we don't have control over, but in partnership with the Shelby County government, with the City of Memphis, there are a lot of things that we can do to help with, for example, if there's a public space that we would like to beautify, we still have to work with the City in order to get permissions to do things.

So we are an entity that compliments the structure that's in place, but we don't have the sole power to take over and do certain things.

- And last bit of detail, are you a 501(c)(3) or a quasi-governmental organization?

I mean, you're an independent of the government of the city and county.

- We are independent of both the city and the county.

We have nonprofit status.

I do believe it's 501(c)(3) , I believe.

There are several different arms of DMC.

So there are five different boards.

And they all work together to allow us to do all the things that we get to do.

But it, yes, there is a nonprofit arm.

- Let me bring in Bill.

- So let's talk a little bit about what downtown is a mix of because you have some boards that can do PILOTs for housing.

You have some that can do it for commercial.

Downtown's this mix of residential and office space.

And office space is, I would imagine in the process of still changing from the pandemic, right?

- Absolutely.

We are seeing more people come back to the office.

I think we are a part of the same trend that's happening nationally where there's a little bit of challenge there.

But there was just a good news story about the one Memphis building where the tenants that, well the owner there was able to get his occupancy back up to about, I think it's 98%.

And so we have some great stories like that, but we are facing, you know, the same challenges that the nation is facing about bringing people back into the offices.

- And downtown it is also about tourism too.

I think this week we had a story about the 100 North Main development, which will be mixed use, which is across from your office.

We'll have a Marriott Hotel there and the Convention Center hotel, the city's original Convention Center hotel is being sold at this point.

So how crucial is it to have what amounts to a second Convention Center hotel downtown?

- Because we've invested over 200, well, $200 million for the Convention Center, I think having another hotel downtown is absolutely paramount in our ability to bring in more conferences.

So it is definitely something that we need and something that we will be doing what we can to spur that type of investment.

- How closely are you watching the sale of what's now the Sheraton across from there?

- Very close.

Very, very close.

Well, once a new owner comes to the table, I imagine that they would be looking for the same types of incentives that were attached to the property before in order to help redevelop it and renovate it because my understanding is that renovations are definitely needed and we also need more rooms.

- Which Sheraton had talked tentatively we should point out, they didn't commit to it, but they had talked about after doing renovations of the existing hotel, another 500 room tower onto that, which ultimately didn't work out for them, right?

- We would love to have that tower to be a part of that development for whatever the hotel would end up being developed into.

I don't know what flag it would end up being, what hotel brand would be there, but we would love to see more rooms attached.

- The way in which you all can help is a mix of what, it's tax incentives, some grant money.

Are there other mechanisms that you have?

You don't just dole out huge sums of money to get a hotel built, but you do, you are an important part of all these projects, big and small.

- Absolutely.

So one thing we can do is the board could approve for there to be a PILOT, in lieu of taxes.

So up to 30 years, I think the current Sheraton owners have that access to a PILOT in that way, and that will help them to develop the property.

We also could incentivize them by approving a surcharge where they're able to charge 5% additional onto their fees for staying at the hotel or whatever you buy on the property.

That will help to directly fund any renovations that will happen or to build a new tower.

- Y'all, there's an alphabet soup of these tax incentives, but the EDGE board, I think you all work closely with them.

They do countywide, is that right, Bill?

Countywide incentives that can include industrial, include warehouses, but can include projects downtown.

So you have a close relationship with them, I assume?

- We do, yes.

We have close relationship with them.

We often, I meet with their, her name is escaping me right now.

- Joann Massey, yeah, yeah.

- Joann Massey, yes.

From time to time we will talk, as needed, if we need to partner on certain things, we would definitely work together.

- The one criticism, there are lots of people who criticize incentives.

They feel like there are text giveaways, and we've talked many times on the show and Daily Memphian about and your predecessors and other people involved in this, that it's really it's a reduction in taxes to spur investment and more tax.

The idea is that more tax revenue is generated because the property becomes more valuable as money goes into it.

It doesn't always work out that way.

When you look at projects on the books, buildings perhaps downtown that have gotten incentive plans from you all that have sat for, in many cases, years without anything happening, any development starting, do you feel pressure to pull back those incentives, to put pressure on developers to build?

I mean, what are the tools to get things going when you all have extended benefits to a developer and nothing happened and you're stuck with an empty blighted building?

- So the first thing I wanna point out is when, when we approve a PILOT, there is a time period where the business owner would need to close on the PILOT and in closing, that then triggers their development responsibility or when they should start to move forward with their development arm phase of the project.

I think there are some mechanisms now that are in place that perhaps in years before that weren't, that allows for the PILOT granting entity to reach back to that developer to ask questions about how it's moving forward and what needs to happen in order for it to continue to happen.

But I do wanna point out that when a PILOT is approved, does not mean taxes aren't being paid, taxes are still being paid there.

Also the renovation hadn't happened, so the elevation in the tax amount is not yet ripe.

So there is not as much loss as people may feel in their minds about that.

- You mentioned blight.

What sort of strategies do you intend to take to reduce blight downtown?

- So what we currently do by offering incentives is we try to, so there's the, you've got the hammer and then you've got the, I forget the saying-- - Carrot and the stick.

- The carrot and the stick, that's what I'm trying to say.

The carrot and the stick.

So in terms of the carrots, we offer incentives to those owners that are looking to revitalize their building, maybe it's a facade grant to help bring, to bring vibrancy to the outside of the building so that when people are walking by, they're seeing a different skin on the building, so to speak.

So we're able to incentivize through different programs that we have those blighted conditions, and also we have from time to time, we have taken certain buildings and properties to court to get some movement on it.

That's one of the things that happened with 100 North Main that helped to bring it to the place where it is.

- Before I go back to Bill, I definitely hear from downtown residents, and this is just ad hoc, so downtown residents, downtown businesses who would love to see whether it's DMC, the City Code enforcement, be much more aggressive about taking owners to court, taking negligent owners to court.

Do you feel that pressure?

Do you see a change in terms of being more aggressive about those kinds of ugly, blighted kind of semi abandoned buildings that are still owned and there's a known owner?

- Yeah, I think we will definitely continue the work that we do there.

I do hear about blight, I hear about graffiti, and these are all things that are important to us and how we will move forward with that will be to address them.

I think we're addressing them at a good rate, but I wanna see what we can do to offer more opportunities for there to be investment through either our incentive program or if we have to, yeah, absolutely, we'll take 'em to court.

- Bill.

- This year mark's 10 years that the Downtown Memphis Commission has been running the Beale Street Entertainment District.

So what's ahead for that?

People have talked about trying to go beyond it being a collection of bars and night spots and restaurants to maybe some more cultural offerings there.

What's ahead for Beale Street?

- We're definitely working with the City of Memphis and following direction there around how we fill the spaces on Beale street, we are looking to have a vibrant Beale Street that has lots of offerings of different kinds of stuff, including music.

We're also looking currently at what kinds of renovations need to happen on Beale Street.

I think all of those conversations are still happening and we are definitely looking to elevate the experience on Beale Street as there's absolutely some infrastructure things that we need to do.

And I think we're at a place where all parties are willing to do that work.

- And there has also been talk of expanding the district, which now the formal district is from Fourth Street on the east to Second Street on the west.

What does that look like?

- So there are some conversations around how should the areas in and around Beale Street look and how can we create a really inviting atmosphere for that entire area.

I do think that is on the table to look beyond those boundaries and yeah, I think we're happy to do that.

- There's also, as you know from being COO, that there was this whole safety plan concept for Beale Street.

And it looks as if after seeing several versions of this, it looks as if the safety plan has to be really nimble and has to be really flexible because like any entertainment district, people are moving around constantly.

So the centers of action or where there might need to be some attention or not gonna be some attention, those could change several times within an hour, depending on what's going on there.

- Absolutely.

And what we found last year is as people's behaviors changed, you noticed that the safety plan or the traffic plan, I think is what it was called, also changed.

We recently met about what it will look like this summer and the areas or pockets that were identified this past summer are definitely a part of the conversation this summer.

We've just recently obtained some new ways to detect guns.

And we may not have to wand you anymore, but we've got some really good equipment that is not as obtrusive looking, but so we're becoming more nimble.

We're looking at all of the lessons learned from other summers or other time periods and we're baking that into the plan for this summer.

- There was a great, there was actually some litigation over it, over the cover charge.

Where does that stand as we're getting ready to go into spring?

- So we're able to charge a security fee.

What that fee does is helps for us to hire the security personnel, keeps everyone safe in and around Beale Street.

So that fee is intact and I think we'll be starting that possibly in April.

- There was some talk first about a Hard Rock Cafe hotel.

Now there's not a Hard Rock Cafe there.

There was also a plan for a hotel on the Fourth Street side, on the other side of the line for where the district begins.

Has there been any action on that because hotels and motels, it seems are more difficult to do financially?

- I think there's a lot of interest in the area.

I haven't seen real movement, but I do see a lot of interest in how people can get involved in reshaping the area in and around Beale Street and the Forum and all of that.

And I think as time passes we'll see more and more interest.

You know we've had a very tough market and I think we're coming out of that.

And so I think we'll start to see more and more energy around what could be possible down in that space.

- Stay with safety, obviously that's a big topic on most people's minds right now, citywide, countywide, nationally, frankly.

You all are able to hire security at Beale Street, you have the Blue Suede Brigade, but they are not armed and not meant to be security guards.

They're kind of there to have a presence.

How do you approach safety not just for Beale Street, but for all of downtown?

Is it coordination with MPD, with the sheriff, and so on?

I mean, 'cause again, you're not the mayor of downtown, you don't have your own police force.

How do you make sure that downtown is safe?

- Yeah, there are two ways that we focus on in order to do that.

One is sort of indirectly, the more we can get more spaces activated and vibrant and have more people downtown, inherently that'll bring more safety.

More directly, we have with our Blue Suede Brigade, the point of that whole group is to provide the presence, as you said, also to report directly to police.

There is a absolute connection between Blue Suede and MPD who also have the connection with the Sheriff's Department.

We all work together to ensure that we are doing what we can for safety.

So they're an extra set of eyes and they're also able to diffuse situations.

There's certain levels of conflict that they can get involved in and they are able to diffuse those types of conflicts.

- Like any, I mean, at least any downtown I've been in the United States in recent years, there's a homeless population, sometimes mentally ill, sometimes situations that might come from that.

How do you work to manage, I'm not sure, the folks who are homeless, folks who are maybe not well, who are downtown and who you know either it's either, it's both sad, it also makes some people feel unsafe.

It's a huge bunch of problems.

How do you at DMC approach those challenges?

- So our Blue Suede Brigade folks know a lot of the unhoused community downtown.

They see them regularly, they speak with them.

We have on occasion helped to tie them to opportunities that will help them where they are or to pull them from where they are to get them into housing, if they need housing to remove homeless camps and put them in a partner with partnering with nonprofits to put them in a place that where they can receive the care and the help that they need.

We partner with a number of agencies downtown to help us address the concerns of the unhoused.

And that's what we do.

We do that pretty much every day.

- Yeah, let me bring Bill, with five minutes left.

- And I think one of the nonprofits has been Hospitality Hub.

- Absolutely.

- Which its location now on Washington Street is really in the center of where some of those camps have been set up too.

So it's not simply a matter of moving to help get the homeless folks outta here, it's more of what happens with that population, right?

- Right.

And there is a plaza that the City invested in at the Hospitality Hub where the unhoused can go and receive services.

They can be in a place where they can feel safe and receive services possibly from the Hospitality Hub.

So there is that connection as well.

- Talk a little bit about, because I know that you have have property owners who pay a fee to the Downtown Memphis Commission, which comes with services attached to it.

But when you look at the map, the Downtown Memphis Commission map of its territory, so to speak, is a pretty large map.

So how does downtown intersect with the Medical District specifically in that?

- So the CBID area does include the Medical District.

So we have a pretty large CBID area, it's larger than most of them in the country.

- CBID is?

- Oh, I'm sorry.

- No, that's okay.

I was trying to figure out, it's Commercial Business Improvement District- - Central Business.

- Central Business Improvement District, I was so close.

Sorry, go ahead.

- So yeah, that area is pretty big.

And then it does include the Medical District.

So yes, they are a part of that entire area.

Then we have another area that sort of surrounds the CBID and that's where we can do a bit more investing with the CCRC Board.

- So the Medical District has some housing going on, has some new businesses showing up in an area that's pretty much been dominated by medical concerns, thus the name the Medical District.

How do you look at that mix?

Because that kind of operates differently for the folks who are investing in it as well as the people who live there.

It operates a little bit differently than housing does in the downtown core.

- It absolutely does.

There are some really interesting businesses that popped up in the EDGE area that are really, really unique and I invite people to go and visit those places.

They're really awesome.

But in terms of the user, I guess the visitor of that area, it would be more medical students or patients or doctors and medical professionals.

So yeah, the engagement there is different.

We do, there is a group there that works really, really well with connecting with the people there, the Medical District Collaborative and we work with them as well on certain partnering on certain initiatives to help with that community.

- And there's been talk in terms of safety about, and this happens in other cities too, creating a tourism bubble in effect for a tourist in that area.

Is that the philosophy here or are there thoughts that, okay, you got tourists on Beale Street when they, if they turn the corner onto Main, you're dealing with a mostly Memphis crowd there as opposed to tourists.

Do you want the two areas to come together or is it more manageable to say, here's the tourism bubble, we're gonna do things differently?

- I think we've gotta look at both because there is a pathway to the tourism bubble.

I think we've got to ensure once people get into the bubble that there are measures in place.

There is normally more dense, it's more people, it's more in that bubble, as you say, you can see a professional game or you can go see a professional play or you can, there are lots of things you can do within that area that we've got to ensure that we are protecting.

But then there's also, how you're getting into that space that's important as well.

And the people who are living downtown, it's all important.

It just may mean that there's a different level that happens in this area because of the density that is not necessarily needed in some of these other areas.

- Your main ask of Paul Young in 20 seconds or less, your predecessor.

- I wanna work closely with the City on just core services downtown.

Just the how city operates, how the infrastructure that's needed in place that we just work in partnership with the services that we're delivering.

- Alright, well thank you very much.

Thanks for being here.

Sorry to cut you off at the end.

Thank you, Bill.

But that is all the time we have this week.

If you missed any of the show, you can get the full episode online at wkno.org or search for it on YouTube or you can download it as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks very much.

We'll see you next week.

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