Welcome to About Town, where we take a deeper dive into one neighborhood each week while also highlighting the latest news, developments and back stories from Memphis’ neighborhoods. This week’s focus: Downtown.
The last piece in the long-awaited One Beale puzzle was unveiled Tuesday, July 27: final renderings for a 361-guestroom, $190 million Grand Hyatt hotel.
The fourth – and final – phase of the $400 million One Beale development includes 44,000 square feet of meeting and event space, two restaurants, a 6,500-square-foot spa, a 2,200-square-foot fitness center, and “massive rooftop infinity pool.” It’s a development that oversees an iconic street (Beale) and an iconic river (the Mississippi).
Daily Memphian Reporter Tom Bailey attended the unveiling, on the rooftop patio of the Hyatt Centric, part of an earlier phase of the One Beale project that recently opened.
Bailey said Chance Carlisle, chief executive of Carlisle LLC and developer behind One Beale, speaks in aspirational terms about the project.
“In his mind, by doing something like One Beale, which he sees as first-class, upscale, loads of amenities, great high-end finishes, it’s going to be such a draw for more assets into town,” Bailey said about Carlisle’s vision.
“It’ll draw people that have money and resources and inspire others to do similar developments,” he continued. “[Carlisle] told me that success will be if four or five other similar projects are taken on up and down the Downtown district.”
In total, One Beale – a development 15-plus years in the making – could fill 5.2 acres on the riverfront with 232 apartments, 724 guestrooms among three hotels, restaurants, office space, meeting spaces and more.
 Construction began on the Tom Lee Park project in early 2021. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)
That means even more people utilizing Downtown sidewalks in the years to come, which, according to Bailey, is crucial for its long-term success.
The veteran business reporter also highlighted one notable person in attendance at Tuesday’s reveal: Memphis River Parks Partnership President and CEO Carol Coletta. She’s heading the $60 million renovation of Tom Lee Park, an important project in One Beale’s potential success.
“It’ll give an amenity for his residents, hotel guests,” Bailey said. “On the flip side, One Beale, his people will help activate Tom Lee Park, along with everybody else. Tom Lee Park figures pretty prominently in the overall One Beale development.”
More About Town:
 Eric Robertson plans to step down as CEO and President of Community LIFT and River City Capital Investment Corp. (Houston Cofield/Daily Memphian file)
Eric Robertson plans to step down as CEO and President of Community LIFT and River City Capital Investment Corp., he said in a letter announcing his future plans earlier this week.
Healing Center Baptist Church’s Bishop William Young and his wife, Pastor Dianne Young, have continued their larger mission to remove the stigma around mental health in a predominantly African American community.
 Community members chat on the bus on the way to the Downtown Farmers Market. (Lucy Garrett/Special to the Daily Memphian)
Through a partnership with Whole Child Strategies, Memphis Area Transit Authority offers Klondike and Smokey City residents bus rides each Tuesday and Saturday to nearby locations where healthful food is available.
This weekend’s events at Glenview Park and Douglass Park featured workouts, fresh produce giveaways, and health and wellness consultations. Three more gatherings are planned in August.
All the property within the vast, old Memphis Army Distribution Depot has been sold to private owners, so the public board overseeing the site was to have been dissolved Wednesday. But neighbors’ concerns delayed the action.
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