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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 and Pinch District.
Downtown and the Pinch District will become a safer place by next fall with the addition of Memphis’ new Fire Station No. 1.
On Thursday, Nov. 18, the City of Memphis Division of Fire Services celebrated construction of the firehouse, its third new fire station in the past four years, during a groundbreaking ceremony.
The new station at 223 Chelsea Ave. will replace the former No. 1 and No. 6 stations on Jackson Avenue and Thomas Street.
For the full story: Fire Department breaks ground on new station
The facility will be two stories tall and nearly 13,000 square feet. It will house more comfortable living quarters for firefighters as well as a community room that will triple as a space for meetings, training, and sheltering from tornadoes. New technology will help doors open more rapidly so firefighters can come and go quicker than before.
The hope is that the new fire station will serve as an anchor for the neighborhood and be a place community members can visit when they need help.
The former No. 1 site is now owned by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Mayor Jim Strickland noted that a side benefit of the new station will be to help St. Jude expand its lifesaving work as its growing campus continues to stretch into the Pinch District.
This groundbreaking follows the Oct. 14 grand opening of Fire Station No. 5 Downtown on Adams Avenue. Construction for the new Memphis Fire Department Headquarters at 2668 Avery Ave. will finish around January. Both locations are replacing the former headquarters on South Front Street.
More from About Town
 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital hopes to build an employee parking garage on this vacant lot on A.W. Willis Avenue. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
St. Jude presented plans for its proposed garage to the Board of Adjustment Wednesday, but the board postponed the decision until its Dec. 22 meeting.
The Downtown Mobility Center would stand seven stories on the 1.3-acre surface parking lot immediately north of the Orpheum Theatre and include nearly 1,000 parking spaces and ground-floor retail space.
 Uptown resident Valerie Peavy speaks out Monday, Nov. 15, against a proposed parking garage for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital employees. (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian)
Residents met at The Office@Uptown to hear the results of a community survey regarding a new parking garage Monday morning, just two days prior to St. Jude’s meeting with the Board of Adjustments to ask for approval on the rezoning and height variances.
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