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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: Orange Mound.
Community members reacted with excitement that a new RedZone Ministries Opportunity Zone Center would be built in Orange Mound by next August.
“Watched this come up from nothing,” Antonio Walker wrote in a Facebook post. He later added, “I think this neighborhood and a lot of others deserve updated, modern community facilities such as this one.”
Amber Christine Friesland wrote, “I love everything about this. ... The kids in the city need more direction, and this is a step in the right way.”
The 30,000-square-foot community center will replace a former 1,800-square-foot program site on Park Avenue. The evangelical Christian outreach organization operated out of that space until COVID-19 halted in-person gatherings.
In its former location, the ministry was limited to helping fewer than 70 high school-aged children. But when the new center opens, the larger space will be able to accommodate about 250 community members at one time.
The community center will house a large recreation facility, game room, cafe, multipurpose room, classrooms and offices. New or expanded art and cooking classes will complement the ministry’s original programs, like its Transcenders Bible study and academic enrichment courses.
The community center will be built at 2855 Park Ave. alongside the new Porter-Leath and University of Memphis Early Childhood Academy. RedZone Ministries bought the entire site about 12 years ago and subdivided it to allow the childhood academy to be built next to its community center.
Howard Eddings Jr., CEO of RedZone Ministries, would like to see the success of both organizations so they can serve whole families at one location. He also hopes children will participate in RedZone’s programs after they age out of the early childhood and preschool programs.
 The RedZone Ministries Opportunity Zone Center in Orange Mound will serve as a safe haven for school-aged children to go after school. (Submitted rendering)
The land was formerly the site of the Sky-Vue Drive-in Theatre, which operated during the 1950s and 1960s and was off-limits to most nearby community members due to segregation. After the drive-in was demolished in the 1970s, the property sat blighted for more than 40 years. Eddings hopes to reclaim the “vacant eyesore” while making it available to children who could not set foot on the property decades ago.
The center’s cafeteria space will allow faculty to teach children healthy eating habits and social etiquette through cooking classes. A new mood room will allow the center to expand its partnerships with arts organizations, and a large recreational facility featuring three basketball courts with extensions for volleyball and other sports will allow the center to host sports tournaments.
The center will also be open to community members for economic development opportunities and information sharing and community meetings.
Construction is expected to start this month.
More About Town:
 William Woodard, Stephen Allmond, Anthony Canada and Kenneth Wallace are among a group of men who greet Cummings K-8 students every morning. (Daja E. Henry/Daily Memphian)
Following a shooting at Cummings K-8, community members decided to show up for the neighborhood kids every morning.
Michael O. Harris of GWERC sent a letter of opposition to the City of Memphis regarding One Stop Housing LLC’s proposed project that would convert the former Red Roof Inn hotel on Elvis Presley to workforce housing.
 Family and friends of 15-year-old Phillexus Buchanan released balloons in her honor after she was fatally shot at a Whitehaven gas station on Friday, Dec. 3. She was one of two teens killed in the shooting that also injured a 9-month-old boy and his mother. (Yolanda Jones/Daily Memphian)
Two teenaged girls were killed at a Marathon gas station Friday; it’s the third incident in less than year in which a teen has been killed at the site.
Memphis Medical District Collaborative partners with Whole Child Strategies to bring information about training and hiring opportunities to residents.
‘We can launch 30 graduates a year, possibly 40 a year, into industries and living-wage careers,” said Noah Gray, executive director of Binghampton Development Corp.
AutoZone opened the new Peter R. Formanek Store Support Center at 104 S. Front St., a space that combines two historic properties and creates space for 300 workstations.
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