Tony Pellicciotti is often among the people milling about Crosstown Concourse, sometimes with a cup of coffee and his laptop, sometimes with a prospective hire. But more often, he’s simply an anonymous observer, watching how people interact in that behemoth of a space.

It’s personal to him. And energizing.

Pellicciotti, 54, was the principal architect in charge of Crosstown Concourse’s transformation from a derelict, 20-year abandoned eyesore to the vaunted village that opened in 2017.

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For his work on Concourse and other large, historic restorations — including the remake of the Tennessee Brewery and the Chisca Hotel — he is one of 83 U.S. architects this year named to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows.

It is AIA’s highest honor. Pellicciotti, managing principal at LRK, is the only honoree from Tennessee.

‘They saw each other as people first’

Pellicciotti was 41 when he was asked to take the lead on the $200 million restoration of the Sears Crosstown shell, its core and three floors that would be apartments.

The Central Atrium, what is now the Concourse’s largest common area, is a nod to the 1980s’ summers Pellicciotti spent at his grandparents’ farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, population 367.

“Everybody knew each other, everybody was friends. They still came from different socio-economic levels. They came from different religious backgrounds. They came from different races, different political backgrounds, all of that,” he said. “But because they saw each other, they interacted with each other in a very personal way. They saw each other as people first, and the ideas were second to them being people.”

Those interactions, he said, were more civil and more community-oriented, and to this day, they strike Pellicciotti as fascinating and beautiful.

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From the beginning, the goal of Concourse’s ownership and design team was to take the hulking remains of the former Sears store and catalog center and create a place where everyone belonged, where everyone in Memphis could be seen.

Pellicciotti loves to sit in the atrium or the galleries and watch people using the space and listen to their conversations about the Concourse, sometimes even in discussions they have with him, an anonymous stranger.

“They recognize it was done for them. Some of that, I think, is the porosity — the ability to come and go from multiple different points,” Pellicciotti said. 

“There’s not a barrier. You don’t have to go through a metal detector. I was very conscious about trying to make sure that it felt like a public place, like our government buildings did 30 years ago where you could come in freely, as opposed to now where you have to be funneled through and managed.”

Odds of success started at 2% 

Back in 2012, the Crosstown Concourse framers — Todd Richardson, McLean Wilson, Staley Cates, Christopher Miner, Amy Carkuff, Scott Boko and Tony Bologna — figured the dream had about a 2% chance of success, Richardson said:

“When people ask me, ‘What was your biggest challenge with Crosstown,’ I always say, ‘believability’ — just getting people to see beyond what they saw at that time, which was the Empire State Building on its side, empty for 20 years. Oh, and it’s a recession.”

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Pellicciotti, Richardson said, “was a constant presence of hope.”

From a design perspective, Richardson credits Pellicciotti with making the concept of an urban village — centered on arts, education and health care — come to life in three dimensions.

“He was the one that made it experiential in terms of how people would be coming and going and interacting in unexpected ways,” Richardson said.

After 31 years at LRK and several years earlier at a smaller Memphis architectural firm, Concourse is still the largest project Pellicciotti has ever done.

Its completion set off a wave of acclaim and dozens of awards, many of them national. For 18 months or so, Pellicciotti said, the Concourse team was on the road, talking about the work and accepting awards, including, in 2019, the region’s second AIA National Honor Award.

The martini-glass design of Memphis International Airport received the first award in 1964.

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Bringing people together

Pellicciotti will be recognized in June at the AIA’s national conference in Boston. Three others at LRK have also earned the distinction previously: Firm founders Carson Looney and Frank Ricks, and Nando Micale, principal in the company’s Philadelphia office.

“I’m delighted but not at all surprised to see Tony recognized as an AIA Fellow,” Ricks said. “His depth of knowledge, coupled with his selfless leadership, help all of us at LRK do better work for our clients.”

The honor is a third-party, external affirmation, Richardson said, of the “impact Tony has had in Memphis and beyond through LRK, and just how many buildings he has touched with his design and project management work.”

Previous local recipients, still practicing, include: Jimmie Tucker, Mark Weaver, Trey Wheeler, Todd Walker, Barry Yoakum, Reb Haizlip and Met Crump. 

Pellicciotti is a quiet man who thinks before he talks, and speaks generally so quietly that people lean in to hear what he has to say.

He is loath to take credit for work that was the result of collaboration, the brand of teamwork he likes best and that has been honed in him through years of mentorship at LRK.

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Darrell Cobbins, a Memphis commercial real estate agent who has worked with Pellicciotti on several projects, including the Concourse, is doing the same now with the rebirth of Orange Mound Tower, the long-abandoned industrial tower at 2205 Lamar Ave.

“That project involves not just LRK, but Aaron Patrick Architects, a local minority firm, and another firm out of Miami. So, that’s all of them working in that architecture and design space,” Cobbins said.

“For a firm as large as LRK, they could handle it by themselves. To be open to collaborating and bringing other ideas to the table, that says a lot about their dedication and commitment to the client and the authenticity of the project.”

Cobbins has seen instances where Pellicciotti was the most experienced architect at the table but took a back seat so the team members could operate as equals. 

“I think it takes a special leader to be able to step back and allow the process to unfold and let the best ideas come to the forefront,” Cobbins said.

On the Concourse project, there were plenty of great ideas that didn’t get implemented because they didn’t add to the sense of equality or community the project was out to build. 

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“Somebody would say, ‘OK, it’s a fabulous idea, but does that really contribute to what we’re trying to achieve, to build a community?’” Pellicciotti said. “And everybody says, ‘OK, yeah, you’re right. We went off on a tangent. Let’s get back on course.’

“What this did, first and foremost, is it made sure that every decision was really robustly studied, because you’ve got a lot of different perspectives in the room, right?”

Being a part of a team devoted to activating the dormant Sears tower, he said, also created its own breed of brave solidarity.

“Buying into the vision and the passion and the optimism-belief is kind of a Memphis thing,” Pellicciotti said. “Maybe the rest of the world can’t do it, but we’ll figure out a way to make it happen.”