Happy Monday, everybody. Welcome back. Today is Jan. 24, and LeMoyne-Owen College is reopening for in-person learning. New Boys & Girls Clubs are starting at area high schools, and the Shelby County Commission will be holding its regular meeting, with Holmes Road and an opioid lawsuit settlement on the agenda. 

The Germantown Board of Mayor and Aldermen will hold a public hearing for the Glasgow planned development, and the Collierville BMA will be amending a lease agreement with the University of Memphis.

THE NEED TO KNOW

The Main thing: As Memphis’ tallest building, 100 N. Main has been an extremely visible blemish on the city since it was vacated in 2014. Since then, it’s had its ups and downs (like, when it seemed like the owners of the building would redevelop it themselves — an up — or when the environmental court judge ordered a wall to be put up around it so pedestrians below wouldn’t be hit with falling concrete — definitely a low point). Now, a team including Kevin Woods, Billy Orgel, Jay Lindy, Adam Slovis and Michael McLaughlin has been selected by the Downtown Memphis Commission to redevelop the building. Today, DMC president Paul Young explains what the organization was looking for in a development team — and Woods and Orgel are talking about why they went after the project in the first place. 

On the case of the chase: At least one member of the Memphis City Council is interested in revisiting the Memphis Police Department’s pursuit policy (or, maybe more accurately, its non-pursuit policy). The current policy was enacted almost 30 years ago and essentially says that Memphis police officers should not pursue reckless drivers — unless the driver is suspected of a violent felony. The police department has said it still catches those drivers and charges them, eventually, but the data suggests that most of those charges don’t stick. For more, Bill Dries has an explainer of the policy here. 

New school voucher law? The State of Tennessee currently allows school districts to go to a period of remote learning, with permission of a special waiver, if COVID-19 cases or quarantines require it. But, under a new proposal, if districts opt to go remote, their students could be eligible to receive private school vouchers. It seems like it might be kind of moot — just because experts are expecting COVID closures to wane by the time this bill would become a law — but the proposal would expand the controversial Education Savings law, itself still under a constitutional challenge in the state Supreme Court.

QUOTED

“We love this project, because it’s really full circle. It’s taking tires that are causing blight in Binghampton and other neighborhoods like Binghampton and turning that blight into job training opportunities.”

— Andy Kizzee, Business Hub director for the Binghampton Development Corporation
More than 400 tires have been transformed into bike lane barriers along Broad Avenue. The concept comes from local artist Tad Pierson but the manufacturing and installation has been done by trainees in the BDC’s workforce development program.

THE NICE TO KNOW

Tigers defeat Tulsa! In (desperate) need of a win, Memphis Tigers basketball snapped a three-game losing streak with a victory yesterday against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. And they did it without Jalen Duren, DeAndre Williams, Landers Nolley II, Jayden Hardaway and assistant coach Larry Brown. The team hasn’t defeated Tulsa on the road since 2012, and they may have been helped by some “scary positivity.” It’s been a tumultuous past few days for the team. Coach Penny Hardaway gave us an expletive-filled outburst after the Tigers’ loss to SMU, but he later apologized for it, and “everyone — media included” knows how much Hardaway loves Memphis, and how much Memphis loves him right back. 

Flying the coop: A new Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken has opened in Germantown, replacing (at least in number) the Collierville location of the restaurant that closed last week. As Jennifer Biggs writes, “the historic building in Collierville requires such expensive renovation [owner Wendy McCrory] decided that moving was a more realistic solution.”

Help for health care workers: The Compassion Fatigue Room inside St. Francis Hospital-Bartlett opened right before the pandemic began as a way to combat burnout, but it has been welcomed as health care workers deal with daily stress. The room offers a massage chair, bottles of water and a few minutes to get away from it all. “We had three deaths back-to-back one afternoon, and it was one of those days that was really rough,” said a stroke and sepsis coordinator. “You could feel the stress, and you don’t want to take that stuff home if you can help it.”

On site: This one is for all the eagle-eyed incentive-watchers out there (maybe there’s a better name for them, but they know who they are). Olive Branch recently landed a new, one-million-square-foot, $90 million Walmart fulfillment center, which is expected to create 250 jobs. Walmart, in turn, should receive up to 10 years of tax breaks and rebates from both Mississippi and Olive Branch as well as updates to nearby roads. The new facility will be about 15 minutes from FedEx’s World Hub, but “Olive Branch was the lead contender for the site due to speculative warehouse space that was being built that matched Walmart’s needs,” Olive Branch’s mayor said. “Memphis did not have the square footage available to meet their site requirement.”

THIS WEEK’S WEATHER

Today should be a beautiful day, with sunny skies and highs in the upper 50s. It’ll be colder Tuesday and Wednesday, with highs in the 30s (yes, highs), but we’re not looking at any rain chances until Sunday.

Thanks for joining us this morning, and we hope you have a wonderful start to your week.