Crosstown Concourse
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| Crosstown Concourse | |
|---|---|
| File:Sears Building Memphis TN 01.jpg | |
| General information | |
| Type | Mixed-use development |
| Architectural style | Art Deco |
| Location | 495 North Watkins Street Memphis, Tennessee 38104 |
| Renovated | 2015 |
| Owner | Crosstown, LLC |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 14 |
| Floor area | 1,500,000 square feet (140,000 m2) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Nimmons & Co. |
The Crosstown Concourse is an art deco high-rise building in Memphis, Tennessee. Originally built as a Sears mail-order processing warehouse and retail store, the building is currently being renovated into a mixed-use vertical urban village.
History
The building was designed by Nimmons & Co., and construction was started on February 21, 1927. Known as the Sears Crosstown Building, it was one of the first Sears stores designed to attract customers by being situated in a relatively open area of the city and providing a large amount of free parking.[1] The location was also ideal for its access to highways and on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad line.[2] Officially opened on August 27, 1927, the Sears Crosstown Building was the largest building in Memphis to date at 650,000 square feet.[3] Three thousand people attended the opening ceremony and over 47,000 people (one in four Memphians) toured the building by the day's end.[4] At a cost of $5 million, the building was constructed in only 180 days, with work crews operating 24 hours a day, six days a week.[5] Sears & Roebuck's eighth regional distribution center included a soda fountain, luncheonette, employee cafeteria, and in-house hospital.[6] The Crosstown Building was a premier Sears retail store for more than 60 years.[7]The building became vacant in the early 1990s after Sears closed many of the buildings it had constructed in the 1920s:[8] the store that had occupied the lower floors was closed in 1983, and the catalog distribution center in 1993.[9]
Revitalization
Attempts by various organizations have begun to repurpose the high-rise. Many other Sears buildings across the country were quickly reused, such as the Midtown Exchange in Minneapolis.[10]
In 2010, The Crosstown Arts project began working on resurrecting the building as a "mixed-used vertical urban village." Developers received commitments from nine prospective tenants called "founding partners" to fill more than 600,000 square feet of the building with various uses.[11] The current plan is to have retail stores and restaurants on the first floor; fitness, health, arts, education, and office space on floors two through six, plus 270 apartments occupying floors seven through ten.[12] While work has been progressing to clean up the space since 2012, the official groundbreaking occurred on February 21, 2015; with various celebrations and speeches by the mayors of Memphis and Shelby County. The new name of the building was also announced on this date - Crosstown Concourse.
References
Notes
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found., p.52
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found., p.54
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found., p.58
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found., p. 59
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found., p.60-61
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External links
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