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3 comments:
I'm excited to be getting a Target or some bad ass store like Ikea. But I feel sorry for the poor people who are being forced out of their homes in that neighborhood to make way for development. It seems to go against the Midtown way.
I agree with you in principle (which is a fancy way of saying I don't agree with you I suppose). I wish I knew more about the rental properties east of Cleveland. I don't really know who rents those properties or why from anything other than years of observation. In other words, take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt. That said:
1. Most of the apartments in the area are already boarded up. Mind you, I may just be interpreting what I'm seeing through the lens of 'hamsterdam' on the wire, but the only activity I've seen in and around the boarded up buildings appears to be drug related. This is the "I can't imagine why a late model ford explorer with a widespread panic sticker would be parked in an abandoned apartment lot" argument.
2. The apartments left, with widely varying degrees of vacancy, are in very poor shape. I don't recall this ever not being the case. My gut feeling is that Catholic Charities is putting new immigrants in most of this housing. Surely there are safer and cleaner options for people looking to get a start in this country. I'm thinking of the well maintained apartment complex just north of the Sonic at Poplar and Hollywood. This is the "Welcome to America, would you like some crack?" argument.
Even with both of these points in mind, it still makes me a little sad to see what may be the passing of "Vietnamexicophis." It's hard to envision a scenario where the rents in the surrounding area allow some of the existing businesses like Thong Auto Repair and the mini-mart with the Latino murals to survive. On the other hand, some sprucing up of the area might allow the Viet Hoa grocery, Saigon Le, and Lobster King to do even better.
I'm hopeful that this new Crosstown development and whatever happens with the Sears building will preserve some of the area's diversity. I hope that the people Andy Cates has assembled are aware of the international market in the Minneapolis Sears building: http://tinyurl.com/yp943y. Something like that would be wonderful in Memphis. Maybe there could even be housing provided in the building itself to offset the loss of some of the housing east of Cleveland.
They need to have an international farmer's market in the area much like Nashvegas has just north of the state capital building. It's a wonderful addition to downtown Nashville and is packed with international shoppers weekly. Throngs of Vietnamese and Latinos already use the corridor heavily for shopping with the two Asian grocery stores and three small Hispanic ones. Sad to see that activity shift out of the Midtown area. That being said, Saigon Le is not doing well and needs the infusion of new customers. I just hope they can survive the construction phase.
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