Is Hacks Cross Road between Winchester and Shelby a safe area? (Memphis: apartment complex, hotels)

[tigerphan]

Originally Posted by TheKernel91

The Hacks Cross area is not in decline. Businesses are opening and infill developments are in action. That's a fact. Crime isn't a issue either. Really what is it that makes you feel like this area is in decline? If the opposite was happening here then I would totally agree.

I agree. It seems to be doing reasonably well though I'm not too sure I'd want to live in any of those houses right up on 385. I'm surprised there aren't any sound walls.

Within 5 years, they are going to have to widen 385 between Hacks and 72. There's a lot of manufacturing and distribution businesses investing in the area in Marshall County sort of south east from the Hacks/Winchester area in Mississippi.

The LA Fitness, Applebee's, Dunkin, Conn's Home Plus, Auto Nation Honda, and Garden Ridge are some of the newer retailers in that area near Costco. It's not well controlled, but development is happening at a rapid pace there because it is convenient for E Memphis, Germantown, Collierville, and Olive Branch. There will be more retail coming soon too. Land there is cheap, it's mostly unincorporated, great traffic counts, and the neighborhood isn't dangerous.

I wish that Dairy Queen served breakfast. DQ breakfast is shockingly good. There are a couple of solid Indian restaurants around there, and a really good nursery down Hacks a little ways, and I'm probably at that McAllister's twice a month at least. FedEx and all of those other businesses translate to huge lunch crowds.

That area needs a Flying Saucer type of place.

[pappy35]

What new businesses are opening SOUTH of 385? The condition of the properties there and the other reasons I stated are my substantiation.

[tigerphan]

Originally Posted by pappy35

What new businesses are opening SOUTH of 385? The condition of the properties there and the other reasons I stated are my substantiation.

Anything with highway visibility is already built out ...and many of the developments there are actually reasonably nice as far as uncontrolled growth goes (and comparable to the development north of 385).

There has been a lot of new home construction in recent years out there as well.

Just because the newer businesses are a Nissan dealer, Holiday Inn Express, and Dairy Queen instead of a Fresh Market, Mercedes Benz dealership, or some kind of high end shopping mall doesn't make it a dangerous neighborhood in any way.

[pappy35]

I lived at that hotel for a month two years ago when I moved down here so I am very familiar with the immediate area. All I'm saying is that, in the month I lived there, I noted the nearby neighborhoods were poorly maintained, there were bands of kids (young teens) roaming around with no adult supervision, and a no-kidding riot at that gas station with about 50 teen-aged kids running around. There's nothing near there for them to have come from so I have to assume they lived in the adjacent neighborhoods. For me, that area is not a place I would want to live.

Also, if that area is so safe and upwards bound, why do all the restaurants and some others (Kroger for example) employ ARMED security guards? I have lived in NYC, CT, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis over the last 50 years and this is the first time I've lived in an area where name-brand chain restaurants employ armed guards. I've also been here long enough to know that of the restaurants I've been to in Germantown/Collierville/East Memphis do not so don't claim that that's normal.

The manager of the Cheddar's there, the first place we ate when we came down here looking before I actually moved, warned us not to get anything west/south of I-385. He explained the guns are needed due to all the folks who try to skip out on their bills. We almost didn't come here based on that impression. Our apartment was burglarized a year after we moved in.

The OP asked for an opinion and I'm providing my honest thoughts on the area. FYI...we live on Winchester off Forest Hill Irene and drive through there every single day. I know the area very well. When we need to go shopping, we go to Collierville...

[jabogitlu]

To me it's one of those gray areas of Memphis. There's not much positive about it. If you're into suburban living, Collierville, Germantown, parts of Cordova, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, etc. have so much more potential and promise and security of investment. If you're NOT into suburbia, then the area presents itself as a giant highway wasteland.

It's a planning and design nightmare, not poised for the best of any world (urban, suburban, rural). In time, for these reasons, I believe the area will decline significantly. There's no way I would buy a home or open a business there, even though it feels halfway decent today. Just look at Hickory Hill.

This wasn't a foregone conclusions - if the area had developed with a high quality design and with some forethought, a better sense of place and community could have been created. Memphis desperately needs better development code for its suburban areas to prevent disasters like this in the future.

[pappy35]

Originally Posted by jabogitlu

To me it's one of those gray areas of Memphis. There's not much positive about it. If you're into suburban living, Collierville, Germantown, parts of Cordova, Bartlett, Lakeland, Arlington, etc. have so much more potential and promise and security of investment. If you're NOT into suburbia, then the area presents itself as a giant highway wasteland.

It's a planning and design nightmare, not poised for the best of any world (urban, suburban, rural). In time, for these reasons, I believe the area will decline significantly. There's no way I would buy a home or open a business there, even though it feels halfway decent today. Just look at Hickory Hill.

This wasn't a foregone conclusions - if the area had developed with a high quality design and with some forethought, a better sense of place and community could have been created. Memphis desperately needs better development code for its suburban areas to prevent disasters like this in the future.

I was going to say something about this area going the way of Hickory Hill. That's the cancer I referred to earlier that is slowly creeping east along Winchester and Shelby...

[Mopac1980]

Originally Posted by pappy35

I was going to say something about this area going the way of Hickory Hill. That's the cancer I referred to earlier that is slowly creeping east along Winchester and Shelby...

I would so hate to see the areas along Hacks Cross be another repeat of what happened to the Hickory Hill area back in the late 1990's/early 2000's, especially with businesses leaving, didn't Target recently close its location on Winchester a year or so ago?

[TheKernel91]

Target did leave earlier this summer, but it was due to the company closing stores. That credit card incident took a punch at the company. A newer tenant is already occupying that building.

Maybe I'm more optimistic about this area. I don't see this area dying like HH. I've been in the area four years, and remembered when I first came seeing new development activity. A lot of what you see now on that end of Winchester wasn't there 5 years ago. Yet, it's still filling in..
Now as far as "the cancer" coming from HH, I'm not sure what that exactly mean. Crime? Blight? or the class of people? If it's blight, I can say as far back to Riverdale Rd which is in HH is where you begin to see a few big box vacants. From the Riverdale and Winchester area, things turned around as far as what was blighted four years ago. Planet Fitness, Privè which is a upscale restaurant, Conns home plus, a grocery for foreign food, smoothie king, Goodwill, and etc have filled vacants in the past four years. Then a Fred's was built near, and a Tennessee college of Cosmetology was built also. From my point on blight, this area where you actually start to see blight is improving every year. On the Commercial Appeal's website some days ago there was an article about Memphis economy is now bouncing back. (Didn't read it) This could be the reason for areas like this getting better.

On crime I haven't experienced it, or seen it consistently in the Hacks area that would put my indication that this place is going down. It's a busy area, and active. I always keep my guard up anywhere I go, I don't put it past any area. I just haven't felt threaten or uncomfortable around here.

I agree that better planning development is needed in Memphis surrounding areas. This area felt no different than Germantown Pwy.

[tigerphan]

This area is currently (mostly) unincorporated, so there isn't a robust planning body that can set zoning standards and encourage particular types of development. Most of Hacks doesn't even have street lights, and I'm shocked they are letting that huge Honda dealership open up on that plot.

[jabogitlu]

Huh - you're right. I assumed all of this was in the city limits. What a strange boundary they have set for the city - obviously the result of unplanned annexations.