Do you think memphis has a small skyline? (Germantown, Collierville: condominiums, hotel)

[Austin8868]

for a city its size?

[maximus10]

Yes it does. There was the project One Beale that was supposed to transform the skyline but it got put on hold becuase of the economy. There are also other reasons. Memphis has a couple of highrises out east. Alot of businesses are out east as well and not downtown. Plus alot of the corporations in Memphis have opted to do the "corporate campus" thing. The main ones being FedEx and International Paper.

[mjtinmemphis]

I think the memphis skyline is on par with other cities if its size like Louisville, Milwaukee and Birmingham. I do believe that Memphis has so much more potential. It definatly could have been in Atlantas position today if the people would have let the city grow. IMO Memphis could have served the region better as a leader because of the layout of the city as well as central location.

[kingchef]

for a city proper of around 700,000, and, when comparing it to the top 20 largest american cities, i say, honestly, yes, i think memphis has a problem w/ its skyline: not necessarily small, but rather short. memphis has a dual core skyline. the one downtown includes the central business district, which measures approximately 1 square mile. the second is located on the east poplar corridor. one of my biggest complaints about downtown memphis is the fact that none of downtown is pictured fully and accurately. i have never seen memphis pictured from north to south and east to west that includes the downtown parameters of the pyramid, a 32 story structure built at the northwest side of the city, the island, st. jude medical complex, uptown square tower, and to the sears-roebuck crosstown tower. this constitutes the north side of the skyline going east-west. from the crosstown sears tower over to bellvue tower, running north-south, turning toward the west-southwest to include the bluffs, the horizon tower, the rivermark tower and traveling back to the island to form the square identified as downtown. w/in this square, you find the entire medical center, which includes lebonheur children's medical center, the va medical center, the hamilton eye institute, the med, the utchs, several additional major buildings, residential and medical office highrises, and, as stated earlier, the st. jude research hospital and campus.

midtown, according to the ccc, begins at bellvue and immediately takes in methodist, the college of optometry, etc. and, yes, i know probably 100,000 people from memphis will disagree concerning downtown and midtown boundaries. the business corridor, which includes clark tower, independent bank, the fogleman building on to the hilton, st. francis, crescent center, etc., constitutes the second core skyline. i was reading yesterday about the ht restrictions in downtown memphis. according to what i read, the euclidian ordinance (s) restrict buildings to a ht of 150 ft or less. the new phoenix luxury hotel development in the south main district will be 11 stories and just under 150 ft. it is because of the ordinance. someone pointed out that the fedex forum is 139 ft, which is the tallest building in that district, until the current new construction. if i remember correctly, there have been issues that stem from the fact that the hotel might cast "shadows" in various parts of that area. this would cause problems for the tenants/owners of the new housing/residential buildings being developed in that area at this time.

while i am a staunch supporter of preservation of the worthy historic buildings in memphis, and, while i'm not one who feels that a city is defined only by skyscrapers, i fail to understand how other cities of historical interest (philadelphia, boston, etc.) have been able to build skylines that are notable, pleasing, and fairly balanced. as i recently noted in a forum dealing w/ this topic, memphis has more than its share of 8-18 story buildings; however, the downtown is beginning to look like a cylindrical block. lebonheur, w/ its new 12 story bed tower on poplar, makes for a long needed and welcomed view in this area to the weary eye that searches upward occasionally. it is nice to imagine the skyscrapers that could have been built downtown by international paper, fedex, and others, when you see the hugh structures they built in east memphis. one campus---8 buildings, 3 stories each. another, one campus---3 buildings, 2 w/ 9 stories and one w/ 11 stories. they, along w/ several more, have beautiful campuses; however, i think they could have had even more striking skyscrapers in downtown.

well, the beat goes on. i know that memphis marches to its own beat, and really, it doesn't really care how others perceive it, as long as it is happy. to me, it has a decent looking skyline, if you could see all of it. i just fail to understand why the city has no skyscrapers above 430 something feet. even little rock, mobile, birmingham, and several other significantly smaller cities have skyscrapers in the 500-600 ft range. for those who care, memphis is currently building a tallest in airport city. the new traffic control tower will be 336 ft. above ground. we're just sort of hung in that 3-4 hundred ft range, seemingly.

[Wingz]

As a visitor to Memphis, I never had the impression the city had a small skyline. After reading the replies, yes, I guess Memphis is lacking in "tall" buildings. I certainly would not compare downtown Memphis to Birmingham, even if they do have one tall building. You could put downtown Birmingham in downtown Memphis and have room left over for Louisville, too.

As Kingchef pointed out, the trend in corporate headquarters seems to be lower buildings in the suburbs. If I worked in a corporate headquarters, I would prefer that to commuting to downtown. I don't think we will see corporations building tall buildings downtown in Memphis or elsewhere. The tallest new building in the Nashville area is condominiums, started before the housing market and economy tanked. I think the building will be mostly empty for a while.

[nickolaseposter]

I'm from Dayton and our population is 145,000. Our skyline is nearly half of yours.
So the answer is: yes, you have a VERY strangely small skyline. Look at Columbus, about the same size, and they are considered to have a weak skyline. It's almost twice as big yours. Just saying. Somebody needs to do something in Memphis. You need at least fifteen more skyscrapers to even come close to match the other skylines of a city your size. And I mean SKYSCRAPERS. Not midrises. Like.....buildings with at least 25 floors. That's AT LEAST. What even is the tallest building and why the heck is their a giant pyramid?

[JoeCartpath]

Who do you think would build 15 skyscrapers??? Who would fill them?? Even if a company wanted to move it's headquarters here, why would they build a skyscraper downtown when most of their employees would probably want to live in Collierville, Germantown, Cordova or Arlington - 25 miles away? Corporations don't spend millions and millions of dollars on a building just to make a skyline look impressive. In cities like Nashville it might make sense to locate downtown since it's the center of the city. In Memphis, downtown isn't the city center and never will be because of the river....it's the far western edge of the city. Skyscrapers make sense if you have to locate in a downtown area where land is scarce. They don't make financial sense if you can locate in the suburbs where more land is available - and constructions costs of a lower rise structure is far less than a skyscraper.

[maximus10]

JoeCartpath is right. In Memphis it is spread out. There is still a pretty significant business presence downtown, it's just not what it could be. In Memphis alot of the businesses are out east and some are near the airport. It's just how it is. Downtown Memphis is going the route towards entertainment. You know: live, work, play. That type of thing. I know there are some businesses that are looking to move there but the demand is not enough to warrant the building of new skyscrapers. If any new skyscrapers were to be built now it would be in East Memphis.

[strumpeace]

Skyscrapers = outdated thing of yesterday

Maybe next we'll have someone from Toledo or Columbus or wherever tell us all about their exciting new indoor shopping mall.

[Pearlbob]

Who cares what the skyline "looks" like? We live here, we're not tourists. I don't need to take cool pictures of the skyline to frame at home

Downtown is small, but it's been that way for 100 years. Even if businesses wanted to move downtown, they can't demolish neighborhoods just to build a skyscraper. Downtown is surrounded by homes and smaller businesses, albeit not all the nicest ones. I think the downtown of Memphis works just fine.