Planning board: Thumbs down to Overton Gateway apartments

Tom Bailey | Memphis Commercial Appeal

Show Caption Hide Caption Overton Gateway rejected by planning board Land Use Control Board votes 1-5 against with two abstaining on the Overton Gateway apartments proposal.

The planning board for Memphis on Thursday rejected a development that would place apartments on seven acres left vacant a half-century ago by the aborted I-40 route through Midtown.

The Land Use Control Board voted 1 to 5, with two abstaining, against the Overton Gateway planned development proposed by commercial real estate firm Makowsky Ringel Greenberg.

"This is the best day of my life!'' a beaming neighbor to the site, Rose Doherty, said after the meeting.

But the board's action is only a recommendation. The City Council will have final say on the application. And since the site is in the Lea's Woods Historic Preservation District, the Landmarks Commission would have to approve how the buildings' exteriors look.

Forrest Owens of ETI Corp., planning consultant for the project, said Makowsky Ringel Greenberg still intends to submit the project to the City Council, but may consider tweaking the plan further to alleviate some concerns by opponents.

"We heard parking was an issue,'' Owens said of opponents' estimates Thursday that 42 cars would have to park on neighborhood streets for lack of parking. "And we will take a look at it. But I think it would be kind of early to speculate right now. I'm still sort of reeling.''

The developer and its design consultants had gone to extraordinary lengths in seeking public input. They hosted two big community meetings, small group meetings with residents and stakeholders, took online and paper surveys and created a website called overtongateway.com.

But the Lea's Woods neighborhood opposed the plan from the start, arguing that the complex that reaches five stories high in places is out of character with other buildings no taller than two stories in the historic district, and that the 195 units would flood the neighborhood with too many vehicles.

The plan includes 153 on-site parking spaces serving the 141 units on the south side of Sam Cooper and 64 spaces serving the 54 spaces on the north side. The proposed 217 spaces exceed zoning requirements.

Still, planning board member Rob Norcross abstained from voting because of his concern that parking would be inadequate since many of the one- and two-bedroom units would draw more than one vehicle each.

Also abstaining was Scott Fleming, because is is the architect for Overton Gateway. James Toles voted ''yes,'' and chairman Jon McCreery, Lisa Wilbanks, Mary Sharp, Desiree Wallace and Alfred Washington voted "no.''

Other historic landmark neighborhoods had joined in the opposition, saying approval would weaken their ability to uphold their preservation guidelines against future developments.

Bobby Carter, president of the nearby Hein Park neighborhood association, spoke Thursday in opposition. He said the site presents "a beautiful opportunity to be a Midtown gateway.''

Instead, with such tall buildings at the corners, Overton Gateway would be more like a tunnel, Carter said.

The buildings holding apartments reach four stories on the southeast corner, but the plan includes an "amenity'' building with community rooms, leasing office and a fifth floor as an "architectural element.'' The two buildings with apartments on the northeast corner are three stories.

The nearby Broad Avenue business district has supported the proposal, arguing that that density is good for a city that should be building up, not out, and that Memphis needs the additional property tax revenue that apartments would generate.

The project has had a high profile because the tract straddles such a prominent junction: The T-intersection of Sam Cooper Boulevard and East Parkway. That's where 25,000 vehicles pass daily at the east edge of Overton Park and Midtown.

On the larger south side of the development, the buildings taper to three- and two-stories tall as they get farther from the corner and closer to the neighboring houses.

In the middle of the south parcel are four townhomes, and the east end of the parcel has six "big houses'' -- each with four units -- that would sit across Autumn from the Lea's Woods houses.

The term "big houses'' had confused McCreery, the board chairman. He told the development team he mistakenly thought those were large single-family houses instead of four-unit apartment buildings. McCreery asked if the developer would consider changing those to single-family homes since they are across the street from existing houses.

"That's not our intent,'' a development designer said. "They are designed to look like single-family homes.''

The smaller, two-acre parcel on the north side of Sam Cooper has a pair of three-story buildings with 54 apartments total. A plaza with public art would be built on the corner.

In community meetings hosted by the developer, many residents have said they preferred the site be developed for single-family residences. But building single-family houses near the divided, six-lane Sam Cooper would not work well, project designers have said.

Previous planning studies approved by the city have called for apartments to be place there, at least on the southeast corner.

Project designers had already altered the plan in other ways, including breaking a relatively few big buildings into more, smaller buildings, and increasing the landscaped buffer between the apartment parking lots and the houses.

Fleming, the architect, created a design that he has said fits with the historic Lea's Woods, including porches, low-pitched gabled roofs, raised foundations, battered masonry columns, brick, lap siding and stone veneers.