Crowning the Concourse: Lit tower to house owner's apartment, event space, offices

Work is finally starting to turn the Crosstown Concourse tower -- the building's icon that reaches 14 floors -- into an event space, office areas and an apartment for the building's publicity-shy owner.

The plan includes lighting the tower's exterior at night.

"Think Empire State Building, but a very much smaller version of that,'' Crosstown Concourse development co-leader Todd Richardson said of the lighting effect.

Most of the 1.1 million-square-foot Crosstown Concourse looks like a long,10-story-tall box, but one covered in windows.

That mixed-use space is filling fast with about 40 nonprofit and for-profit tenants. And 92 percent of the 265 apartments are leased.

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Now, 31 months after the groundbreaking ceremony and one month after the grand-opening event, comes the crowning in-fill: Work is starting inside the tower of the 90-year-old building that housed a Sears regional warehouse and retail center more than six decades.

Generally, floors 7 through 10 are filled with apartments, with offices and retail on floors 1-6. Only the tower reaches 11 to 14 stories.

Richardson this week described the development plan for the tower. Grinder, Taber & Grinder construction crews will convert the 5,000-square-foot 11th floor into commercial space that will be marketed for leasing.

The 12th floor will be Staley Cates' apartment. The 11th floor dimensions are wider than the 12th floor, so the 11th floor roof will provide deck or patio areas for the apartment.

The 13th floor will be 900 square feet of office space, available for leasing. Bathrooms there will serve both the 13th and 14th floors.

And the 14th floor will be turned into a 1,500-square-foot event space available to rent for parties, receptions and other events.

Having housed a large tank that stored water for the building's fire sprinkler system, the 14th floor has a 38-foot-tall ceiling and exceptionally tall, slender windows.

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The tower section not only soars above the east end, it was the face of Sears that fronted busy North Watkins. The tower is the part of the building that features the art deco ornamentation and much of the building's character.

Cates is an investment manager who, doing business as Crosstown LLC, bought the vacant building in 2007 for $3.5 million.

Three years later, University of Memphis art history professor Todd Richardson and video artist Chris Miner emerged as the leaders and public faces of the nonprofit Crosstown Arts organization headquartered across the street from the blighted Sears building.

Soon after, McLean Wilson, principal with development company Kemmons Wilson Inc., joined Richardson as co-leader of the development team that would revive the mammoth building.

All the while, the project leaders did not identify the building owner. That revelation did not occur until the team asked the City Council in late 2013 for $15 million in infrastructure work for the project. Council members asked who they would be giving the money to, and Cates was identified.

Wilson, the development co-leader, told council members at the time that Cates bought the building for a civic use.

"The anonymity had everything to do with the fact it's not about them. It's about the neighborhood, it's about the founding partners" of the development, Wilson had said.