The following is an excerpt from our January issue:

By: Michael Roy Hollihan

One Beale Street is already the most daring skyscraper to ever grace the Memphis skyline, and it has not yet been built. The hotel, condominium, and commercial center, which should be completed in 2010, is primed to become Memphis’ new exclamation mark along the Mississippi – our point of emphasis –a strong statement of a faith in the future of commerce and growth in Memphis.

One Beale, which was introduced to the public last August, is bold and post-modern in style. Gone are the traditional angles found in most downtown buildings. Instead, there are sharp cuts along the main glassy tower. The focal point is not the peak, but rather the middle, where the angles come to a point. The effect is much like a flash of light emanating from the center of the building. Like the daring designs behind the new Opera Memphis and the downtown Cannon Center, the concept behind One Beale pushes downtown architecture into the new twenty-first century.

Chance Carlisle, Director of Special Projects for the Carlisle Corporation, developers of the One Beale, calls the sky-scraper sky-altering – a building of stature that sings. “It is a prominent piece of land,” Carlisle says of the site. “The ground itself has history. It deserves something of stature.”

To achieve this stature, the Carlisle Corporation is hoping to make One Beale the tallest building on the Memphis skyline, barely edging out 100 North Main Street. The final design will boast of two towers, one reaching twenty-seven stories, the other a neck-wrenching thirty stories. The wow-factor, both in design in reach, is exactly what Carlisle is banking on to lure tenants and investors.

In 1980, Gene Carlisle, Founder and Owner of the Carlisle Corporation, took on development of the One Beale site, home to the Beale Street Landing. During the eighties and the early nineties, downtown was stuck in a period of neglect and decay. During that time, Carlisle explored a number of options to develop the land, but nothing would come to fruition.

Then in 2003, Hurricane Elvis swept through Memphis, carving a path of destruction throughout downtown. It also created the perfect opening for Carlisle. The Beale Street Landing was damaged beyond repair. It would have to be torn down and built back up. Carlisle saw this as his opportunity to take the Beale Street site and develop it into something worthwhile.

As the Carlisle Corporation began to move forward with plans for the One Beale, they immediately discovered that the landing was actually owned by the West Tennessee Historical Society. This meant that Carlisle did not have autonomy over the development of the land. Rather, it brought on eighteen months of negotiations and public hearings to make sure the property was developed in proper fashion.

By August 2006, the Carlisle group was finally able to unveil their plans, releasing their designs for the One Beale Street Building.

The designs were impressive, not like anything seen before along the Memphis skyline. However, not everyone was impressed. Neighboring developments like the Waterford Plaza and the Candy Factory Condominiums immediately voiced their concerns. They were not happy with the tall, new, muscular building that would appear along their side. Representatives showed up at the following Land Use Zoning meeting and forced a thirty-day freeze on the One Beale approval.

The Carlisle group was stunned. They had spent twenty-five years working to develop this land. Chance Carlisle himself had been immersed in every step of One Beale for nearly two years. He had just assumed that everyone was as familiar with the project as he was.

The thirty-day freeze in essence put the Carlisle group back at square one. Still, they refused to give up on the development. Instead, they gathered together their design plans, along with their architects, and sat down with representatives from the opposition.

The Carlisle group heard worries about possible parking restraints and the prospect of clogged site lines. Tenants in other buildings were concerned they would wake up one day with a concrete wall out their window. To their credit, the Carlisle group listened patiently, and then went back to the drawing board. They brought out some earlier design concepts and resurrected resurrected the present two-tower design.

“You can solve a lot of problems through communications,” Chase Carlisle said, looking back on those discussions.

Instead of fighting with the opposition and with groups like the Riverfront Development Corporation, Carlisle pulled them into the process and adjusted One Beale according to many of their valid concerns.

The result was a consensus, which was approved by the Memphis City Council in October.

As eager as the Carlisle Corporation has been to make its mark on the Memphis skyline, there is also seems to be a genuine desire to maintain that New Urban style which has marked a number of other projects downtown. The goal is a pedestrian-friendly campus that encourages walking, mingling, and lingering. This means a strong mix of self-supporting commercial, residential, office, and retail space – along with a vibrant artistic and cultural scene. The result, according to the Carlisle group, is a development filled with tenants and investors, bursting with vitality.

Therein lays the upcoming challenge for the Carlisle Corporation – filling all that space.

The great success story of Memphis over the past fifteen years has been the revitalization of downtown. Suburbanites have been drawn back to downtown living by vibrant developments such as Harbortown, Peabody Place, AutoZone, AutoZone Park, South Main Street, Mud Island, and the FedEx Forum. Every vacant building available for residential zoning has either been turned into luxury condominiums, or is headed that direction soon.

But to walk through downtown today you can begin to see the subtle signs of over a decade of sustained growth. Space for rent signs are popping up with more frequency. Downtown development is still enjoying its long upswing, but the ceiling is somewhere. With a host of other downtown developments already underway, the big question facing One Beale is whether space will still be a high commodity in three years from now. In blunt terms, will Carlisle be able to fill up the luxury space it is preparing?

With 250 hotel rooms, 150 condominiums, 70,000 square feet of office space and 70,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, the Carlisle Corporation has their work cut out for them. Still, they are betting on that wow factor to give them a tangible advantage over the other developments popping up downtown.

The Carlisle Corporation has already purchased the property across from One Beale to serve as their new sales office. With $150 million poured into the property, the group is anxious to begin signing contracts. Condominiums will start selling at $500,000 and stretch into the multi-millions. Chance Carlisle seems optimistic. For example, early interest in penthouses has caused the number to double, from two to four. “The interest is more than I would have ever thought.”

And for the Carlisle Corporation, three years removed from a finished product, that is a very good thing.