Main Street Journal: Opinion Editorial: How to Use the Pyramid by County Commissioner George Flinn

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The following article is taken from the June 2009 issue of the Main Street Journal. Click “Subscribe Online” above to start your subscription.

How to Use the Pyramid
By: County Commissioner George Flinn

One of the most interestingly designed pyramids - and third largest pyramid in the world - is our very own Pyramid, all 32 stories of it, located in downtown Memphis right on the Mississippi River. You can see it from the air as you approach Memphis at night, and you get a great view of it as you drive over the bridge from Arkansas. This incredible landmark is taller than the Statue of Liberty and the Taj Mahal, and was home to some great basketball. With a seating capacity of 21,000, the Pyramid hosted national basketball tournaments, concerts, and family events. Well, my fellow citizens, we now know that the game is over.

Once owned and operated by both Shelby County and the City of Memphis, the Pyramid was recently sold by Shelby County to the City of Memphis for a mere 3.5 million dollars. In my opinion, this was a bad deal. The County’s portion of the cost was ten times that amount. I don’t want to be a pessimist, but the businessman in me doesn’t think the Bass Pro Shop is going to open in the Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying I don’t want the Bass Pro Shop to relocate to our city. In fact, I’d love it. I just know in these economic times, using business judgment, Bass Pro will likely not be doing a major expansion. I presume we will be left with a vacant building and a financial loss. I had a plan to utilize the property in a real way and build in a benefit to the local economy, the tax base, and our lackluster image. I was waiting for the Bass Pro deal to have run its course so I wouldn’t muddy the waters, but when selling the County’s interest in the Pyramid reached our agenda, I wanted to let my colleagues know that there were other options for the Pyramid – that it was not ‘Bass Pro or Bust.’

I proposed that one of the most efficient and economically wise solutions would have been to move all City and County government offices into the Pyramid, providing a one-stop-shop for individuals to take care of all of their transactions. Shelby County and Memphis City officials would have experienced improved, and probably much more effective, communication with each other. We spend about $220,000 annually to lease parking spaces for Shelby County employees. The Pyramid has a veritable plethora of parking. Could the Pyramid be retrofitted for good office space? The architects with whom I spoke said ‘Yes!’

What to do about all the vacated buildings throughout downtown Memphis and in Shelby County? Not to worry, I had an opportunity for that too! I proposed that we utilize the vacated office buildings as incentives to bring new businesses to Shelby County and Memphis. The lease incentives could replace the controversial PILOTS that we now use to attract new businesses to the area. This is not a complex solution; but it is one that would work. It’s the kind of solution that I have used to be successful in business, and unfortunately, the kind of solution that most government officials just don’t get. Even in these challenging economic times, the instinct of bureaucrats remains the same: to ‘fix’ a problem by taxing, spending, or shortsightedly dumping assets for a quick fix of (a very little) cash.

I am disappointed that Shelby County has taken such a great financial loss, has lost the opportunity to make an efficient use of space, and has lost improved communication between Shelby County and Memphis government, which as we all know is crucial to our stability. I am mostly disappointed that the necessity to change how we do things hasn’t become a reality in the halls of County government.

In these challenging economic times, we cannot afford to run government business as usual. It’s time that we begin to think differently if we are going to emerge from this economic morass.

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