Every month, the Center City Commission’s “Inside Downtown” program hosts businesspeople, homeowners, and other people with a stake in Downtown Memphis, taking them on a tour of a notable building or area. This month’s meeting happened this past Thursday, May 3, and was a tour of the “New Main” block between Union and Gayoso. Once the most blighted block of the Main Street Mall, it now is home to apartments, condos, Sauces restaurant, Wang’s China Bistro, a dental office, and an eye doctor. The block now serves as a model for the redevelopment of the rest of Main Street. Here are a few pics from the event:
CCC president Jeff Sanford gives a presentation about New Main at Wang’s China Bistro. Wang’s was nice enough to host the event and provide a buffet for guests.
The audience listens to Jeff’s presentation at Wang’s before heading out on a self-guided tour of the block.
I want to make special note of See Main Street, the optometry clinic located on the New Main block. I don’t wear glasses or contacts myself, but several of my friends have gone there and have heaped praise upon the place – they’ve even told me, “Paul, you need to mention it in your blog.” So I went in and talked to them – they told me their 3 doctors see patients Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and do glasses and contact fittings Tuesday and Thursday. You can check out their website for more info.
This is a pic of one of the units at the One One O’Six Lofts, a condo development across the street from See Main Street. The first units have just recently been completed and the first tenants have moved in.
Another pic of the One One O’Six unit. There are 18 units in the building and some are still available; here’s a flyer with more information.
I also stopped in Main Street Dental, and they were super-friendly. They gave me a tour of the office… they use technology to make the experience as painless and as little like a dental office as possible. They told me that the dental chairs massage you as you sit in them, for example, and their X-rays are digital and emit only a quarter of the rays that a traditional dental X-ray would. By the time I got back to the front, it was pouring rain, and they gave me a plastic dental chair cover to use as a poncho. Nice people. Here’s a link to an MBJ article about Main Street Dental.
Thanks to Jeff, Nicole and all the folks at the CCC, and the businesses on New Main, for a great tour.