Neighbors purchase blighted property with designs on a pocket park

It isn't a high-rise office building or multi-unit condominium project, but one of the latest development projects in Downtown Memphis may be utilized by the tenants of such nearby buildings.
 
Located at 151 Madison Ave. at the corner of Maggie H. Isabell St., in the shadow of the First Tennessee Bank building and neighbor to various restaurants and offices, a long-uninhabited Burger King building has been purchased by the Center City Development Corp. with plans to be razed. In its nearly 7,000-square-foot footprint will grow a small neighborhood park. The green space should be a welcome sight to those office dwellers and business owners who have walked past the boarded up, blighted eyesore for decades.
 
Center City Development Corp., an arm of the Downtown Memphis Commission, purchased the building for $175,000 in February. Funds were volunteered by neighborhood stakeholders such as First Tennessee, the Hyde Foundation and attorney Scott Crosby, co-owner of the Brass Door Irish Pub, which sits just across the street in the old Marx & Bensdorf building.
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