A major adaptive reuse project in downtown’s South City area is underway at 158 Vance Ave., where Oden & Associates Inc., a B2B marketing and communications firm, will relocate its headquarters early next year. South City is enjoying a rejuvenation of late with the rehab of the historic Clayborn Temple, the redevelopment of the Universal Life Building and the demolition of Foote Homes for the upcoming new construction of multifamily housing.

If there’s one thing Memphis doesn’t lack, it’s parks. The Bluff City is home to 167 parks. With 3,219 acres of public green space to maintain, Memphis City Beautiful is beginning a recruiting push for its Adopt-A-Park program.

On September 21, the City of Memphis hosted a public meeting to update residents about plans for the Fairgrounds, which includes exploring the idea of a youth sports complex to host basketball, volleyball, cheer and other indoor competitions. It could also include swimming and diving pools and exterior fields for soccer and rugby.

Founded after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, the Memphis Panel of American Women sought to address inequality in Memphis by speaking up about their own experiences with prejudice. 

The University of Tennessee Health and Science Center is looking to create a health care safety net around addiction disorders so Tennesseans struggling with dependence have expert care, delivered in a supportive environment. Experts say this method has shown the most success in allowing patients to regain their lives.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 20 former service members commit suicide every day. For veterans of conflict, service dogs can be a practical way to help them overcome stresses as they transition back into everyday life. A new local non-profit has been established to provide returning service members with these working animals.

A nonprofit bakery in Memphis will open this fall in Crosstown Concourse,  and all employees will be paid $15 an hour. Supporters see the project as a model that could improve the quality of life for many Memphians. 

"We can never be the kind of community that we want to be until we have the minority firms have a much larger piece of the pie."

The City of Memphis has rolled out two new grant programs and added to one over the past two weeks – one to support MLK50 events, another to help neighborhood initiatives on crime prevention and finally, upping the grant totals for additional 1968 sanitation strikers.