Crosstown to hold groundbreaking Feb. 21

The mystery will be revealed Feb. 21.

Crosstown Memphis will hold a groundbreaking ceremony next month, which will include a formal ceremony, presentations, new branding launch, exhibitions, new renderings presentation, an iron pour using old radiators from the building, live music, food and more.

Plans of the Crosstown redevelopment began to surface about five years ago, and various details about the project have trickled out via building permits, public financing documents and intermittent interviews.

In late 2013, the Memphis City Council voted to invest $15 million in the project. Contractor Grinder Taber & Grinder Inc. pulled more than $115 million worth of building permits in June 2014. On Dec. 30, Crosstown Building Owner LLC filed an $80.5 million mortgage with SunTrust Bank.

But the redevelopment team behind the project--including building owners Elizabeth and Staley Cates, Todd Richardson and McLean Wilson--has kept the full scope under wraps while financing was secured and other issues settled.

From the Crosstown Memphis website: "Many doubted that one of the largest abandoned buildings in Tennessee could be transformed from debilitating blight into a community asset. But as of February 21st, doing the improbable becomes history."

The redevelopment is uniquely Memphis, from the roster of committed tenants to the people behind the scenes.

Architecture firm Looney Ricks Kiss and Grinder Taber & Grinder are handling the heavy lifting. Named tenants include community stalwarts like Church Health Center, ALSAC, Rhodes College, Gestalt Community Schools, Memphis Teacher Residency, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

A housing component will accompany the project as well, with numerous floors dedicated to apartment development. The Crosstown structure was built in 1927 and abandoned by Sears in 1993. The Cateses, operating as Crosstown LLC, purchased it in 2007.

The $200 million redevelopment plans go beyond the building itself and extend through the 18-acre property and neighborhood surrounding Cleveland Avenue north of Poplar.

The ceremony will be held 88 years to the day after the building's initial groundbreaking in 1927.