South Main Artspace Lofts

New Vitality for a Historic Arts District

138 St. Paul Avenue Memphis, TN, 38126

Overview

Although an Artspace project is often the first step in a community’s plan to create an arts district, Memphis presents a different challenge: to help an existing arts district achieve a new level of vibrancy. Memphis’ South Main Historic Arts District offers boutiques, coffee shops, galleries, and restaurants, as well as noteworthy attractions like the National Civil Rights Museum.

The South Main Artspace Lofts will help facilitate change. In partnership with the City of Memphis and the Hyde Family Foundations, Artspace will transform a historic three-story warehouse and an adjacent parking lot into a mixed-use arts facility with 63 affordable live/work units for artists and their families, and community/gallery space. A permanent population of artists in South Main will energize and stimulate the entire Arts District, giving it a stronger personality than ever before.

The South Main Artspace Lofts will transform a vacant block of the neighborhood into a hub of creative activity and is part of roughly $200 million in investments to the South Main district including renovations to the National Civil Rights Museum, the Orpheum Theatre, and the Main Street to Main Street Multi-Modal Connector Project. It is clear that the South Main Arts District is changing rapidly. Creating permanent, sustainable, affordable housing for artists to live in the historic arts district is a critical need of the neighborhood.

Funders: Tennessee Housing Development Agency; City of Memphis; City of Memphis, Division of Housing and Community Development; Center City Development Corporation, Downtown Memphis Commission; The Health, Educational, and Housing Facility Board of the City of Memphis; The Health, Education, and Housing Facility Board of Shelby County; Delta Regional Authority; Pinnacle Bank; First Tennessee Housing Corporation; Tennessee Arts Commission; National Endowment for the Arts; Hyde Family Foundations; Pyramid Peak Foundation; The Assisi Foundation of Memphis; Educational Foundation of America; AutoZone; Ford Foundation; First Tennessee Foundation; Nelda and Tyrone Burroughs; Southern Sun Asset Management; LOEB Properties; Ellen and Jay Heavilon; Dianne and Myron Mall

est. 2018

Type of Development:

Live/Work Artist Housing

Number of Units:

63

Total Project Cost:

$17M