A great honor...
The Cochran Building at 3386 Bowen Ave won the 2024 ULI Memphis Tommy Pacello Award. The award is given annually to recognize a local development project that demonstrates the built environment values & principles Tommy Pacello championed: small scale, low cost, high impact. This humble little 2-story shoebox at the corner of National and Bowen, on a reviving little corridor in the Highland Heights neighborhood was a teardown by all accounts, crumbling and rotted. Built using substandard materials that were sometimes used a century ago. Dane Forlines had a different idea. He saw qualities worth saving, he saw an opportunity. He was open to suggestions. The 2nd floor was a disaster, so he thought maybe just mothball it, what we really need is an urban corner retail space, and here it is. Dane and I talked, and I suggested: Why not remove the 2nd floor then, have a nice double height space. We can affordably build a cable braced timber frame inside it, so the weak masonry walls can remain simply as a veneer. It'll be earthquake resistant. So Dane said ok and hired me. The rest was easy because Dane, who got the project rolling and funded while working for the developer (Heights CDC), changed gears to stay on as the General Contractor. And after weeks of discussing and studying my drawings, he was completely prepared for this undertaking. This light filled airy space is now becoming the home to Cxffeeblack a neighborhood based Coffee Roaster and Club. I feel grateful to have been a part of this project: that my initial excitement and hope, would not only come to fruition, but would be awarded this very special Award.