In Memphis. Bass Pro and Memphis officials, who have been in negotiations since late 2005, have set a November 2011 opening date for the store. The Springfield, Mo.-based retailer plans to turn the unused Pyramid into a $100 million regional center with retail shops, restaurants, offices and a Mississippi River exhibit. The Memphis and Bass Pro courtship has lasted nearly as long as the tap dance happening at the Canal Side project along Buffalo’s Inner Harbor.
The Memphis Business Journal has the story:
The Bass Pro store in the Pyramid is part of a larger $100 million Memphis Gateway Redevelopment Project, which encompasses the Pinch District.
The Bass Pro lease agreement is for 20 years with options for seven renewal periods of five years each for the Pyramid, which has 265,740 square feet of space on 40 acres.
The lease will generate $20 million of lease payments to the city during the period and create more than 1,000 jobs, according to Robert Lipscomb, the city’s pointman on the project.
“This takes an underperforming asset, really an asset which had become a liability, and transforms it into something before our eyes which is productive,” he said.
The project is getting $41 million in Federal Recovery Zone Facility bonds and $27.7 million in Recovery Zone Economic Development bonds. The city is looking to get additional money from the state for other parts of the city, according to Lipscomb.
Bass Pro’s rent could be 2 percent of annual gross sales excluding the sales of boats, recreational vehicles, off-road vehicles and all-terrain vehicles which would be calculated at 1 percent or the minimum percentage rent, whichever is greater. The minimum rent is $880,000 during the first year and $1 million during each subsequent year.
“It’s often said the best things are worth waiting for and that is certainly the case today,” [Memphis Mayor] Wharton said. “I think I can say this without exaggeration that this is the most complex and complicated public/private partnership ever undertaken in this region.”
Wharton said almost half of the Bass Pro customers will come from out of the city. He also emphasized no city taxes are going to the Pyramid and that the building will remain city property.
All of Bass Pro’s plans are not finalized yet but the Pyramid site can be used for much more than a retail store. In addition to retail, the site is approved for a bowling facility, an indoor gun or archery range, an indoor golf range, an aquarium, a museum, a food service court and restaurants. The property can’t have a hotel due to seismic limitations, Hagale said.
Bass Pro Shops has 56 retail stores with stores in East Peoria and Harlingen, Texas opening in 2011. The Canal Side location is also expected to open next year. In May, Thomas Dee, head of Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., told The Buffalo News Bass Pro Shops is “on target to sign a lease in July or August.”
Bass Pro’s Canal Side location has been designed to resemble a canal-era warehouse. The store would include 130,000 square feet of development space, with 121,000 square feet of retail space and 9,000 square feet of restaurant space above a three-level, 532-space parking garage.