Update July 16, 2007: The zoning committee of the Jackson City Council today voted to delay a $75 million development by the Jackson Medical Mall. People over the project fear the 30-day delay could essentially kill the project. Councilmen Leslie McLemore, Kenneth Stokes, Frank Bluntson and Charles Tillman voted to hold the project. Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon disagreed.
A local developer fears that a proposed $75 million development project near the Jackson Medical Mall could crash when the council holds a vote on the project at a zoning meeting on Monday. Former Department of Planning and Economic Development Director Carl Allen said he feared Mayor Frank Melton might oppose the project, proposed by MPI Center, LLC. Allen said the mayor might also use his voting bloc of three council members to tie approval of the project with a 3-to-3 vote, essentially killing it.
"I'm getting messages from the mayor's office that the neighborhood doesn't want us over there so he's not going to be in favor of it either," Allen told the Jackson Free Press. "I know how the votes tend to go on the council when the mayor takes a stance, so I fear the worst."
Councilmen Kenneth Stokes, Charles Tillman and Frank Bluntson vote in accord with the mayor, causing a 3-3 tie on controversial issues ever since the abrupt departure of swing-voting Councilman Ben Allen last month.
Melton has not returned calls for comments.
Livingston Village would transform the site of the closed Hood Furniture plant on Livingston Rd into a 72-acre mixed use development containing condominiums, single family homes, a job training center, a daycare, retail and office space.
Attorney James Peden, who represents MPI head Michael Smith, told the JFP that the project would employ 350 workers during the construction phase and provide 300 full-time and 50 part-time jobs after construction.
"We expect the annual sales tax to the city to be approximately $150,000 per year. We estimate that ad valorem taxes should go up to $647,000 each year," Peden said, adding that MPI also planned to make $3.1 million in street improvements, almost $3 million in drainage improvements, $770,000 in sewer improvements and $655,000 in water line replacement and construction.
Councilman Kenneth Stokes said recently that he opposed the development, despite the influx of new money it would bring Ward 3, one of the poorer wards in the city.
"We don't need another gated community in this city," Stokes said. "And I've got an ethical problem with two former city employees using their position to make money like this. I don't think that's right."
Allen and former Planning and Development Deputy Director Corinne Fox work for MPI Center.
Allen's fear may prove premature, so long as Tillman and Bluntson don't change their opinions over the weekend. Both council members told the JFP that they strongly supported the development on Friday.
"For the record, I'm for economic development for this city, so they're going to have to prove to me why we shouldn't have it," Bluntson said. "I've talked to (Jackson Medical Mall Foundation Executive Director) Primus Wheeler, over at the Jackson Medical Mall—and you know how beautiful the Medical Mall has become. If Primus Wheeler is for it, I'm for it."
Tillman said the project obviously needed better PR to sell itself to neighborhood residents.
"We need a better way for getting the good things coming to Jackson out to the good people in the neighborhoods, because I don't think they have all the facts," Tillman said. "When you have investors who want to come in and take that land, destroy those old buildings and put in new development that will add to the tax base and make the community more viable, then I have to be very favorable toward that, because I'm very favorable toward the future of Jackson."
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