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Council Keeps Southbrook Mall Renovation Alive
http://www.memphisdailynews.com/news...ovation-alive/

Memphis City Council members voted Tuesday, Nov. 5, to start over again in plans to find a legal use for city funds in renovating the Southbrook Mall in Whitehaven.

And the administration of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. gave a qualified endorsement through what amounts to a new feasibility study on the mall due before the council in a month.

The council approved $1.5 million in funding in October for general renovation of the mall contingent on a legal opinion about whether the funding would be for an illegal private use.

The funding would have come from state and federal money for improvements to the Elvis Presley Boulevard streetscape that will not be spent this year. But if the funding had been used for what federal officials later determined was a private use, it would have endangered the larger amount of federal funding for the streetscape improvements as well.

Meanwhile, the council approved $7.5 million in capital funding for initial project work on a redevelopment of the Raleigh Springs Mall. The money from the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development is a transfer from a line item that was to go to building a new Memphis Police traffic precinct near the mall. The city has tentative plans to relocate the traffic precinct to the footprint of the mall.

The council also approved on the second of three readings an ordinance that would establish a retirement supplement for city sanitation workers of up to $1,000 per worker per year. The supplement is to be funded with savings from an overhaul of sanitation services that the council is scheduled to vote on next month.