VOL. 132 | NO. 167 | Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Related Articles City Asks EDGE to Delay Vote on New Graceland Expansion Plans

The next phase in Graceland’s expansion in Whitehaven will be a $40 million to $50 million investment in a 6,000- to 7,000-seat theater and event center about where the Heartbreak Hotel currently stands.

Officials with Elvis Presley Enterprises talked about the next phase during a Tuesday, Aug. 22, presentation to Memphis City Council members in committee sessions.

Attorney Jay Campbell said the event center, planned for an early 2019 opening, would include retail and museum areas in addition to the theater and would have an impact beyond Graceland’s footprint in Whitehaven. It would host approximately 50 events a year.

Graceland’s footprint expanded last October with the opening of the $92 million Guest House at Graceland hotel-resort and the $45 million Elvis Presley’s Memphis entertainment complex this past March.

“This would introduce people to Whitehaven,” Campbell told the council, adding that the theater would fill a gap among entertainment venues in the city between the 2,300 seats at the Orpheum and the 20,000 concert seats at FedExForum.

It’s a gap that others in the Memphis entertainment industry have talked about, including Southern Heritage Classic founder and veteran concert promoter Fred Jones Jr.

The improvements would be financed by upping the percentage of property tax increment Graceland currently gets in the way of property tax growth.

Campbell said at a later date, EPE will be asking the council to up the percentage or flow of the increment from 50 percent to 65 percent.

Graceland would also add a $1 per ticket surcharge on events at the theater, community events excluded, that would go to the Economic Development Growth Engine organization to support economic development in the broader Whitehaven area. That would be for the life of the TIF and five years after that.