Among the many activities leading up to the Liberty Bowl at Memphis last week, a favorite for University of Arkansas football players and coaches was their visit to Bass Pro at The Pyramid development overlooking the Mississippi River. It has been quite a transformation for a facility that long was referred to as the Tomb of Doom.
In the 1950s, Memphis artist Mark C. Hartz came up with a futuristic plan to build three pyramids overlooking the river. Years later, Hartz's son resurrected the idea and convinced local entrepreneur John Tigrett to take on the project. Tigrett brought Sidney Shlenker to town to assist with construction of what then was being called The Great American Pyramid. The flamboyant Shlenker descended on the Bluff City like a character out of The Music Man. He talked a big game, and Memphis residents began buying what he was selling. After all, he once owned the Denver Nuggets and had been the chief executive of the company that ran the Astrodome in Houston.
Shlenker was born at Monroe, La., in 1936. Two years later, his family moved to Houston. Shlenker's father became wealthy in the liquor business and real estate, eventually purchasing a bank. Shlenker headed to Tulane University at New Orleans after high school but had little interest in his studies. He returned to Houston without a degree and worked his way up the ladder at his father's bank. Shlenker teamed up with an insurance salesman named Allen Becker in 1966 to convince a client to sponsor a boat show at the then-new Astrodome. Becker and Shlenker decided to form a company to produce events at the Astrodome. By 1990, their Pace Entertainment Co. was producing multiple Broadway touring shows, hundreds of rock concerts, dozens of motorcycle races and even tractor pulls. Shlenker owned 45 percent of Pace until the early 1990s but let Becker run the day-to-day operations beginning in 1968. That allowed Shlenker to concentrate on marketing the Astrodome.
Shlenker's most famous event was the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. In 1982, Shlenker became a minority owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team. In 1985, he sold his interest in the Rockets and purchased the Denver Nuggets for $20 million from a fellow Texan, Red McCombs. Four years after that, he sold the Nuggets for $65 million. Flush with money, Shlenker turned his eyes to the Great American Pyramid.
Shlenker told the New York Times: "It's going to be a monument like the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower, a signature for the city. The difference is, this will have something inside it." Memphis magazine named Shlenker its Memphian of the Year for 1989 and put him on the cover. The project, however, had problems from the start. The groundbreaking ceremony was in September 1989, and the Pyramid opened in November 1991 without the amenities promised. On opening night, the arena floor flooded. The acoustics and sightlines left much to be desired. The surrounding Pinch neighborhood never fully developed into the tourist attraction that had been promised to Memphis taxpayers. Shlenker and Tigrett stopped talking to each other, and Shlenker moved to Los Angeles. He was involved in a 1998 highway accident there that left him a paraplegic and died in 2003 at age 66. When Memphis landed an NBA team, the new tenant declared that its stay at The Pyramid would only be temporary. The FedEx Forum was built adjacent to Beale Street at a cost of more than $250 million and opened in 2004.
The Pyramid went dark. Some said it should become a casino. Others proposed an outlet mall or an indoor theme park. Enter Johnny Morris of Springfield, Mo., who had started his career selling fishing supplies in the back of a liquor store owned by his father. Bass Pro Shops was incorporated in 1971, and Morris added a catalog business three years later. Bass Tracker boats became part of the growing Morris empire in 1978. In 1984, Morris began construction of a giant showroom in Springfield that would become one of Missouri's top tourist attractions. His Big Cedar Lodge on Table Rock Lake opened near the Arkansas border in 1988, and the first Bass Pro Shop outside Missouri opened at Atlanta in 1995.
Morris saw potential in the empty Pyramid and began talking to Memphis officials in 2005. Negotiations bogged down at times, but the city announced a tentative agreement in 2008. In June 2010, the city signed an agreement with Bass Pro to lease The Pyramid for 55 years and redevelop the structure. The city committed $105 million to help with seismic retrofitting and other improvements. Bass Pro invested another $30 million. Finally something was going right. The Tomb of Doom became the Tomb of Boom. Almost 700 employees were hired. A replica of a cypress swamp was built between the retail displays. There are archery and gun ranges, a Ducks Unlimited museum, a 30th-floor observation deck, aquariums, restaurants, a bowling alley and even a 103-room hotel.
The massive facility opened in April, and the turnstile count reached 1 million by July. That's far more people than visit Graceland. Morris said the facility has been such a success that he's considering adding a second hotel downtown and perhaps a zip line. All of downtown Memphis has benefited. The owner of The Majestic restaurant on Main Street said May was the best month in the nine years the restaurant has been in business. Almost a quarter of a century after it opened, The Pyramid appears to finally have found its highest and best use.
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate communications for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 01/06/2016