Every year, 600,000 people pay as much as $74 to tour Elvis Presley’s Memphis mansion, gaping at animal skulls and stained-glass peacocks, lime-green shag carpet on the Jungle Room’s floor and lime-green shag carpet on its ceiling.

Now a development authority plans to sell as much as $125 million in bonds in January to finance improvements at Graceland. They’re counting on the curious to keep streaming to the privately owned estate for decades, generating sales, property and special tourism taxes to pay the debt over as long as 30 years.

A 450-room hotel and conference center, restaurants, a theater, and as much as seven acres of retail and exhibit space are envisioned. The improvements will “preserve the incomparable legacy of Elvis Presley, The Icon and The Man,” say documents detailing the plan.

“We want to solidify the Elvis brand, give it a new sheen and polish,” said Reid Dulberger, chief executive of the Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County, which will issue the bonds in a private placement.

The facilities “were old and tired,” he said. “Our concern was that we wouldn’t continue to see the kind of return visits that we see year after year from the faithful.”
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Good rockin’

Memphis, on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, has a population of 653,450, of whom 63 percent are black and 27 percent live below the poverty line. It has lost 35,700 jobs since the recession, according a report from the Greater Memphis Chamber. An improved Graceland would have a $1 billion impact on Memphis’ economy over the next 15 years, according to documents distributed by backers.

Success depends on the staying power of a legend.

Presley was born in 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, and got his first guitar at age 11. Two years later, the family moved to Memphis, home of Beale Street, where a signature blues sound prevailed. Presley recorded his first songs at what would become Sun Studio.

His blend of rock, blues and gospel, his looks and his swivel-hipped dances drove teenage girls to frenzy — “a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac” was Frank Sinatra’s description. He became the King of Rock ’n’ Roll and a movie star. Composer Leonard Bernstein called him “the greatest cultural force in the 20th century.”
[[[bold subhed]]]

Burning love

As the years passed, a penchant for prescription drugs and fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches undermined his health and bloated his body. He took to the stage in sequined jump suits and jewelry, striking karate-inspired poses.

Presley bought Graceland in 1957, and decorated it with gaudy verve.

The Jungle Room includes monkey statues, a stone wall with ivy and a mammoth coffee table of petrified wood. The pleated fabric ceiling of the billiards room drapes above the game table like an upside-down sofa pillow. Television screens line the media room.

Presley died in a Graceland bathroom at 42 in 1977 and is buried next to his parents near the swimming pool.

His daughter, Lisa Marie, owns the estate and more than 1 million artifacts, including Cadillacs, costumes, guitars and a 41-carat ruby and diamond ring. The mansion opened to the public in 1982, becoming the city’s biggest attraction.
[[[bold subhed]]]

Loving you

It sits on Elvis Presley Boulevard behind a gated wall covered with the scrawled messages to Elvis. Dollar stores, payday lenders, fast-food chains and used-car lots line the road, where vendors sell T-shirts, nuts, wheelchairs and walkers.

Graceland is the third-most-visited home in the U.S., after the White House and the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, according to Elvis Presley Enterprises, which manages the attraction. Twenty-two percent of visitors are from other countries, with Canada and the U.K. in the lead. The Elvis Week waiting list at Graceland’s 128-room Heartbreak Hotel is 100 years long.

Paying off the new project’s debt will require sustained interest in Presley, said Tom McBride, a professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin who co-authors the “Mindset List,” an enumeration of cultural phenomena familiar to the young. A 15- year-old in 1956, when “Heartbreak Hotel” went to No. 1, would be 73 today.
[[[bold subhed]]]

Ask me

“The boomers remember what it meant to have Elvis come on the scene, the revolutionary effect that it had,” he said. The young “have a vague sense of him as a rock ’n’ roll icon. They might go to Graceland ironically, or maybe out of a sense of curiosity.”

Expansion plans, including a conference-capable hotel, have been discussed for years, said Jack Soden, chief executive of Elvis Presley Enterprises. The idea got traction last year after a partnership led by Joel Weinshanker, founder of National Entertainment Collectibles Association of Hillside, New Jersey, acquired the company.

“Elvis is a huge growth area,” Weinshanker told Bloomberg Television in August.

Documents distributed by the development authority say revenue bonds with a term of 30 years will be sold to finance the expansion. James McLaren, an attorney for the project, said the initial debt will be for a shorter term and then refinanced.
[[[bold subhead]]]

Suspicious minds

Memphis and Shelby County agreed this month to allow half of the new property taxes and all new sales-tax revenue generated by the improvements to go toward the bonds for 20 years. A special sales-tax surcharge will also be charged inside the Graceland zone, raising the levy there to 14 percent from 9 percent.

Memphis, Shelby County and the development authority aren’t responsible for the debt if revenue flags.

Gene Gard, a portfolio manager with Dupree Co. Inc. in Lexington, Kentucky, which manages about $118 million in Tennessee debt, said he is cautious about bonds secured by sometimes-unstable tourism revenue: “We are very careful when it comes to attraction bonds such as these. Any project can be a good investment but it all depends on the way they are secured.”

Greg LeRoy, executive director of Washington-based Good Jobs First, which criticizes tax breaks for private business, said he doubts the economic claims.

“Tourism is a thin reed for supporting jobs,” he said.

For now, Elvis’s crowds are coming.

On a weekday this month, a crowd gathered to wait for packed shuttle buses passing through the gates every 20 minutes. About half of the crowd had gray hair and a few used walkers. Yet among them were a young Peruvian man and a German couple, he with a mohawk and she with a shaved head.~

Every year, 600,000 people pay as much as $74 to tour Elvis Presley’s Memphis mansion, gaping at animal skulls and stained-glass peacocks, lime-green shag carpet on the Jungle Room’s floor and lime-green shag carpet on its ceiling.

Now a development authority plans to sell as much as $125 million in bonds in January to finance improvements at Graceland. They’re counting on the curious to keep streaming to the privately owned estate for decades, generating sales, property and special tourism taxes to pay the debt over as long as 30 years.

A 450-room hotel and conference center, restaurants, a theater, and as much as seven acres (2.8 hectares) of retail and exhibit space are envisioned. The improvements will “preserve the incomparable legacy of Elvis Presley, The Icon and The Man,” say documents detailing the plan.

“We want to solidify the Elvis brand, give it a new sheen and polish,” said Reid Dulberger, chief executive of the Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County, which will issue the bonds in a private placement.

The facilities “were old and tired,” he said. “Our concern was that we wouldn’t continue to see the kind of return visits that we see year after year from the faithful.”

Good Rockin’

Memphis, on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, has a population of 653,450, of whom 63 percent are black and 27 percent live below the poverty line. It has lost 35,700 jobs since the recession, according a report from the Greater Memphis Chamber. An improved Graceland would have a $1 billion impact on Memphis’ economy over the next 15 years, according to documents distributed by backers.

Success depends on the staying power of a legend.

Presley was born in 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, and got his first guitar at age 11. Two years later, the family moved to Memphis, home of Beale Street, where a signature blues sound prevailed. Presley recorded his first songs at what would become Sun Studio.

His blend of rock, blues and gospel, his looks and his swivel-hipped dances drove teenage girls to frenzy — “a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac” was Frank Sinatra’s description. He became the King of Rock ’n’ Roll and a movie star. Composer Leonard Bernstein called him “the greatest cultural force in the 20th century.”

Burning Love

As the years passed, a penchant for prescription drugs and fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches undermined his health and bloated his body. He took to the stage in sequined jump suits and jewelry, striking karate-inspired poses.

Presley bought Graceland in 1957, and decorated it with gaudy verve.

The Jungle Room includes monkey statues, a stone wall with ivy and a mammoth coffee table of petrified wood. The pleated fabric ceiling of the billiards room drapes above the game table like an upside-down sofa pillow. Television screens line the media room.

Presley died in a Graceland bathroom at 42 in 1977 and is buried next to his parents near the swimming pool.

His daughter, Lisa Marie, owns the estate and more than 1 million artifacts, including Cadillacs, costumes, guitars and a 41-carat ruby and diamond ring. The mansion opened to the public in 1982, becoming the city’s biggest attraction.

Loving You

It sits on Elvis Presley Boulevard behind a gated wall covered with the scrawled messages to Elvis. Dollar stores, payday lenders, fast-food chains and used-car lots line the road, where vendors sell T-shirts, nuts, wheelchairs and walkers.

Graceland is the third-most-visited home in the U.S., after the White House and the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, according to Elvis Presley Enterprises, which manages the attraction. Twenty-two percent of visitors are from other countries, with Canada and the U.K. in the lead. The Elvis Week waiting list at Graceland’s 128-room Heartbreak Hotel is 100 years long.

Paying off the new project’s debt will require sustained interest in Presley, said Tom McBride, a professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin who co-authors the “Mindset List,” an enumeration of cultural phenomena familiar to the young. A 15-year-old in 1956, when “Heartbreak Hotel” went to No. 1, would be 73 today.

Ask Me

“The boomers remember what it meant to have Elvis come on the scene, the revolutionary effect that it had,” he said. The young “have a vague sense of him as a rock ’n’ roll icon. They might go to Graceland ironically, or maybe out of a sense of curiosity.”

Expansion plans, including a conference-capable hotel, have been discussed for years, said Jack Soden, chief executive of Elvis Presley Enterprises. The idea got traction last year after a partnership led by Joel Weinshanker, founder of National Entertainment Collectibles Association of Hillside, New Jersey, acquired the company.

“Elvis is a huge growth area,” Weinshanker told Bloomberg Television in August.

Documents distributed by the development authority say revenue bonds with a term of 30 years will be sold to finance the expansion. James McLaren, an attorney for the project, said the initial debt will be for a shorter term and then refinanced.

Suspicious Minds

Memphis and Shelby County agreed this month to allow half of the new property taxes and all new sales-tax revenue generated by the improvements to go toward the bonds for 20 years. A special sales-tax surcharge will also be charged inside the Graceland zone, raising the levy there to 14 percent from 9 percent.

Memphis, Shelby County and the development authority aren’t responsible for the debt if revenue flags.

Gene Gard, a portfolio manager with Dupree Co. Inc. in Lexington, Kentucky, which manages about $118 million in Tennessee debt, said he is cautious about bonds secured by sometimes-unstable tourism revenue: “We are very careful when it comes to attraction bonds such as these. Any project can be a good investment but it all depends on the way they are secured.”

Greg LeRoy, executive director of Washington-based Good Jobs First, which criticizes tax breaks for private business, said he doubts the economic claims.

“Tourism is a thin reed for supporting jobs,” he said.

For now, Elvis’s crowds are coming.

On a weekday this month, a crowd gathered to wait for packed shuttle buses passing through the gates every 20 minutes. About half of the crowd had gray hair and a few used walkers. Yet among them were a young Peruvian man and a German couple, he with a mohawk and she with a shaved head.

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Newkirk in Atlanta at mnewkirk@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net Mark Schoifet

Today’s batch of burning questions, my smart-aleck answers and the real deal:

Question: I was wondering if there was an update on the greenway I hear they are developing over by the French Broad River Park? I see a lot of change to the hillside and I wanted to know where the greenway was headed. Does the city have a plan to keep expanding the greenway around the city? I hope so!

My answer: Yes. They hope you don’t miss I-240 too much, once they tear it up.

Real answer: It’s rolling right along.

“The money has been received to do it, the land is being donated by Duke Energy, and we’re asking for a conservation easement over the property, so it will always be preserved for recreation and conservation,” said Karen Cragnolin, executive director of RiverLink, the nonprofit that has spearheaded rejuvenation of the French Broad River. “All things are possible, now that there’s money.”

Between city and federal funds and Tourism Development Authority dollars, including some funds the city has to match, Cragnolin said about $45 million should be available for the greenways, road alignments, bike paths and other amenities in the River Arts District and other areas.

The greenway at Craven Street is going in now, she said, and residents “should start seeing changes from now on.”

Right now, Asheville has 4.5 miles of contiguous greenway on the French Broad River, and the Duke Energy donation will add another four miles, including both sides of the river, Cragnolin said. That part of greenway runs from Hillside Drive to Craven Street, then from Lyman Avenue to Amboy Road.

Mariate Echeverry, the city of Asheville’s transportation manager, said the city’s Greenway Master Plan shows more future greenway development.

“The city has a consultant engaged to design the French Broad River Greenway West,” Echeverry said. “Duke Energy is currently doing work on the site, before it is transferred to the city, and that is what people see right now going on.”

Question: In the stable cafe area of the Biltmore House they have a mailbox for letters to Santa. Is it true they just toss the kids’ letters in the trash?

My answer: The estate would never treat future annual pass-holders with such disdain.

Real answer: Biltmore Estate spokeswoman LeeAnn Donnelly said “the Santa mailbox is actually just one of several on sale in the shops in the stables complex, where Stable Café is located.

“On occasion, our retail team finds notes to Santa in the boxes,” she said. “When that happens, we make sure the letters are forwarded along to him.”

This is the opinion of John Boyle. To submit a question, contact him at 232-5847 or jboyle@citizen-times.com