Here comes the neighborhood: Residents want to revitalize Westwood
Peggy Robinson has been known in her Westwood community as “Ms. Peggy” since she moved there in 1971 and opened Peggy’s Beauty Salon in the neighborhood in 1975.
“We had good business in the community,” Robinson said. “We had a service station, a bank. Furthermore, we had Levi Strauss, who made the jeans in the (Burnwood) shopping center. We had the food stamp office in the shopping center. We had a small grocery store in the shopping center, and we had a club in the shopping center. We had a community. We had everything we needed.”
That’s no longer the case in Westwood. The closest bank is in neighboring Whitehaven, more than three miles away from the heart of Westwood. The closest grocery store is about four miles away.
But neighborhood leaders are looking at strategies to bring more business and economic vitalization back to the area. An early part of the plan was to hold two events at the former Southwest Twin Drive-In site, located off Raines Road near Highway 61, earlier this summer: a community clean-up on Saturday, June 24, and a block party on Saturday, July 29.
The City of Memphis purchased the former drive-in, which has been abandoned for two decades, in 2022 and has proposed ideas that include a new library and a police station at the site. But residents and community leaders say they want to see more businesses move into the neighborhood as well.
“It is not just about (revitalizing) the drive-in,” said the Rev. Melvin Watkins, pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church — Westwood and one of the founders of Uplift Westwood Community Development Corporation. “Some of the plans right now are the police station, library. (We) want to have retail space, a place for children to come, opportunities for children to grow and to learn.”
Uplift Westwood focuses on the redevelopment of Westwood with programs such as youth development, but Watkins said he also wants to address blight and add partners who will invest in the area. He said he plans to provide capital to the neighborhood via the CDC.
The process for redeveloping Westwood started about a decade ago with mapping the area’s assets, Watkins said.
“Just seeing what we have and what we do not have and what we need to address in the community,” he said.
One of the first assets identified was the Southwest Twin Drive-In. Originally opened in 1956, it closed in 2001.
During the community clean-up in June, Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford Sr. said he could envision a police precinct on the site and a new library. But he also encouraged community members to contact Watkins with suggestions about what they’d like to see built on the property.
“We’ve got a lot of things we’re planning on doing, but we’ve got so much space,” Ford said. “If we had a new library and new police precinct, we could still keep one of these screens, and we could look at movies, too.”
Some Westwood residents have voiced displeasure about not having a bank, grocery store or other businesses, such as a fancy restaurant or a movie theater.
“I just want to see the neighborhood grow again and thrive,” Kevin Rayford, owner of Westwood’s Rayford All In One Hot Wings, said recently. “Bring the library here, bring the police precinct here but also other businesses and things for the young people to do. Bring some more entertainment here, like a community center.”
Robinson — Ms. Peggy — agrees.
“I want to see a business that once (was) thinking about coming back, like Westwood shopping center,” Robinson said. “They got four or five, six (vacant) slots; no one’s in there. And, it is just going down and going down. I want to see (the City of Memphis) bring that back to life.”
In a community meeting held at Mount Vernon Baptist Church — Westwood in March 2022, local residents and a panel that included Memphis Parks Director Nick Walker, Ford Sr. and Edmund Ford Jr. discussed proposals for Westwood.
In that meeting, then-Memphis chief operating officer Doug McGowen said the city cannot force businesses to relocate to Westwood, but that residents have the city’s commitment that it will help make changes.
“For businesses that are hesitant to come out here, that is their loss,” Watkins said. “It is going to be their loss because this place is on an uptick. It is going to be great, and if the businesses do not come out here, we will raise up our own business owners.
“We have individuals out here that are bright and brilliant and all they need is an opportunity. ... Everything that we want to see, it is here right now. We just have to put some structure around it.”