Some buildings hold history. Crosstown Concourse hold a whole city, centered at the intersection of art, life and civic drive, where life is lived as a creative process. Here, everyday activity captures the imagination, inspires curiosity and celebrates a mosaic of ideas, sounds and spirits. Join us. Be part of the tapestry of people coming together to create, explore and change the world around us.
Live Life+Art.
To use a building to change how people
experience their lives, their neighborhood
and their city by purposefully creating
unexpected connections.
To purposefully create unexpected connections. Life is lived Better Together.
Early in the morning on August 27, 1927, a New Memphis skyscraper, ten stories tall and the size of a fifteen-acre farm, was unveiled to the public. Sears Crosstown, the latest structure in the Sears mail-order empire, was a new regional distribution center that anticipated the advent of Memphis as the nation’s distribution center. Millions of
Sears catalog, or “Wish Book,” orders
would be fulfilled within these walls
More than thirty-five thousand Memphians gathered that day at this formerly vacant lot to see the grand opening of the Sears Crosstown building. Chamber of Commerce president Phil Canale compared the new building to the pyramid of the original Egyptian city named Memphis. Mayor Paine introduced the featured speaker, Julius Rosenwald, the chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck & Company.
Not just a businessman, Rosenwald was the nation’s leading benefactor of public education for African American children across the South. Rosenwald became the leading contributor to Washington’s Tuskegee Institute and also Fisk University.
On that hot August day in Memphis, Rosenwald prophesied to Memphians, “Your city will learn in time that the opening this morning of a Sears Roebuck & Co. plant is an epoch-making event.” That turned out to be an understatement. From that day forward, the Sears Crosstown building has been a symbol of many Memphians’ hopes, wishes and dreams.
Long before Graceland, there were three places that became top destination spots for tourists coming to Memphis: the Peabody Hotel, the Zoo at Overton Park and Sears Crosstown.
At one time Sears Crosstown was the largest employer of the city. And then, in the 1980s, Sears went into a precipitous decline with a new generation of competitors emerging. Sears began closing many of its older buildings across the nation.
By 1993, the Sears Crosstown building had become vacant. The surrounding Midtown neighborhood that had once been the site of restaurants, stores and one of Memphis’s earliest and largest movie theaters went into a state of decline.
After sitting empty for two decades, Memphis decided to dream bigger. An eclectic group emerged that shared a vision for Sears Crosstown. The first visionaries included an art historian, an artist and a local businessman with a long history of philanthropic investment in the city. They were later joined by a development team, a minister-doctor and several local, well-respected institutions in arts, education and healthcare. These very different people, businesses and organizations eventually came to share the same vision: that Sears Crosstown could be resurrected as a vertical urban village populated by physicians, artists and musicians, educators, entrepreneurs, residents and scores of others coming to take part in the community.
For decades, millions of people had flocked to Sears Crosstown to grant wishes for themselves, their families and friends. It was affectionately known as the “Wish Building.” These new visionaries now saw Sears Crosstown as a place where people would gather again, this time for healing, learning, creating, shopping and living.
That vision would become a reality as Crosstown Concourse opened in August 2017, ninety years after Mayor Paine cut the ribbon for the opening of the original building on August 27, 1927. What was once a national hub for the distribution of goods was transformed into a local heart for the cultivation of well-being, shifting focus from products to people, from commodity to
quality of life.
Nearly a decade after opening, that vision is fully alive. Concourse has become a beloved destination for Memphians and tourists alike. Thousands of people walk through the doors every day, to work, to create, to eat, to heal, to learn, to connect. Physicians share hallways with artists. Students pass musicians. Entrepreneurs work alongside educators.
This is what Life is Lived Better Together looks like in practice.
Rotating galleries, bold public art, and a maker’s community allows Concourse itself to become a canvas. The Memphis Listening Lab, home to over 50,000 vinyl albums, invites you to lose yourself in decades of musical history. Find an unexpected lunchtime moment as symphony artists play in the Central Atrium. When the sun goes down, the energy only goes up: catch intimate performances at Crosstown Arts or dance the night away at Satellite Music Hall.
Every month, Crosstown Concourse throws open its doors for free, public events that are as eclectic as the building itself. Bring your dog to Puppy Palooza. Gather the family for Season of Delight. Dance, explore, taste, and discover — these are the moments that make Memphis feel like a community. Check the calendar and plan your visit.
Nearly every restaurant and shop at Crosstown Concourse is locally owned — because we believe the best of Memphis deserves a place at the table. Linger over craft cocktails or a cold local brew. Track down the best Vietnamese food in the city. Grab a grass-fed burger with the kids or treat yourself to something you didn’t know you were looking for at an international food hall. Whatever brings you in, you’ll find something worth coming back for. Check out all the eats.
• The facade of the building is 60% glass.
• 3,200 window panels were replaced but were meticulously fabricated to match the originals.
• The mortar between all 7 million exterior bricks was replaced by 120 workers over the course of 14 months. If you lined every brick up end-to-end, it would span the distance from Memphis to New Orleans!
• Workers installed 15 miles of HVAC duct and 32 miles of sprinkler piping through the course of renovation.
• Concourse contains a state-of-the-art central plant capable of heating and cooling 730 3-bedroom homes.
2025
Best Place To Work – Memphis Business Journal
2020
Fitwel certification: NY—The Center for Active Design (CfAD), operator of the Fitwel
Certification System, awarded certification to four projects in the country. Fitwel Community is a cutting-edge, evidence-based standard for optimizing holistic health benefits at the neighborhood scale.
2020 TN Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award: Pursuit of Excellence Awards, which recognizes past award winners who continue to demonstrate a high regard for environmental stewardship.
2019
2019 ULI Global Awards for Excellence, finalist (one of 14 finalists)
2019 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Architecture National Honor Award in Education: Crosstown High
Best Mixed-Use Community Award and Multifamily Community of the Year Award: Pillars of Multifamily Industry Award program.
Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence (Gold Medalist)
2018
BD+C’s 35th Annual Reconstruction Awards, Platinum Award Winner (one of two nationally)
Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award, National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Congress for the New Urbanism Charter Awards: Grand Prize
Tennessee Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award (Building Green)
U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC): LEED Platinum Certified
(the largest LEED Platinum Certified historic adaptive reuse in the world)
Music + Art
Food + Drinks
Wellness + Retail
LIVE + STAY
EVENTS
