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DOWNTOWN DOYENNE

Katrina Shelton goes from retailer to recruiter for central Memphis

By Donna Mitchell

When the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks drove Katrina Shelton from her New York City home, the Memphis native decided it might be a good time to return to her hometown for a fresh start.

It turns out downtown Memphis was looking for a new start too. Now, instead of drafting sketches of trendy, upscale fashions, Shelton is busy recruiting retailers on behalf of the Memphis Center City Commission, retailers she says she hopes will become part of the city’s core.

Shelton knows well what downtown Memphis is capable of. She recalls vibrant times when local department stores Goldsmith’s and Lowenstein’s were still going strong and attracting shoppers and strollers to the downtown.

“I remember going downtown — it was an exciting experience,” said Shelton. But the magic did not last. Shelton was born in 1968, the year Martin Luther King was assassinated in that city. In the years that followed, thousands of residents left the city for the less turbulent suburbs.

Shelton was one of them. Before embarking on her career in fashion, she joined the Army, where she spent four years as an aviation logistics specialist, serving in Germany and Iraq during the first Gulf War. After that, Shelton went to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design; she spent her sophomore year studying at the school’s affiliate in Paris.

When Shelton graduated she went to work as a freelance designer of sweaters for Nautica and accessories for Donna Karan New York. Then in 2000 she landed a job with Coach, which brought her in to help breathe new life into its lines of jackets and sweaters.

While at Coach, Shelton lived in downtown Manhattan. Barely two years into the job, the terrorists hit the World Trade Center. “I was living on John Street in the financial district,” she said. “It was literally my backyard that was displaced for a while.”

Although most of the displaced fled to other parts of Manhattan or to the outer boroughs, her own thoughts turned toward home as friends related to her that Memphis was showing signs of a recovery.

“I took them up on it and began shopping for boutique space,” she said, eventually opening a 1,700-square-foot store called Tonic in the historic South Main section of downtown Memphis — undeterred by the fact that the bulk of Memphis retail dollars were still being spent in the suburbs. She shared her space in the building with an architect and a furniture maker.

The space was rich in history and symbolism. Her boutique, formerly occupied by the Downtowner, a Memphis lifestyle magazine, sat across the street from the Civil Rights Museum.

As it turned out, Tonic arrived a little too soon to benefit from the waxing downtown revival. “Because the area is still up and coming, the street traffic was just not there to sustain business,” she said, “and I did not have the financial wherewithal to continue in that way.”

But Shelton continues to believe in the downtown revival and now the former Army recruit is an active recruiter herself at the Center City Commission. Her blend of experiences combined with her outgoing personality put Shelton ahead of the 30 other applicants for the job, says Andy Kitsinger, the commission’s director of planning and development. “She is an excellent communicator and can interface with retailers on the retail side, and local brokers and real estate agents,” Kitsinger said.

Shelton takes on her new job at a time when economic factors appear to be aligning to support a retail renaissance downtown. More than 7 million tourists visit the area annually, drawn by such attractions as Beale Street, known as the birthplace of the blues and still home to a thriving nightclub scene. More than 10,000 people live in market-rate housing downtown and another 80,000 flood the area during the day for work.

As Shelton works to fill downtown Memphis’ empty retail space, she will have a powerful tool of inducement at her disposal: The commission’s loan program designed to encourage retailers to establish stores in the downtown central business improvement district. The commission got nine area banks on board to provide the financing and is looking for specific types of retailers, including those specializing in books, electronics, hardware and home furnishings.

Had Tonic survived, it might have benefited from the program, Shelton says. Instead, others will be getting the benefit of her experience. In five years, Shelton predicts, Memphis will begin to resemble such bustling midsize U.S. cities as Austin and Dallas, with “great eateries, people sitting out in a café and a lot of street activity,” she said. “I know this is possible.”