Memphis Business Journal - by Christopher Sheffield -

A few years ago when the Shelby Farms Greenline was barely a speck of an idea, Greater Memphis Greenline Inc. president Robert Schreiber put together an ambitious white paper to explain the concept and generate financial support.

Among the economic benefits of a greenline, the report noted, was the increase in property values, a key benefit that greenline supporters knew would hit a cord with the community.

With the first seven miles of greenline now opened since last fall, and new sections being added regularly, the conversation has now turned among some residential circles to not if, but by how much the greenline will mean as an amenity to the homes and neighborhoods it traverses. Already real estate agents are touting proximity to the greenline in their marketing and there’s the hint that developers will be begin to think about how to incorporate the greenline into neighboring projects.

“The data was clear from other cites,” says Syd Lerner, executive director of Greater Memphis Greenline Inc. “It has to have a positive effect on values, but it means more when you can prove the case in your own hometown.”

The National Park Services estimates property values on and around greenlines jump 5 percent to 32 percent, the report noted. The Nashville Greenway Commission reported an average increase in the selling price of homes along that city’s 44-mile greenline of $30,000.

Ultimately, the greenline could add $155 million in property value to just a half-mile of its ultimate 13-mile length, calculated Schreiber and Shelby County land bank manager Bill Goss, who helped co-author the report.
Since the report was completed before the greenline opened, Goss freely admits that the calculations were based on the experiences of other markets. Now that the greenline has opened and has clearly been a hit, he says, property value increases will surely follow.

“Anyone familiar with the greenline and how well it’s been received would conclude it has a positive impact on property values,” Goss says. “How much positive impact is conjecture from some to how much Bob Schreiber expects.”

Crye-Leike Inc. broker Pat Lichterman manages Crye-Leike’s Midtown office but has sold properties in neighborhoods all along the greenline. She has seen an uptick in property values, but given the timing of the greenline’s official opening during a time when values have been so depressed, the increases could be due to other market factors.

“I do know that when I’m working with buyers, they like that fact of living near a greenline,” Lichterman says.
That also raises the question about how far-reaching the positive effect of the greenline will spread.

Other pro-greenline groups like the Trust for Public Land and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy say values increase 50 percent for properties touching the trail and 25 percent for properties within a quarter-mile of it.

In some areas, the greenline will present areas for potential study on the impact it has on values, Lichterman says.

For instance, in the desirable High Point Terrace neighborhood between Summer Avenue and Walnut Grove Road, home values south of the greenline traditionally have been significantly higher, she says, compared to homes north of the former railroad line.

“Of course it’s like a ripple effect, the closer the pebble hits the water the bigger the impact,” she says.
Hobson Realtors agent Lisa Fields currently has one home listed in High Point Terrace two blocks from the greenline. The two-bedroom, one-bath lists for $149,000 and among it features, it touts “convenient location and even walk to Greenline.”

Other agents are also touting the greenline as an amenity in marketing materials and on yard signs, Fields says, a clear sign it has had a desirable impact.

Still, she can’t put a dollar figure to it, at least not yet.

The only physical feature that even comes close to the greenline that affected property values is the Mississippi River, says Fields, who worked for years in the Downtown market for Henry Turley Realtors.

Views of the river, she says, regularly commanded more money per square foot.

Will that one day be the case with the greenline?

“I don’t think the greenline has done that yet for the neighborhoods it goes through, but maybe one day it will as people get more comfortable,” she says.

Even new development could see some positive impact as the greenline moves into undeveloped areas where developers can capitalize on proximity to the amenity, says David Clark, principal of David Clark Construction LLC and current president of the Memphis Area Home Builders Association.

Eventually, he could see developments with jogging trails and walking paths leading to the greenline that will eventually connect with existing greenlines in Germantown and Collierville, creating a new transit corridor for those in the suburbs to bike to work or to other recreation activities Downtown or at Shelby Farms, he says.

“The greenline and Shelby Farms are two of the nicest things that we as builders and developers don’t promote enough,” he says.