Can Marie Pizano and Prince Mongo bring 'something cool' to Downtown? They're trying

With Prince Mongo on the cellphone and a 6-foot frog mascot in the wings, Marie Pizano — a tireless promoter of grandiose schemes and projects intended to uplift what she calls the “trifecta” of “films, music, community” — hosted a press conference Wednesday, touting her plans to transform five Downtown properties into a cluster of media companies and public service centers.

“With the help of Prince Mongo, I would make it the FedEx of the entertainment industry,” Pizano said.

A less dauntless individual might be content with announcing a single recording studio or food bank. But Pizano, 54, would shoulder almost a municipality’s worth of responsibilities with the agglomeration of enterprises that she says she hopes to install within the now dilapidated interiors of Mongo-connected buildings at 64 S. Front, 94 S. Front, 321 St. Paul and 586 Hernando. Plus, she wants to rehab the private parking lot at 88 S. Front.

“We’re putting in a film school, music recording, a farmer’s market,” Pizano said.

The litany continued. “A streaming network.” “Our own radio broadcasts.” “A jazz club.” “A gift shop and prep kitchen.” “An original series on the MVP network.” (The MVP3 Entertainment Group is the name of Pizano’s media company, while the MVP3 Foundation is her not-for-profit educational arts organization.)

Also, “Global offices for TUFF.” (The Unity of Faiths Foundation is a charity based in London that in the past had organized a "Road to Memphis" songwriting contest.)

“We also have, like, mental health, and feed the needy,” Pizano continued. "We've partnered with a drone company. We're making a wall of fame," to add Ruby Wilson, the late "Queen of Beale," to a parking lot mural that already includes Elvis, Bobby "Blue" Bland and Ritchie Valens.

Plus, classes for young people on “how to open up a bank account," “wealth management" and "horticulture."

“If we’re going to create an industry here for film and music, we have to start with education," Pizano explained.

Readers experiencing that deja vu-all-over-again feeling may recall a similar press conference hosted by Pizano in April 2021 at the Malco Majestic, a defunct multiplex that Pizano and her partners planned to transform into an "entertainment mecca" with "retail shops, music recording studios, a family center and a sports complex," plus "a dining area, TV network space, office rental space, a 150-room hotel and an indoor theme park," according to a story in The Commercial Appeal.

“Basically what we're creating is like a Universal Studios, Stax and Time Warner all in one,” Pizano said, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

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But three months later, the property went back on the market, after Pizano — whose film credits as a producer include "Shattered," a 2017 melodrama with Ray ("Twin Peaks") Wise, and "Shannon Street: Echoes Under a Blood Red Moon," a Memphis true-crime documentary — and her collaborators failed to make sufficient payments to Malco.

Pizano — whose inspirational self-published autobiography is titled "From Barefoot to Stilletos" — acknowledged her previous struggles, in an interview after the press conference. "I’m no stranger to getting something going and getting knocked down, but I feel like this time we have a chance," she said.

“I would love to see it happen,” said Robert “Prince Mongo” Hodges, in a phone interview from Little Rock.

He said he has entered into a one-year agreement with Pizano, “to get these properties under her wing, so maybe she can raise some money in making them a real focal point in building a community, so they’re not just sitting in limbo.”

The properties are owned by A.H. of Tennessee, officially based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. A Hodges family company, A.H. lists Robert Hodges as its chief agent.

Pizano had said Hodges might appear at the press conference, but the once ubiquitous Memphis newsmaker, gadfly and attention-getter — who identifies himself as "Prince Mongo," 333-year-old native of the planet "Zambodia" — was a no-show.

A longtime local entrepreneur and club owner who now spends most of his time outside Tennessee, "Mongo" was a self-made celebrity who dressed in "Zambodian" garb (wigs, skirts, beads, goggles), frequently feuded with Midtown and East Memphis neighbors over his front-yard "art" (skeletons and bird cages) and was a perennial candidate for public office. He ran for mayor, off and on, from the 1970s through 2019; in 1991, he finished third in the hotly contested mayoral contest in which Willie W. Herenton beat Dick Hackett to be Memphis' first Black mayor.

Hodges said he endorses Pizano's plans to help "young people," because "they are basically lost." He said they need guidance so Memphis can become a "harmony city" instead of a place of "burglaries and murders and rapes and robberies."

The Wednesday morning press conference was held inside the dark and musty interior of 94 S. Front, a prime Downtown and "Cotton Row" location just down the street from the site of the under-construction, multimillion-dollar Memphis Art Museum, likely to open in 2025. Long empty, the Front Street locale's past tenants mostly were restaurants or nightclubs, including Cafe Roux, Cayenne Moon, The River Latch and Silk and Lace, a controversial "bikini bar" that shut down after three weeks in 2001.

Joining Pizano was an eclectic mix of onlookers, well-wishers and potential supporters, including a school teacher, a filmmaker, a banker, representatives of the Downtown Neighborhood Association and Greater Memphis Chamber, a "sourdough bread baker," plus that yellow-spotted green frog, costumed mascot of Midsouth Ponds, a "pond or water feature" company partnering with Pizano on some projects.

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The overall mission, Pizano said, is "healing community through the arts."

However, "healing," in the arts as in a hospital, can be expensive. The Mongo properties are in "a bit of a shamble," Pizano said, so rehabbing them into up-to-code offices, studios and schools would take millions of dollars.

Pizano admits she doesn't have the necessary investors, but "I've got a lot verbal commitments."

"I really need the city to understand, we're building something cool," she said.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Downtown Memphis: Marie Pizano, Prince Mongo team up on project