Graceland Taps Municipal Market for Renovation and Expansion

Above, the rear of Graceland mansion. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Elvis Presley Enterprises will be tapping again into the municipal market for renovation and expansion of the Graceland complex in Memphis, Tennessee.

According to Bloomberg:

It’s an estate fit for a king. The King of Rock and Roll, to be more specific. Graceland, Memphis’s premier tourist attraction, which draws more than half a million visitors a year, plans to borrow $88 million in the municipal market with a negotiated deal scheduled to price on Wednesday. 

This is actually the King’s third trip to the municipal market. The new deal refunds $84 million in notes sold through private placement in 2015. In 2016, the issuer sold another $40 million in notes. The conduit issuer is known as the Economic Development Growth Engine Industrial Development Board of the City of Memphis and the County of Shelby, Tennessee. 

And there will be more visits to MuniLand, according to Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Graceland Holdings LLC, the majority owner of Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc., which manages the 120-acre Graceland campus. The company aims to transform Graceland from an attraction to visit to a vacation destination. (Elvis’s only child, Lisa Marie Presley, own 15 percent of all Graceland-related entities). 

That transformation is well underway. The home of Elvis Presley (1935-1977) is a National Historic Landmark that opened to the public in 1982. In 2014, Elvis Presley Enterprises developed a master plan for a public-private partnership with the city, county and state for the redevelopment of Graceland, which now includes an archive studio, a 450-room “Guest House at Graceland Hotel” (which opened in 2016 and replaced the 128-room “Heartbreak Hotel” built in 1989), a museum, retail facilities and a recreational-vehicle and campground park.

Above, the office and store of the Graceland RV Park and Campground. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

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