The Brooks Has Left Overton Park. The Empty Building Is the Park's Biggest Open Question.

After the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art shut its Overton Park doors, one Shelby County resident told WREG that the plan for getting Downtown might be a rideshare. "Maybe we'll just Uber." The joke has a practical question inside it, because the place people used to reach on a walk through the park now sits at Front Street and Union Avenue.

The Brooks closed on Sunday, Sept. 27, after 110 years in the park. Fox13 reported that its final public event, Journals, Junk, and Jams, drew more than 100 people for music, art and memories. The new Memphis Art Museum opens Dec. 6, about ten weeks from now, which leaves Midtown with an unusual gap and an even more unusual question about what comes next.

A Building That Kept Getting Bigger

The Brooks began small. Bessie Vance Brooks wrote a $100,000 check for a museum measuring only 90 by 100 feet, and it was dedicated in 1916 as the "jewel box in the park." It was enlarged in 1955, 1973 and 1989, and in 1989 it separated from the city and became a private institution.

By the time the museum began weighing a move, the park around it had grown. Carl Person, the museum's board president, told Memphis magazine in 2022 that the museum was at a crossroads:

"We were at a crossroads with all of this momentum and growth in Overton Park."

He pointed to the Shell and the zoo's expansion as the growth, set against an aging building. The building's mechanical systems were the sticking point. Person described an aging HVAC system, humidifiers that failed and a constant struggle to hold temperature. He said that kept the museum from landing the kind of high-end exhibits that go to the Met.

Overton Park kept adding draws. The Brooks had a building whose systems no gallery expansion could fix. When the museum's chief revenue officer walked Action News 5 through the new building in November 2025, he described a facility without the climate-control and water-leakage problems the Brooks had, and he pitched that as a draw for art lenders.

The Last Show Was About Another Closing

Among the final exhibitions in the building were David Uzochukwu: Bodies of Water and Memphis College of Art, 1936-2020: An Enduring Legacy. The second one looks back at the school whose Rust Hall stands next door to the Brooks. The city's Project Overton Park page has long described the two buildings as neighbors. That page said Rust Hall would close in 2020 and the Brooks would relocate. It also described public forums and a request for proposals process for future occupants of both.

The Brooks building's next chapter is still unwritten. WREG reported after the closing that it is unclear what will happen to the original building. The Memphis Flyer's farewell photo essay called the building's future unknown. The most recent official language in my research is a City of Memphis statement from November 2025. It calls the Brooks building a historic and iconic asset, says the city is looking for a use that keeps serving the public, and says any future use should fit the broader vision for Overton Park as a cultural and community destination.

No current reporting I found names a successor. Anyone who tells you what the building will become is guessing.

What the Trade Looks Like

The move changes the museum's scale more than its address. The old building could host four exhibitions at a time. The new one is designed for at least 15 exhibits, so more of a 10,000-work collection can be on view.

The free-admission promise applies to the whole county. The museum's release names Germantown, Collierville, Lakeland, Bartlett and other suburbs alongside Memphis. It is funded by an anonymous donor who is a former AutoZoner.

One line in that table has no price yet. The new building will have 150 parking spaces underneath it, and museum officials said in November 2025 that parking would not be free. They had not announced prices at that time. The old Brooks sat in the middle of Overton Park. The new one has a garage.

Ten Weeks to Fill

The opening program gives Midtown regulars a lot to plan around, and the park still has its own calendar.

1. Price the parking before Dec. 6. The 150-space garage was unpriced as of the November 2025 report, so check with the museum before your first visit.
2. Pick your first exhibition. The main opening show is Making Beauty: Hooks Brothers Studio, 1907-1984, with more than 150 photographs from the Black-owned Memphis studio. It was developed with the National Civil Rights Museum, which sits nearby at the former Lorraine Motel. The collection galleries are organized as 19 "short stories," including Speaking in Shapes, Rhapsodies in Black and The River Calling: Storytelling in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta.
3. Plan a full day Downtown. The museum's own pitch is museum, lunch with a restaurant partner, the civil rights museum, a show at the Orpheum, and then home.
4. Keep the park on the calendar. The Overton Park Shell is marking 90 years of live music this year. The Daily Memphian's Sept. 25 edition flagged a Cooper-Young record store's annual festival returning to Wiseacre and the Shell with a run of late-night shows. Check the Shell's own calendar for fall dates.
5. Watch for word on the building. The City of Memphis said in November 2025 that it was looking for a use that keeps serving the public, and no newer statement turned up in my research.

Mia Atkinson follows what's happening around Overton Park and across Memphis. If you have questions about Midtown as the Brooks building waits for its next chapter, Book a Call and we'll talk it through.