SKYHOUSE NASHVILLE | 25 stories/289' + 7 & 70' | 10,708sqft Retail |

[smeagolsfree]

Entire site now fenced off too.

[chris holman]

so these skyhouse buildings go up really fast right? I'm guessing since there's no garage under the building how deep will the hold be for the building ,

[The ATX]

so these skyhouse buildings go up really fast right? I'm guessing since there's no garage under the building how deep will the hold be for the building ,

They go up amazingly quick since there is no need for excavating underground levels, and the neighboring parking structure goes up simultaneously.  

[NashRugger]

And of course Historic Nashville Inc is all up in arms. I'm sorry, but the SubStop building wasn't really historic at all, it just had a storied tenant and that's how economics work. The houses nearby have been redone so severely that they weren't qualified for "historic" designation and thus they go too. Pick you battles.

[dmillsphoto]

There's a lot of people who have absolutely no idea what they're actually asking for commenting...

 

https://www.facebook.com/historicnashvilleinc/posts/10153446672063288:0" 

[UTgrad09]

There's a lot of people who have absolutely no idea what they're actually asking for commenting...

https://www.facebook.com/historicnashvilleinc/posts/10153446672063288:0"

Reading the comments, I'd say most are just anti-development in general. While they are lamenting the loss of "historic" (I'll give them funky or cool) structures, I get the feeling that tower cranes over empty lots bother them too. It's obviously not as much about saving what truly historic and in-danger properties, it's about curbing development on all fronts to keep us in some sort of time warp so "we don't become Atlanta".

[samsonh]

Reading the comments, I'd say most are just anti-development in general. While they are lamenting the loss of "historic" (I'll give them funky or cool) structures, I get the feeling that tower cranes over empty lots bother them too. It's obviously not as much about saving what truly historic and in-danger properties, it's about curbing development on all fronts to keep us in some sort of time warp so "we don't become Atlanta".

 

It is also about being left behind. These people generally are not very successful financially and do not like seeing the success of others.

[Bezoar]

While we're on a Hysteric Nashville hate bender, I'd also like to point out that their slogan, "Keep Nashville Unique," is terrible.  It's a bad appropriation of "Keep Austin/Portland Weird,"  watered down and made dull and uninteresting.  

[MLBrumby]

Couldn't agree more.  That's as bad as "Keep Nashville Nashville"... vague, bland, and anyone outside of Nashville wouldn't know what it means.  "Weird" is descriptive enough that anyone would know what it means.  As far as the idea behind it, I say, "Been done before. Time to do something unique." 

[dmillsphoto]

It is also about being left behind. These people generally are not very successful financially and do not like seeing the success of others.

 

One of the comments was "Where are these jobs these people are getting" which was a dead ringer for what you said. 

 

They lament the success of others in fields they're either obviously not qualified for like IT/HITech or simply don't realize pays a great deal more than their own jobs do. People can afford Skyhouse because they're making $80k-100k. Simple economics that some people don't get or hate. Which is unfortunate,

[BnaBreaker]

Reading the comments, I'd say most are just anti-development in general. While they are lamenting the loss of "historic" (I'll give them funky or cool) structures, I get the feeling that tower cranes over empty lots bother them too. It's obviously not as much about saving what truly historic and in-danger properties, it's about curbing development on all fronts to keep us in some sort of time warp so "we don't become Atlanta".

 

Agreed.

[Salbato]

I'm sure they love my comment and posting a picture of Skyhouse.

[donNdonelson2]

Most of the comments are so ill informed as to explain why many refer to the organization as the "Hysterical Commission."

[CenterHill]

Most of the comments are so ill informed as to explain why many refer to the organization as the "Hysterical Commission."

 

The Facebook page belongs to Historic Nashville, Inc., a non-profit advocacy group.     Totally unrelated to the Metro Historical Commission.      

[chris holman]

I'm sure they love my comment and posting a picture of Skyhouse.

I liked on your comment! in that post, I do appreciate the new development going there

[smeagolsfree]

There's a lot of people who have absolutely no idea what they're actually asking for commenting...

 

https://www.facebook.com/historicnashvilleinc/posts/10153446672063288:0" 

The historic hysterics should have started 50 years ago. No one to blame but the past mistakes made by others.

[donNdonelson2]

The Facebook page belongs to Historic Nashville, Inc., a non-profit advocacy group.     Totally unrelated to the Metro Historical Commission.      

I am fully aware of the source of the comments. That does not change the fact that people refer to the Historical Commission as the "Hysterical Commission." (I was making both a point and a JOKE.)

[MLBrumby]

I truly am not trying to change the subject, but I read WW's article from yesterday that Checkers on WE has closed, and recall that someone told me an old Trolley used to be there that was also a sandwich shop.  Was that where this one was before it moved to Broadway? 

[Hey_Hey]

Throwing a fit about this makes actual historic preservation movements a little harder too. There's nothing historic about Sub Shop. Unique, but not historic. Save historic preservation arguments for buildings that are truly historic.

[CenterHill]

I truly am not trying to change the subject, but I read WW's article from yesterday that Checkers on WE has closed, and recall that someone told me an old Trolley used to be there that was also a sandwich shop.  Was that where this one was before it moved to Broadway? 

 

No, different place.    The Deli Junction was on that corner in a red caboose back in the '80's.   A small place with great subs, occasional live music and a surprisingly large beer selection for that era - long before craft beer was a thing and at a time when the large distributors thought the populace should be content with only Anheuser Busch and Miller products.    

[bnaflyer]

It is also about being left behind. These people generally are not very successful financially and do not like seeing the success of others.

I don't think this comment is either fair or factual. I can't speak for others, but I am successful financially, and well-educated, and I live within a mile of this project, in a single-family house that has escalated in value beyond all imagining. But I understand what these commenters are lamenting. While Historic Nashville is sometimes guilty of painting with too broad a brush (every old building is not "historic"), people on this board often don't seem very discriminating about good development vs. mediocre development. Nashville has a lot of the latter and not that much of the former. Cheaply built crap that is just a rehash of other plans (e.g., the Encore building, the bottom of which already looks like something in Eastern Europe) is not necessarily something to get excited about when it replaces an early 20th century streetscape. Again, I agree that the preservationists sometimes go too far, but maybe some on this board should give some thought to the qualities that make a city memorable or even distinguishable from every other city in the world. These old buildings are a big part of the character of the city. There should be a way to encourage development (on empty lots, for example, which we have plenty of) while at least preserving some of our historic streetscapes. But anyway, regardless of where you stand on this issue, I don't think it's fair to say that these are just bitter po' folks.

Edited July 8, 2015 by bnaflyer

[CenterHill]

Throwing a fit about this makes actual historic preservation movements a little harder too. There's nothing historic about Sub Shop. Unique, but not historic. Save historic preservation arguments for buildings that are truly historic.

 

I think most of the lamenting running through the FB comments was about the row of old houses fronting 17th, not the cinderblock Sub Stop building.   Sub Stop might have been a sentimental favorite to some, but I agree there was nothing historic about that building.   In any event, the outcry is a little late to the party, since the Skyhouse plans were announced in the fall of last year.   This was not a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.     

[smeagolsfree]

The entire group of buildings along 17th were preWW II buildings which seem to be coming down in droves. I would consider them architecturally sound buildings.

Once they are all gone, they are gone forever.

Now if we do demolish these buildings, hopefully we will get a significant replacement.

[MLBrumby]

Agreed... but the flipside is that Nashville really was not a city (in the classic sense) before WWII... and in typical Southern context, it became sprawl after that.  Of course, the argument can be made that that fact makes any pre-WWII structure even more significant (as to the Historical advocates).  This is a good example because any large city pre-WWII would have had numerous building of this vintage within a 2-mile radius of its core, and they would have been bigger (2-4 stories in height).  Nashville has such a dearth of buildings from that era (between the wars) that any loss of one will be a significant loss. Having spent much time in Orlando, I liken Nashville's creative destruction now to that city's during the 1990s and 2000s.  The result... a city looking for its character.  The Sub Stop was next door to a block of car dealers.  The glare of those establishments long have overshadowed the antique quality of any building in their vicinity.  A casualty (if you will) of a sleepy midsize city trying to stretch its legs as it grows out... and in this case, up.  Of course, Nashville could see the same fate as Orlando.  These historical "gadflies" might just be effective in the longer run in helping to preserve some of Nashville's old structures.  However, I must say I haven't seen any signs of their effectiveness.  BTW: Kudos to the developers of the historic buildings in Germantown/Salemtown, including Geist... No Dogs... Centerstone... Stockyards (granted, we haven't seen the finished product of the latter example). 

[RonCamp]

This comment isn't in response to a specific post but rather to the general sentiment that I often hear - and that some have referenced in this thread - about "not wanting to become Atlanta."  

 

If we don't want to become Atlanta, developing a critical mass of office, residential, retail, hotel, nightlife, and civic/cultural institutions in downtown / SoBro / midtown / the Gulch / Music Row is actually a great way to do that.  

 

Atlanta became the dreaded "Atlanta" because of sprawl, highway over-development, lack of coordinated transit and planning, dysfunctional local and regional governments, decades of cheap mortgage debt and gasoline, white flight, and most simply because of the idea that downtown was only fit for skyscrapers and 9-to-5 workday uses and nothing else.  That mentality has thankfully been finally pushed aside in Atlanta, but it reigned for decades with devastating consequences.  There's a very good rationale for protecting truly historic buildings as well as cultural locations that are uniquely Nashville.  But opposing dense urban development here in general will have unintended effects, many of which would make us much more "Atlanta" than these folks seem to realize.