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Charlotte Pike Redevelopment News


ariesjow

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I worked in 'that wonderful TDOT building' for several years, and it was anything but wonderful from the inside. I know it has a bit of Frank Loyd Wright 'Prarie Style' architectural look to it, but that attraction stopped at the front door. There were two levels of windows on each floor along the exterior walls with one level too low to see out of and one level too high. So basically you stared at the blank wall when you entered the room. The hallways were huge and a waste of space and the room layouts were awkward and inefficient. The walls were either concrete or hard plaster over steel and not moveable. Plus, there may be plenty of asbestos scattered throughout the structure.

I cannot imagine any purpose it would from either an office, retail or residential. Possibly, it might make a neat home for an architectural or some kind of advertising or design firm. But basically I doubt anyone would want this building, just the dirt under it.

From Google Maps;

I'm not surprised by the interior. After going to various state offices with my dad growing up (he was with the TWRA), I learned just how poorly laid out those that were built from the ground up as state projects can be.

I did always think this was a cool building, but just looking at the Google Maps images, it really has deteriorated over the years, and I would not be surprised if there was pretty major structural problems due to water leakage, what with all the broken glass. Not to mention that there's no way it isn't loaded with asbestos.

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With all of the issues that have been mentioned, It is difficult to see this building staying long-term. Masonry walls are very difficult to work with for renovations. You can't just knock down some stud walls for an open floor plan! The same issues (masonry construction, asbestos, led paint) also make for very expensive demolition.

But I do imagine that some of the materials (like the stone facing) could be sold for salvage purposes.

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I just stumbled upon this article from the nashville post where Thomas McDaniel of Boyle Investment (who is developing the north gulch site on charlotte) discusses our favorite corridor's potential with J.R. Lind, Geert De Lombaerde, and other developers. Check it out:

http://www.cornerstonecres.com/Files/Admin/CRES%20News/'Standing%20next%20to%20the%20swimming%20pool'.pdf

Excerpt:

MCDANIEL: We’re trying to figure out what to do with this North Gulch land. It’s a great assemblage and has great proximity to everything, but it was not the first thing on everybody’s development radar. Then these guys come in with this significant apartment development right there that has garnered some of the top rents in the city…

HINES: That’s a classic example of somebody from out of town in my opinion looking at Nashville with a blank slate. They can come in and look at that and say wait a minute this is a good site and they hit a home run. It’s a great project.

RANKIN: You know I have sort of a weird affection for Charlotte and 11 North sort of opened up Charlotte here. I think we all kind of perceive Charlotte in a certain way and I think it has a lot of character. I think it’s sort of —

HINES: Very quirky.

LIND: I think Charlotte just got branded as a way to get from Bellevue to downtown and that’s all it was.

RANKIN: Yeah. Could we go that way? Is Charlotte the next big corridor?

CALDWELL: We’ve got the 28th Avenue Connector. That sat on Purcell’s desk for eight years and all a sudden…

HINES: When that opens, everything from that connector into the North Gulch and Germantown will become prime development opportunities.

CALDWELL: Yeah, it’ll all come together. That’s another big prime opportunity.

DE LOMBAERDE: Thomas, what’s your all’s time frame for the North Gulch project? Is it a matter of finding the right tenants or do you look at other benchmarks along the way?

MCDANIEL: We have completed the assemblage. We finally got the last piece that we didn’t own. We’re demolishing everything now to have a clean slate and we have had surprisingly high interest from users of all types. It’s a little different site. It’s not a pure office site in the middle of The Gulch. It’s not the first apartment or condo or hotel site you think of, but we have seen some great interest. It’s a large land assemblage right where it is and I think we’re going to have an announcement soon on a good part of that and hopefully more to follow. We’ll see.

DE LOMBAERDE: Do you want it to be mixed-use?

MCDANIEL: It will be mixed use to some degree and we have an idea of we want for it. But at the same time, the users may push us in one direction or the other.

DE LOMBAERDE: OK.

MCDANIEL: I was going to mention Charlotte, honestly. I think the whole corridor is going much more westward than the site we’re talking.

DE LOMBAERDE: That’s a good point about Charlotte. You think the connector is a good way from downtown, but it really isn’t.

MCDANIEL: No, it isn’t.

CALDWELL: It’s 10 or 12 blocks. You know it’s a short strip that can really get built up.

MCDANIEL: And HCA is already developing that corner in conjunction with Metro.

CALDWELL: Yeah, because that’s the only downside with a lot of other areas that we’ve mentioned. With the 12 Souths and your Eighth Souths of the world, there’s only a narrow strip of commercially zoned property. So for there to be any magnitude of commercial critical mass, you need something that’s bigger. There are large land sites on Charlotte that are hard to find on any other accessible arterial with that proximity to town.

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Nice catch chelovek - I wonder what they were referring to regarding "HCA/Metro developing on the corner"? Guess we'll find out at the 28th/31st Connector grand opening on Oct. 2. In other Charlotte Avenue news, Climb Nashville has a community meeting scheduled to discuss their plans to build a new climbing gym on the vacant lot on Charlotte & 37th. Great news for Charlotte.

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