Davidson East: East Nashville, Inglewood, Madison, Donelson, Hermitage, Old Hickory

[FatherLand]

It might've been my comment to the EN FB page that has the negative comments on the 'East Sider'. Somehow it became vogue to hate development on that page, it could be the best development in the world, the right business in the right place, and it would receive the cold shoulder. Somehow developers have been vilified, but admittedly we have lost some older homes that probably could have been saved instead of demo'd. 

[MLBrumby]

Ah yes, the temptation to demolish existing older structures of character with no structural integrity problems when a neighborhood starts to get hot and the land becomes more valuable than the building on the lot.  I call that the "Wallgreens Effect".  Anyone who remembers the Jacksonian at 31st and West End would know what I'm talking about. 

Seems like I recall this being the site of a cafe (rather popular, I believe) that was demolished in the past couple of years.  I think it was one story and very small.  Might this be the reason some people are against this project? 

[CenterHill]

I'm a regular visitor to Bongo East and love the people, but the little Bongo building could sorely use some upgrades.    Cinderblock construction and same spartan concrete interior as when it opened 10 or so years ago.   Maybe having the new neighbor will prompt Mr Bernstein to do for East what he did for the Belmont location.   Just sayin'

[fieldmarshaldj]

7 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

Ah yes, the temptation to demolish existing older structures of character with no structural integrity problems when a neighborhood starts to get hot and the land becomes more valuable than the building on the lot.  I call that the "Wallgreens Effect".  Anyone who remembers the Jacksonian at 31st and West End would know what I'm talking about. 

That one still burns my ass. I used to walk around that building on weekends after having lunch at Houston's. One of many inexcusable losses in this city.

[Pyramid Scheme]

I think developers might believe in "out with the old, in with the new" a little too much. It's not always true.

[Nashville Cliff]

8 hours ago, CenterHill said:

I'm a regular visitor to Bongo East and love the people, but the little Bongo building could sorely use some upgrades.    Cinderblock construction and same spartan concrete interior as when it opened 10 or so years ago.   Maybe having the new neighbor will prompt Mr Bernstein to do for East what he did for the Belmont location.   Just sayin'

I nice, big deck instead of some of the parking would be nice.

[markhollin]

The Eastland project presents rendering and timeline for completion:

http://nashvillepost.com/blogs/postbusiness/2015/12/4/late_2016_completion_date_eyed_for_east_side_project

 

[Nashville Cliff]

William Williams has the deets on the Eastland, the Red River project going behind the Rite-Aid on West Eastland.  Sharp looking building.

The Eastland

[BnaBreaker]

Beautiful.  Love the art deco feel to it!  And if am looking at my map correctly, this takes the place of a parking lot too! 

[grilled_cheese]

They need to fix the W Eastland/Eastland/Gallatin intersection or else it will be even more FUBAR than it is now.

[East Side Urbanite]

I've had a few folks express concern to me about what they feel might be "excessive height" with the proposed East Sider building. One thing to consider: At some point, the building home to Bongo East will be bought and razed. It will be replaced with a building positioned at the sidewalk and likely standing about 35 feet tall. Five Points can handle some buildings of this type (we can only hope that a three-story building will eventually go on the BP station site). In short, the East Sider should work well.

WW

Edited December 5, 2015 by East Side Urbanite

[Neigeville2]

2 hours ago, grilled_cheese said:

They need to fix the W Eastland/Eastland/Gallatin intersection or else it will be even more FUBAR than it is now.

I love Nashville with all its misaligned streets.  I hope none of them are fixed, I really don't care how many cars make it thru an intersection or whatever.  I want to live in a city with some character, not some stupid grid.  You look at all these western cities with their wide streets and square grids?  Blech. 

[BnaBreaker]

40 minutes ago, Neigeville2 said:

I love Nashville with all its misaligned streets.  I hope none of them are fixed, I really don't care how many cars make it thru an intersection or whatever.  I want to live in a city with some character, not some stupid grid.  You look at all these western cities with their wide streets and square grids?  Blech. 

I totally agree, but only up to a point.  I like misaligned, but all the cul-de-sacs, and dead ends, and missed connections in Nashville really are a problem, in my opinion. 

[Neigeville2]

23 minutes ago, BnaBreaker said:

I totally agree, but only up to a point.  I like misaligned, but all the cul-de-sacs, and dead ends, and missed connections in Nashville really are a problem, in my opinion. 

Yeah, the cul-de-sacs are out of control, there seems to have been a philosophy of channeling all the traffic into bottlenecks.  

[markhollin]

 "I want to live in a city with some character, not some stupid grid.  You look at all these western cities with their wide streets and square grids?  Blech. "

Yeah, places like Manhattan, Chicago, and Denver are so lacking in character because of their street grids.  ; )

[Neigeville2]

19 hours ago, markhollin said:

 "I want to live in a city with some character, not some stupid grid.  You look at all these western cities with their wide streets and square grids?  Blech. "

Yeah, places like Manhattan, Chicago, and Denver are so lacking in character because of their street grids.  ; )

I think so.  Denver and Chicago have, to me, a pretty dull layout.  I love Chicago but it doesn't exactly have mystery, compared to London, for example, which is like walking a maze with a surprise around every corner.  Manhattan, at least the side streets, are narrow and the grid is misaligned in the south part of the island and broken by Central Park, but what makes Manhattan special isn't that the streets are straight.  And I would argue that San Francisco would have even more character if the streets were narrower and not squared up.  

Also, to me this kind of Stonehenge effect where you look down the street and there's a slot of sky between tall buildings-someplaces it apparently lines up with the equinoxes so the sun is rising or setting there--I find this ugly the other 363 days of the year.  I like something at the end of sightlines.  Just my preference.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Neigeville2

[Pyramid Scheme]

Nashville's streets are nowhere near as cookie cutter grid-like as a lot of cities in the U.S. I think it's because we have all these "Pike"s that head out to whatever town they're named after. Also, after a while of this infill that's been going on, it'll be a similar situation as London (just nowhere near as vast) where every turn and street is different with town and row houses, apartments, mixed use, and old but refurbished and straight up old all mixed together. I think London's the way it is because of rebuilding after the Germans bombed much of it. And, unlike Denver, which was named above and where I used to live, and which might as well be renamed AnytownU.S.A., Nashville is definitely very distinctive: there's only one city like Nashville in the world and that's Branso....I mean Nashville.

Speaking of London's destruction, this appears to be the 1666th reply to this thread.....hm.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Philip

[CenterHill]

Cities like Denver, Phoenix and Chicago grew on relatively flat topography, making a perfect grid network easy to extend and connect as the cities grew in size.     Nashville's street grid evolved the way it did in part due to the topography of rolling hills, the snake-like bends of the Cumberland and the confluence of the railroads and the aforementioned turnpikes radiating outward like spokes from a central hub.   As the city grew outward 360 degrees from original town grid on the banks of the Cumberland, mini-grids developed one at a time as neighborhoods filled in along the pikes, with no particular east/west or north/south alignment to one another.   One neighborhood's grid seemingly crashed into an adjoining grid.    If you are able to zoom in on early maps like the one below, you can see that even within the mini-grids, streets were misaligned and unconnected in many instances.  

It's one quirky layout, for sure.    I still get disoriented driving through East Nashville where the East End/Lockeland Springs tilts axis from Edgefield at 10th.           

[MLBrumby]

You can have good connectivity (ex post) with the  current layout, but it will require certain major thoroughfares that "snake" (i'll borrow the word used) their ways across several of those dead-ended roads to connect them, a'la Division extension and the Wedgewood/31st and Magnolia areas, and lately the 31st/28th (I still think that's amusing) connector.  I think overall, the combo of partial grid and winding thoroughfares gives Nashville lots of character.  In that regard it is like Atlanta. 

Edited December 6, 2015 by MLBrumby

[billgregg]

Nashville's street grid mostly reflects the fact that Tennessee was not part of the Public Land Survey System and so resembles cities on the Atlantic Seaboard rather than Midwestern or Western cities. It wasn't influenced by a pre-existing grid and so it grew organically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System

[Nashville Cliff]

On 12/4/2015, 9:00:14, East Side Urbanite said:

I've had a few folks express concern to me about what they feel might be "excessive height" with the proposed East Sider building. One thing to consider: At some point, the building home to Bongo East will be bought and razed. It will be replaced with a building positioned at the sidewalk and likely standing about 35 feet tall. Five Points can handle some buildings of this type (we can only hope that a three-story building will eventually go on the BP station site). In short, the East Sider should work well.

WW

I'm not sure that Bob will sell the Bongo East building anytime soon. Owning the building himself, he is in the rare position of not being subject to the pressures of skyrocketing rent.  Not that he wouldn't eventually expand it himself.  I wouldn't mind seeing the BP replaced, but I really don't want to see all of Five Points replaced with schlock (looking at you, Hillsboro Village).  I'm not opposed to sensitive infill. Ironically, given my disdain for what he did to the Village, I like the plan for the new building Manuel Zeitlin is doing next to the old Turnip Truck.  Modern, but in character with the neighborhood, complimenting the beautiful, old gem next door.

[smeagolsfree]

Many of the cul-de-sac's that are in and around the core now occurred because the Interstate was built and cut through existing streets. Many of these streets were thru streets before that time. Not only the Interstate but Ellington Parkway. Many neighborhoods were severed when this happened. Also the area on the east side of Music Row were turned into dead ends to curb traffic and crime. I am not sure when this occurred, but that is another disaster.

After traveling to and exploring cities such as Charlotte, Denver, Austin and Raleigh, Nashville will have a very unique lay out as far as street-grids go, due to terrain and viaducts in the core and the strange alignments of the streets. I great example will the The One Nashville, sitting on that tiny triangle shaped lot. Another example is Gulch Crossing built right up to a viaduct. Many other cities are just in a grid pattern and they are predictable. I think in the long run it will benefit Nashville.

[CenterHill]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

Many of the cul-de-sac's that are in and around the core now occurred because the Interstate was built and cut through existing streets. Many of these streets were thru streets before that time. Not only the Interstate but Ellington Parkway. Many neighborhoods were severed when this happened. Also the area on the east side of Music Row were turned into dead ends to curb traffic and crime. I am not sure when this occurred, but that is another disaster.

 

Those Music Row area severed streets could be reconnected with relative ease.    e.g., Sigler, Hawkins, Grand, Archer.   I don't know if residents there would prefer to keep the cul de sacs or would welcome the convenience of reestablishing the connections. 

[rookzie]

21 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Many of the cul-de-sac's that are in and around the core now occurred because the Interstate was built and cut through existing streets. Many of these streets were thru streets before that time. Not only the Interstate but Ellington Parkway. Many neighborhoods were severed when this happened. Also the area on the east side of Music Row were turned into dead ends to curb traffic and crime. I am not sure when this occurred, but that is another disaster.

After traveling to and exploring cities such as Charlotte, Denver, Austin and Raleigh, Nashville will have a very unique lay out as far as street-grids go, due to terrain and viaducts in the core and the strange alignments of the streets. I great example will the The One Nashville, sitting on that tiny triangle shaped lot. Another example is Gulch Crossing built right up to a viaduct. Many other cities are just in a grid pattern and they are predictable. I think in the long run it will benefit Nashville.

 

19 hours ago, CenterHill said:

Those Music Row area severed streets could be reconnected with relative ease.    e.g., Sigler, Hawkins, Grand, Archer.   I don't know if residents there would prefer to keep the cul de sacs or would welcome the convenience of reestablishing the connections. 

 

Most of the "debilitating" effects of severing into cul-de-sacs, nubs, and re-alignments were concentrated within the core by Ellington, I-40, and I-65, whereas sprawl development generally followed the construction of I-24 for the most part, since it was a relatively new roadway compared to the others (and because it follows the alignment of the other 2 Interstates within the primary core).  I'd say conservatively that at least 60 percent of the pre-existing surface road grid connections were chopped up with the advent of these expressways, a situation exacerbated with the addition of traffic control at many points of interchange (e.g. Cleveland St; 28th Ave. N.; Wedgewood Ave.)  The more bridges for passing over or under or the longer a viaduct span would be, then the more costly maintenance would be for future "fast-fixes", as it were, so there would be a trade-off for restoring a sizable amount of connectivity to the surface.  Had these been built initially with far more connectivity, then funding repair and replacement would have had to be appropriated long before now.  Then too, had  the Interstates had been built to pass only along the periphery of the core, or even further out, then an advantage and benefit of more crossovers would have been not so defined, or even a mater of critical consideration.

I believe that the Music-Row cut-offs began within the late '70s, although Grand, Hawkins, and Sigler. might have been closed in the '80s during my absence ─ I'm not certain.
-==-

Edited December 8, 2015 by rookzie

[bhibbs]

has any seen/heard of any work going on at 305 E Trinity Ln?