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5th & Broadway | 501 Commerce | NMAAM | 34 story apt, 26 story office, + 183,000 sq. ft. of Retail


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Ice will be all you will visit at this point as there is hardly anything in Global Crossing. I have my doubts that ice,, a library, and a community center, not to mention the Nashville State location will save the mall. I hope I am wrong, but I was in there last month and is was deader than a hole box of door nails.

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Maybe a Hill Center-type development won't work for the former Convention Center site, but I would definitely like to see the Broadway side lined with retail, restaurants and bars at the very least. I think it's very important to activate the stretch that fronts Bridgestone Arena and pull the energy from Lower Broadway further west.

 

This could also be an opportunity to diversify the offerings for Broadway. We often hear visitors who are not very familiar with the city say things like "Nashville is all about country music." Whether we like it or not, I can see how one might get that impression from visiting Lower Broadway. Since this development will likely contain the Museum of African American Music & it's not really a part of traditional Lower Broadway, this could be a great opportunity to make our live music offerings downtown more expansive. Who knows? Maybe more locals will start venturing into the District if it had a broader appeal. 

 

I also agree with BNA and do not want one of those 4th Street Live (Louisville) or Epicenter (Charlotte) sort of developments for the former CC site. We just stopped at 4th Street Live on the way back from Ohio back during the summer months and were really unimpressed with it. It was dead as a doornail too for a weekend. I would not want to see development of that sort for the former CC site just because it's a lot of space to fill.

Edited by ariesjow
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This could also be an opportunity to diversify the offerings for Broadway. We often hear visitors who are not very familiar with the city say things like "Nashville is all about country music." Whether we like it or not, I can see how one might get that impression from visiting Lower Broadway. Since this development will likely contain the Museum of African American Music & it's not really a part of traditional Lower Broadway, this could be a great opportunity to make our live music offerings downtown more expansive. Who knows? Maybe more locals will start venturing into the District if it had a broader appeal. 

 

I completely agree, this could be a great opportunity to offer a venue similar in size to the Ryman, but maybe more accommodating for certain acts. 

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The location on the Capitol Mall where the Museum of African American Music was proposed was to originally be a Civil Rights Museum. Just about every city except Nashville has one and Nashville's lack of such a structure is a glaring omission from the City's monuments and attractions considering the major role the City and it's citizens played in knocking down so many discriminatory barriers at that time.  Also, we have that ridiculous and embarrassing statue of Nathan Bedford Forest at a prominent location in town. 

 

But then the original proposal somehow morphed into the currently proposed Museum of African American Music on the same lot. Now the City wants it on Broadway. I suspect the insistence on such a high profile location is, one, to help correct that incredible and shameful historical oversight and, two, to get it done after years of false starts.

 

I hope the proposed State Archives and Museum will break ground someday soon and will have a wing dedicated to the remembrance of that era. But the City needs to do justice and get this unique celebration of American culture completed.

 

 

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Just a couple of thoughts on the previous very good posts:

 

I really like PHofKS ideas on including the city's (state's) role in the civil rights legislation in the state museum. Hope it happens... and sooner than later. 

 

I also don't like those contrived gathering spaces that bring in chain after chain after chain and shut out the surrounding urban fabric.  The worst one I can think of is in my hometown ... Underground Atlanta.  They are so '80s. 

 

Having said that, a pedestrian mall area is not bad if it weaves the surrounding urban fabric into it.  One that stands out that I will always love is the Riverwalk in SA.  And so I wonder if something that resembles (although not in a "trying to be" way) the winding narrow streets of an Italian city.  I don't think the old CC site is large enough (the old Thermal site would be perfect imho), but some of those very ideas could be used.  Also, the Temple Bar area of Dublin comes to mind.  If the old CC site could have some winding outdoor "streets" with local retail and restaurants that would be ideal.  Even a mixed use would be nice.  I do think a House of Blues would work well there. 

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Just a couple of thoughts on the previous very good posts:

 

I really like PHofKS ideas on including the city's (state's) role in the civil rights legislation in the state museum. Hope it happens... and sooner than later. 

 

I also don't like those contrived gathering spaces that bring in chain after chain after chain and shut out the surrounding urban fabric.  The worst one I can think of is in my hometown ... Underground Atlanta.  They are so '80s. 

 

Having said that, a pedestrian mall area is not bad if it weaves the surrounding urban fabric into it.  One that stands out that I will always love is the Riverwalk in SA.  And so I wonder if something that resembles (although not in a "trying to be" way) the winding narrow streets of an Italian city.  I don't think the old CC site is large enough (the old Thermal site would be perfect imho), but some of those very ideas could be used.  Also, the Temple Bar area of Dublin comes to mind.  If the old CC site could have some winding outdoor "streets" with local retail and restaurants that would be ideal.  Even a mixed use would be nice.  I do think a House of Blues would work well there. 

 

I totally agree.  I've always thought that such a thing would be perfect for the small area between the future pedestrian bridge and the MCC.  To me, having a retail/restaurant/bar area filling those blocks with a winding pedestrian only corridor going right through the middle that begins at the pedestrian bridge and ends near the roundabout, would be the perfect way to connect Nashville's two most burgeoning districts. 

Edited by BnaBreaker
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... We often hear visitors who are not very familiar with the city say things like "Nashville is all about country music." Whether we like it or not, I can see how one might get that impression from visiting Lower Broadway. Since this development will likely contain the Museum of African American Music & it's not really a part of traditional Lower Broadway, this could be a great opportunity to make our live music offerings downtown more expansive. Who knows? Maybe more locals will start venturing into the District if it had a broader appeal. 

...

 

A comment visitors make is that Nashville seems to be just bars, bars and more bars.  I'm hoping whatever this turns out to be, creates a sense of more variety in things to do and a more diverse crowd doing it. 

 

It needs to activate the hell out of the street, but I'd rather it was unabashedly modern and not try to echo the historic brick buildings of lower broad in any way.  To me DT is about liveliness, diversity and the past living in the present rather than in some restrictive historical district. And if there's going to be tastefulness or restraint they need to keep that away from the street, confine it to the upper floors, the Broadway streetfront needs to signal fun, with some neon and whatnot.  I don't really care what the upper part looks like but it is a good place for a tall hotel or a high rise housing component.

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Ice will be all you will visit at this point as there is hardly anything in Global Crossing. I have my doubts that ice,, a library, and a community center, not to mention the Nashville State location will save the mall. I hope I am wrong, but I was in there last month and is was deader than a hole box of door nails.

 

It's hard to say -- the location itself has a lot to overcome. 

 

I would like to think that Vanderbilt's clinic at 100 Oaks serves as a good model for a mixed/multi-use adaptation for the mall environment...but there are some major differences. At 100 Oaks, the mall outlets upstairs were not nearly as successful as the big box stores with outside entrances downstairs...so the indoor mall became something else, while what amounts to a street level strip mall still seems to be thriving. Global Mall does need to draw people inside, rather than just to the big attractions along the perimeter. Plus -- 100 Oaks never had the 'area' baggage that Hickory Hollow has.

 

I think it can be successful...but I'm not sold on whether it will be. Perhaps they can turn some of the vast interior mall space into a sort of indoor park, with a modest number of shops in the center. I can't imagine that the entire interior space will ever come close to being filled, though.

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It's 1.2 million for the whole project...likely not an acre per floor.

 

It says it would have a heavy office component of 480,000-840,000 sq ft, and a tower ranging from 16-28 floors. If the tower is office only, that would roughly work out to 30,000 sq ft per floor, which is big, but probably closer to what most big companies are looking for rather than a tall, skinny fence post. 

 

As for Nashville's 'fear of heights'....this building is on (or would be set back from) Broadway. If it went the full 28 floors, it would probably be close to Pinnacle in size. With how stingy Metro has been with proposals near its historic districts, I would think anything over 200 ft tall would be a glorious victory for those height cravers out there (going off of the Swerdling proposal). Was anybody really expecting a new tallest here? Leave that proposal for 5th and Church.

 

All that said -- since the tower 'could range' from 16-28 floors, I'm going to go ahead and be a Debbie Downer and say I bet it will be on the low end (20 or less), because without a tenant to eat up a large portion of that space, I doubt anyone would finance an 840,000 sq ft spec office building downtown. If that happens, Tony G might just explode. The scheduled start time for this is circa 2017, so if Tony wants either of his mixed use towers to rise, he knows the clock is ticking.

 

 

 

 

FWIW, I'm going to have to see some site plans or renderings before I decide whether or not I like this proposal. My initial thought is that while the city is choosing a very successful (and very suburban) office developer to lead this, I wonder if office space is what we really want right there. Office will be very active 9-5, but will pretty much be an empty hole the rest of the time. Of course, it seems that the large hotel market is likely going to be saturated for at least the next several years (assuming one or more of the Grand Hyatt, Marriott, and Westin get off the ground)...and while I want more downtown residential, I could see how that particular location and development might be considered a tough sell (noisy, dealing with tourists and museum/retail traffic in the garage). Still, a modest residential proposal wouldn't be a bad thing to add to the after 5 o'clock vibe.

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What's most likely to happen is that Emery gets this tower built (I'm betting less than 20 floors), starting after 2017!!!  With his and C-W's leasing record, this thing gets built long before Giarratana ever gets 5&C off the ground.  If anything, this tower will delay (if not cancel altogether) anything at 5&C.  Sorry if I sound pessimistic to you guys, but that's really how things have gone in Nashvegas.  

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I am glad to see I am not the only one expecting this to be towards the smaller end of the 16-28 range. It is exciting to read about, but I was a tad disappointed to see such a far away start time. Does it really take over 2 years to get the details sorted out? I guess all I got from this article is that in 6 years we "might" have a 16 story building downtown.

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What's most likely to happen is that Emery gets this tower built (I'm betting less than 20 floors), starting after 2017!!!  With his and C-W's leasing record, this thing gets built long before Giarratana ever gets 5&C off the ground.  If anything, this tower will delay (if not cancel altogether) anything at 5&C.  Sorry if I sound pessimistic to you guys, but that's really how things have gone in Nashvegas.

Not unless it is a residential project, then 5th & Church may be a reality sooner rather than later. Based on what I have heard, it will have a residential component if not the entirety.

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Basically, it's viscerally ugly from the tower to the base, and to put it across the street from the Ryman is insulting. I mean, Nashville also doesn't have that massive guitar skyscraper, and I have no interest in seeing that built, either. That site needs something classy and complimentary of the Ryman, not a bad modernist mediocrity.

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Basically, it's viscerally ugly from the tower to the base, and to put it across the street from the Ryman is insulting. I mean, Nashville also doesn't have that massive guitar skyscraper, and I have no interest in seeing that built, either. That site needs something classy and complimentary of the Ryman, not a bad modernist mediocrity.

 

I respect your opinion, and you're obviously more than entitled to it, but just saying 'its ugly' isn't really an answer to my question, not that you're obligated to answer it, but I'm just saying. 

 

In any case, what, to you, would constitute something that was "classy" and "complimentary of the Ryman"?  It's probably just a lack of vision on my part, but I can't see how any structure would really compliment the Ryman, unless you're saying that this should be built out of red stone and/or have a church style roof on it. 

Oh My! That design is not cute hon-ty. Hate it!

Cute Hon-ty?  That's a new one for me!  :P

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That... is... no. Just no. The redevelopment along Broadway is HIDEOUS. The tower itself isn't that bad but it's orientated wrong - I don't want another Renaissance Hotel to block the rest of the skyline. It's got no curvature which, I think, would help tremendously. Playing with malformed lego bricks looks like a... oh right. It looks like a guy who does a lot of great suburban projects had the lead.

 

No thanks.

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Actually, it looks a bit like a rehash of the equally ugly Medical Mart design (is it from the same architectural firm ?). No, I'm not suggesting a duplication of the Ryman, just something that would be respectful, complimentary and classy. It simply possesses none of those traits (which is why I'm appalled by it, to answer your question). I'm not an architect, so I couldn't draw quite what I had in mind, but surely someone could come up with an elegant design that pays tribute to its neighbor.

Generally, I'm not the biggest fan of modernist architecture, though I won't dismiss it all out of hand without seeing it first. The 505CST is modernist, but it gets the thumbs up from me. That design is sleek and does have an unusual shape, but it doesn't have these jarring, weird, awkward, jutting blocks and angles. No section of this proposal is attractive, from the aforementioned tower to the entry. It's not inspiring, it's frankly insulting.

For the record, I've never been a fan of the hotel tower atop the old Convention Center, either. I think it ranks as perhaps the ugliest building downtown above 250 feet.

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