Inner Loop - CBD, Downtown, East Bank, Germantown, Gulch, Rutledge

[subkyle]

Welcome to the forum. Just curious,what is your connection to that part of town?

You seem to know the players there and we probably have some contacts in common.

 

Im a Subway franchisee in the area, and one of my colleagues owns some of the property (And Subway) where this is being build. Also work in franchise development.  

[smeagolsfree]

Thanks,

Please come to one of the forum meets. I am failiar with the holdings of the group on 5th S where the Subway is.

[markhollin]

Artsy photo gallery of Ben West and Cordell Hull buildings being set up at Vanderbilt...

 

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/05/city-in-progress-art-project/?utm_source=myvupreview&utm_medium=myvu_email&utm_campaign=myvupreview-2015-05-01

[rookzie]

I'm not sure why they are branding this metro center. This is definitely Jones-Buena Vista/ North Nashville.

 

That always did and does pi$$ me off, that a few intend to re-brand historically recognized neighborhood districts to suit their egos, especially since most of them "aint from 'round he-uh".  Metro Center is a least-desirable name to be associated with, IMO ─ so bland and provincial sounding, and it was nothing more than marsh "dismal" land and a city dump, in 1970.

-==-

[smeagolsfree]

That always did and does pi$$ me off, that a few intend to re-brand historically recognized neighborhood districts to suit their egos, especially since most of them "aint from 'round he-uh".  Metro Center is a least-desirable name to be associated with, IMO ─ so bland and provincial sounding, and it was nothing more than marsh "dismal" land and a city dump, in 1970.

-==-

Ohhh, I agree with you Ricky. Its crazy I know, but its all about marketing.

[rookzie]

Ohhh, I agree with you Ricky. Its crazy I know, but its all about marketing.

 

I  wonder to just what extent developers and promoters can "machinate" to get Metro to actually change these on the district maps.  If that indeed can be done, then it would behoove concerned citizens (if there are any) to counter it with a hearing or petition, or with whatever same mechanism is available to get it changed in the first place.

-==-

[mundiejc]

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a movement to get everything between I40 and Cass Street, at least from Delta to DB Todd, renamed something with Buchanan in the title. That is really the focal point of this neighborhood .... its more broadly "North Nashville" which is what I've been calling it since I moved here, but I feel like something a bit more specific needs to develop. Apparently the areas near the colleges is going to be "University City" which I'm fine with. But maybe its divided up - The Capitol District, including Germantown, Salemtown, HBV and Hope Gardens, Buchanan Business District, encompassing Elizabeth Park, Jones-Buena Vista, Cumberland Gardens and North Fisk, Buena Vista Heights can stay that, Metro Center, University City and I assume Marathon Village up to Jefferson is going to get lumped into North Gulch. 

[Paramount747]

Just because something can be physically retrofitted doesn't mean it makes any financial sense. And the only way these sort of things happen in the private world is that the numbers work. Period. Sorry that if that is harsh.

Like it or not this type of project makes zero financial sense as a private rehabilitation unless the city is willing to basically give the building away. No restaurant can take down 25,000 SF. Retail along the sloped highway style design of Rosa Parks and 9th isn't going to survive. The upper floor can't be rented to office because there is absolutely no parking. It is a pedestrian death trap with the way the streets work. It meets none of the good open first floor urban design principals of modern design.

The city is looking for some private developer to bail them out here. If they really want to rehabilitate the building and save the architecture then they need to find another civic use. It isn't good for much else. If the wood and marble is so wonderful then salvage it for reuse. I think maintaining the buildings history through material reuse may end up being the most likely option.

And you know Nashville's record of salvaging good marble and wood….zero.  We can agree to disagree, but this gem needs to be saved. There are not many of these mid century post modern buildings left. This will be as tragic as tearing down the first Carnegie library. This building cold be incorporated into a newer building at the rear of the lot of the Central Parking family ever decides to sell which is very doubtful. I wish I could buy this building and save it. This could even be a great small music venue. There are endless opportunities for this building.

[rookzie]

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a movement to get everything between I40 and Cass Street, at least from Delta to DB Todd, renamed something with Buchanan in the title. That is really the focal point of this neighborhood .... its more broadly "North Nashville" which is what I've been calling it since I moved here, but I feel like something a bit more specific needs to develop. Apparently the areas near the colleges is going to be "University City" which I'm fine with. But maybe its divided up - The Capitol District, including Germantown, Salemtown, HBV and Hope Gardens, Buchanan Business District, encompassing Elizabeth Park, Jones-Buena Vista, Cumberland Gardens and North Fisk, Buena Vista Heights can stay that, Metro Center, University City and I assume Marathon Village up to Jefferson is going to get lumped into North Gulch. 

 

The fact is, the area you mentioned including and on the periphery of the "Buchanan" area, actually have been historically named what they are, and the old timers who remain, still identify with those names, even though the interstate dissected the districts with the "Vegematic" machine.  Those who have moved in and who have take pride in the original names, have done well to even remind Nashvillians that these districts indeed still exist.  I can't see Metro Center or even Marathon Village being lumped into North Gulch, which basically should be constrained to Jo Johnston, at farthest Harrison St. and on the west by the Interstate.  There does have to be some boundary, and I don't believe it's justifiable to take Jo Johnston or Clinton Ave, west of the Interstate and to 14th or 16th, because that basically ignores the heritage of Preston Taylor, Watkins Park sub-regions, in effect defining an invisible "value-added" barrier, as it were.

 

Cumberland Gardens actually was built during the post-war days and continued to be developed into 1964, when the last of the parcels sprouted homes (Jenkins St., 25th Ave. N. Court to be exact).  The portion of the Fisk neighborhood, adjoining the train tracks on the east (Heiman to near Osage) had been farm land (just as had Cumberland Gardens), until around 1955. The area north of Clarksville Highway, which had been US-41A from 28th to Clay St., had been referred to as the "Early" district.  That's the namesake of the nearby former John Early School building (now the C. E. McGruder Family Resource Center), and the land on which Cumberland Gardens was built included this district at large.  I do agree in whole that "North Nashville" has become too broadly and vaguely undefined, and made a misnomer by decades of annexation, consolidation, and mere sprawl.  It's no less ill-declared than South Nashville or West Nashville, the latter of which always has been a source of academic contention, since no official border ever had been established between North and West, except historically way back when the separation of the races fell primarily along 40th Ave and the Cockrill Bend Industrial branch of the RR.

 

Admittedly I'm old-school, and I just believe in maintaining the 60+ year names and enhancing the lineage, as it were, by promoting civic action for district consciousness, along with sensible re-development.  With a trend for re-branding, hell I'm likely to develop dementia on day (more than now), then go for a walk, and come back disoriented to where I thought I lived, and they come and arrest me for vagrancy and loitering, after wandering around because someone "snuck" and changed the street names and the corner sign to my neighborhood, just because it "sounded" more hipped.

-==-

Edited May 5, 2015 by rookzie

[rookzie]

And you know Nashville's record of salvaging good marble and wood….zero.  We can agree to disagree, but this gem needs to be saved. There are not many of these mid century post modern buildings left. This will be as tragic as tearing down the first Carnegie library. This building cold be incorporated into a newer building at the rear of the lot of the Central Parking family ever decides to sell which is very doubtful. I wish I could buy this building and save it. This could even be a great small music venue. There are endless opportunities for this building.

 

Generally the dice are in strong favor of retaining the structure intact, as a century+-old deed has cast serious question on Metro’s right to engage in any transaction, with respect to a portion of land on which that former library structure currently occupies.  The scenario is a bit convoluted, but there appears to have been some contingency that, should the original structure purposed and utilized as a free-lending library longer remains extant or no longer serves that purpose, then the parcel on which the structure stands (the portion on which the original Carnegie Library once stood), then the property on which the structure of former purpose once stood defaults to reverting to the ownership of the survivors of the original benefactor, donated for the purpose of constructing the original library built on that site.

http://nashvillecity...land-deal-state

One might say, not so fast in arriving at a decisive concluding. Rather than to squander resources in seeking to divest itself of this property, with a high-percentage probability of that move becoming legal poison, and to further protract eventual re-use and rehab of that structure, Metro needs to shift focus on its intent.

The building can be saved for certain, but it's just the matter of how Metro is going about it.  To me, Metro should take the front-seat reins, take control, and just do it, without any if's-and's-but's (or butt's).  Cities do transform their coveted properties, just like in St. Paul, et. al.  Most of that exterior marble is simply cladding, with only a small number of dimensional shapes actually solid, such as the polished coping sections on the granite wall of varying elevations surrounding the base of the structure.  These dark-finished pieces are monoliths, while the facing material along fascia and pilaster surfaces are simply cladding.  If Metro continues to wait and wait, then sooner or later, some of that cladding is going to separate from the underlying concrete, depending on the stone-anchoring hardware applied to that construction.  And as I stated in a recent post, prolonged neglect of the structure will definitely result in extensive deterioration later on.  I don’t believe any private investor wishes to encumber this type of liability, but I think that the embedded barbed thorn of prevailing accountability leans measurably toward Metro’s retaining the building.

Current industry standard library practices could be incorporated to reserve a small portion of an adaptively re-developed structure as a specialized museum with computerized federated-search-engine facilities using aggregated subscription services paid by Metro (since the city swapped the original property with the State).  It wouldn’t have to be a large library-museum – it could be something unique like a hub-cap museum; or a smoking pipe museum, if the city could get US Tobacco to donate the pipes from its now closed museum that had been located on Harrison St.  In the end, there is no point in Metro pretending that this thing will just go away.

-==-

Edited May 5, 2015 by rookzie

[smeagolsfree]

I was wondering when this project would get the green light. This is another apartment building on RMH. I think this is the last, however there is room for one more project up there.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2015/05/04/rolling-mill-hill-get-unit-apartment-project/26895249/

[smeagolsfree]

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2015/05/04/developer-seeks-add-rooms-noel-place-hotel/26902909/

Addition to Noel Hotel building possible

[markhollin]

I was wondering when this project would get the green light. This is another apartment building on RMH. I think this is the last, however there is room for one more project up there.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2015/05/04/rolling-mill-hill-get-unit-apartment-project/26895249/

I drive up there about every 4 months and it seems like something new is underway each time.  Amazing to think of what it looked like just 5 years ago.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2015/05/04/developer-seeks-add-rooms-noel-place-hotel/26902909/

Addition to Noel Hotel building possible

Fascinated with where the whole Printers Alley area is headed. I think it's going to be pretty cool when all is complete.  

[Rockatansky]

I was wondering when this project would get the green light. This is another apartment building on RMH. I think this is the last, however there is room for one more project up there.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2015/05/04/rolling-mill-hill-get-unit-apartment-project/26895249/

$1350/mo for a studio? Oy vey!

[NashRugger]

$1350/mo for a studio? Oy vey!

Damn, that's Dallas Uptown-type rates! 

[MLBrumby]

William has a recap of recent announcements, with a treasure chest of renderings...   https://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2015/5/5/mdha_oks_rolling_mill_hill_for_apartment_building

 

 

 

 

 

 

So would someone please explain to me what a Fluffo is?

[NashRugger]

Noel Place, hell damn yes! Get that mess done.

[titanhog]

^^Fluffo is a mattress...right?

[bhibbs]

^^Fluffo is a mattress...right?

 

haha, used to be...Fluffo Mattresses building in East Nashville....current home to Fat Bottom, Edleys, etc

[gannman]

Does the Fluffo addition face Gallatin?

[smeagolsfree]

Does the Fluffo addition face Gallatin?

From what I saw at the MDHA meeting, it will face Woodland. If you note the rendering has the SE and SW views which would be on Woodland and also the elevation goes down from that point.

[smeagolsfree]

This was also an item I gave WW from the meeting today and this is the fact they are planning one more building on RMHill.

There is no timeline on this, but I did mention the other day there was room and low and behold it was mentioned today. My spicy sense is dead on again I guess.

[CenterHill]

I really like that Fluffo proposal. Love all the glass.

[markhollin]

A blast from the past:  Footage of lower Broadway and 2nd Avenue from 1978 when Mayor Fulton was pushing for Riverfront Park.  Kudos to Lexy who sent me this link.

[Nashville Cliff]

The building in question on the Fluffo site appears to be the nondescript brick building facing woodland; the one with the tin storage warehouse addition at the back.  Up the hill on S. 9th from Fat Bottom.  I wonder what will happen with the Fat Bottom site when they move across the river later this year?