Oracle, 60 acres at River North, 1,200,000 sq. ft. of space, $1.2B Investment, 8,500 jobs

[AsianintheNations]

6 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Actually the dams in the TVA system were to created to serve many purposes,  two of which are flood mitigation and  hydroelectricity. By doing these two things it also helped with economic development, river navigation, TVA also developed fertilizers and taught better crop management to farmers as part of the new deal. There are some of the dams have lock systems like Cheatham Dam which is just west of you  by about 15 miles. Interesting to see the barges go  through the lock system there. Cheatham is not part of TVA, but the Corps of Engineers.That pretty much connects Nashville to the Tennessee, Thus the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers. The Tennessee River has a number of locks to raise barges from Paducah  elevation of 302’ to Knoxville at 813’.

When you grow up here, you are a little more familiar with the purposes of this entity. The flooding in the south was a lot worse before the TVA dams were brought into the picture. Sorry for the history lesson. 

Cool, thanks for correcting me on that! Always appreciate a good history lesson. Do you have insights into how the dams were managed during the 2010 flood and whether there have been improvements in flood mitigation capacity since then? I was not here but what I've read is that the water had to be released from the Old Hickory Dam when Old Hickory Lake was about the overtop the dam.

[NashRugger]

1 hour ago, AsianintheNations said:

Cool, thanks for correcting me on that! Always appreciate a good history lesson. Do you have insights into how the dams were managed during the 2010 flood and whether there have been improvements in flood mitigation capacity since then? I was not here but what I've read is that the water had to be released from the Old Hickory Dam when Old Hickory Lake was about the overtop the dam.

NOAA compiled this huge assessment for the disaster in what happened before, during, & after the flood, particularly what happened between the NWS & Army Corps. 

These sorts of assessments are reserved for significant events, such as the Joplin EF5 that killed over 150 and the 2011 Super Outbreak. 

https://www.weather.gov/media/publications/assessments/Tenn_Flooding.pdf

[smeagolsfree]

The Corps of Engineers took a lot of heat for how they handled how water was released. I wish I could remember all of the details, but the outcome was now they start releasing water pretty quickly when they see these types of events coming, but….  And it this is a big but, if we have that much rain again in a short period of time, its going to happen again. It almost did this past year with half that much in places. The lakes would have to be twice the size they are now to keep an event like that from happening.

 

The problem is if the lakes were too low to stay prepared for such an event , it affects the hydroelectric production and all of the boaters and fishermen will be complaining they can’t get their boats in the water.

[Baronakim]

17 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

The Corps of Engineers took a lot of heat for how they handled how water was released. I wish I could remember all of the details, but the outcome was now they start releasing water pretty quickly when they see these types of events coming, but….  And it this is a big but, if we have that much rain again in a short period of time, its going to happen again. It almost did this past year with half that much in places. The lakes would have to be twice the size they are now to keep an event like that from happening.

 

The problem is if the lakes were too low to stay prepared for such an event , it affects the hydroelectric production and all of the boaters and fishermen will be complaining they can’t get their boats in the water.

Ok, here is how I remember Old Hickory Dam's construction and purpose.  Initially in the 1950s, Old Hickory Dam was built for two primary purposes...flood control for the city of Nashville and  cheap hydroelectric power generation needed to convert from a coal based system which massive polluted the city.  However the lake has been kept at much higher levels to placate the enormous residential and recreational uses developed over the past 7 decades.  This has largely reduced its capacity to control flooding.  As one who lost most of any possessions inherited from my mother in the 2010 flood (the water was 7 feet deep in the house, I roundly condemn the Core of Engineers for the release of water so suddenly that most folks could not save much of anything in the couple of hours in which the flooding rose.  Ultimately, it would have made no difference in the downtown if they had chosen a slower and less dangerous release.  The water rose dangerously quickly in Madison.  The higher pool levels remain today, otherwise the lake users would be in a snit.  Percy Priest is in a similar situation, but OHD is the main problem. One of the principal fears I personally have with keeping the pools higher is that of the studies  done back in the 50s, some were concerning wave generation effects on the dam from seismic events.  With the much higher pools, many of the conclusions of those studies are no longer accurate.   While the concrete gravity superstructures of both dams (as well as the Cordell Hull and Dale Hollow upstream) will survive a good shake, much of their earthwork arms will not.  Also Wolf Creek Dam in Kentucky has massive problems of its own.   In a seismic event , the flooding of Nashville in 2010 will be more like a puddle by comparison.  As the climate change forecast for Tennessee is generally hotter and wetter, I see no good things for the city in the future as to flooding.  Nashville needs to build the flood wall downtown pronto and even higher than originally proposed.  In terms of the volume of water that would be diverted downstream, fortunately the volume in downtown is very small in volume.  However the East bank solutions  need to respect the flood volume by building new buildings that can accept flooding with minimal damage.  That is extremely important for Oracle and others to consider. perhaps the better solution for new buildings in the East bank flood zone is to provide barriers, permanent and operable that protect the interior of  the building rather than try to steem a vast area of floodwatters.  Paducah Kentucky has a really good one that is very excellent in showing the history of the city in excellent murals with little compromise of the recreational use of the banks, only the view of it from the streets.   You really have to see it in person to appreciate the huge panels of artworks and the extent of them.  I think a Nashville  wall would be great given the relatively shorter length needed due to the topography here.  Some use of permanent (and muralled) sections along with retractable flood gates I think could be a very attractive solution, though expensive.  The technology of retractable gates has improved massively since Paducah built their walls,  However, the values of the buildings that now exist are substantially higher than the proposals made back in 2011-13 and should justify the expense of construction much more that back then. 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Baronakim
more images and comments

[smeagolsfree]

Yep, you said what I was not going to go into Randy. I do think there still needs to be a flood wall downtown and the way things are going with the development on the East Bank it will have to be on both sides of the river. We are going to multi billion dollar development on both sides of the river over the next 20 years. But then, where will that water go? My fear is they will need to build the levy higher in Metro Center. It just pushes the problem further downstream. 

The main solution is to keep the lakes at a lower level IMO!

[MLBrumby]

I thought there was an effort to replace the Wolf Creek dam. I had heard years ago that the downstream water levels were kept higher b/c WCD was not structurally capable of containing flooding upstream.   https://www.somerset-kentucky.com/kentucky/maintenance-work-resumes-at-wolf-creek-dam/article_4307e80e-0298-11eb-a3ff-07e72eb90baa.html

In January 2007, the lake level was lowered 40 feet and a seven-year, $309.1 million rehabilitation of Wolf Creek Dam included a longer and deeper wall inserted through the dam's earthen section.

[fxvol]

On 6/6/2021 at 12:08 PM, AsianintheNations said:

Cool, thanks for correcting me on that! Always appreciate a good history lesson. Do you have insights into how the dams were managed during the 2010 flood and whether there have been improvements in flood mitigation capacity since then? I was not here but what I've read is that the water had to be released from the Old Hickory Dam when Old Hickory Lake was about the overtop the dam.

 

[fxvol]

Just now, fxvol said:

 

I'm like Smeags in that I don't remember the details about the mishandling of the 2010 flood by the Corps of Engineers; however, I was in attendance at a Wednesday night presentation given in 2014 (I think) at our church to about 400 people by Representative Jim Cooper about his investigation into the Corps and how Congress forced the Corp to change. I do remember that the investigation found that the communication system used by the Corp to measure and send water level data and to open and close flood gates to the control center malfunctioned. 

Rep. Cooper pointed out that the Corp's Mission Statement included five priorities. My memory has faded, but I think the Mission Statement was changed after the investigation to move "flood control" from the fifth priority to the top priority. Cooper was rather angry that the Corp had place Electricity Generation, Fishing, Navigation and Recreation above Flood Control. He felt that the investigation showed that the Corp's Flood Control System had been neglected, poorly funded and mismanaged. Subsequent to the investigation, Rep. Cooper said he made a presentation on his plans to change the way the Corp was organized and operated to a Nashville civic club and afterward one member said to Cooper, "It would take an act of Congress to do that!" Cooper said he responded with, "Who do you think I am?"

Smeag's history lesson on TVA is very important. For those who may no have lived in Tennessee very long, it's important for you to understand TVA's uniqueness and how it has benefitted what is know as the Tennessee River Valley. TVA serves all of Tennessee and parts of seven other states. Prior to WWII, Tennessee was an agrarian state and "dirt poor," Dolly Parton can tell you all about it. Those who lived in the Tennessee River Valley suffered from frequent flooding and not having access to electricity. Farmers' crops were often destroyed by flood waters and pests.

Today, there are three types of electric companies (1) Investor-owned Utilities known as IOUs, City-owned utilities known as Municipals, and member-owned utilities known as Member Service Corporations, or Cooperatives, and usually referred to as "the Co-ops"

In general, think of the IOUs as the Big Boys like Consolidated Edison in NYC, Detroit Edison, Texas Utilities and Pacific Gas & Electric. These are large publicly-traded entities. They have the highest electric rates and are regulated by some sort of rate commission. Their tax status if for-profit. There are no IOUs in Tennessee.

The Municipals are a smaller group and were founded in the smaller cities like Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga by the local government.

Those living in rural areas had no electric service until the farmers banded together and formed electric cooperatives. Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act (and the TVA Act) in 1933 creating an agency known at the REA which makes low-interest loans to co-ops so that they can build sub-stations, power lines and service drops for commercial and residential service. Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation is one of the largest co-ops in the country. It, like Duck River EMC, Nashville Electric Service and Knoxville Utilities Board are known as "TVA Distributors." TVA, which reports to Congress, is the "Generation and Transmission Company," or G&T. TVA built the facilities like the Gallatin Steam plant and the Kingston Steam Plant which are fired by coal to generate electricity. It then wholesales electricity to the "Distributors" (NES, MTEMC etc.), then the Distributors build and maintain "the grid" and retail the electricity to everyone.

Because of TVA, the Distributors in the Valley have historically had some of the lowest electric rates in the nation. For decades now, with flooding under control by TVA Hydroelectric and US Army Corp of Engineer Dams Tennessee is no longer "dirt poor." These historic initiatives created the foundation for everyone to thrive and prosper. This model has been copied by many countries around the world, and the US, through agencies like the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, REA, USAID, and the World Bank, over the past 60 plus years has assisted countries in Asia and South America and elsewhere to provide electricity to the rural parts of their countries by copying this model.

It's a great success story and having been raised in Tennessee, I will be forever grateful to the men and women at TVA and the electric power distributors for what they have accomplished. Noble is cause and deed, they are.

 

[Mr_Bond]

On 6/5/2021 at 6:50 AM, Cadelfins said:

Now that's funny. Thank you I needed that this morning.

Welcome to the forum, @Cadelfins.

[markhollin]

It appears that mid-August will be the window where Oracle will officially announce their plans for the $1.2 billion hub in River North.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/07/06/oracle-river-north-announcement.html

[markhollin]

Oracle is searching for as much as 100,000 sq. ft. of temporary office space downtown  including looks at the former LifeWay building in Capitol View, the AT&T tower, UBS Tower, and ServiceSource building at 201 4th Ave. North.

The state board will vote next week to approve the $65 million cash grant for Oracle that had been agreed to months ago.  This is usually a rubber stamp type procedure. 

The official "welcome event" to publicly proclaim Oracle's arrival has been pushed back indefinitely from the original mid-August goal.  Should know more soon about when this will take place.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/09/01/oracle-funding-board-office-search.html

[Flatrock]

1 hour ago, markhollin said:

The official "welcome event" to publicly proclaim Oracle's arrival has been pushed back indefinitely from the original mid-August goal.  Should know more soon about when this will take place.

Mark, do we know the 'why' for this announcement being postponed indefinitely?

[markhollin]

43 minutes ago, Flatrock said:

Mark, do we know the 'why' for this announcement being postponed indefinitely?

No mention of it in the article.  Perhaps they just want of. have everything wrapped-up on the state $ before making the final announcement. 

[ruraljuror]

29 minutes ago, markhollin said:

No mention of it in the article.  Perhaps they just want of. have everything wrapped-up on the state $ before making the final announcement. 

As I'm sure y'all recall, it was just a few weeks before Oracle's mid-August announcement goal whenTennessee was making waves in the national news for a few consecutive cycles after we fired the top vaccine-related health official at the Tennessee Department of Health for encouraging teenagers to get vaccinated and then followed that up by doubling down and ending state backed outreach efforts for any/all vaccines to minors across the board.  I figured at the time that would create a wrinkle in Oracle's announcement timeline and might even lead to a much smaller announcement/PR blitz whenever the time comes to make it official. Just speculation, but Oracle doesn't want any unnecessary heat or unwanted attention, and they don't seem to be afraid to operate behind the scenes.

[downtownresident]

2 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

As I'm sure y'all recall, it was just a few weeks before Oracle's mid-August announcement goal whenTennessee was making waves in the national news for a few consecutive cycles after we fired the top vaccine-related health official at the Tennessee Department of Health for encouraging teenagers to get vaccinated and then followed that up by doubling down and ending state backed outreach efforts for any/all vaccines to minors across the board.  I figured at the time that would create a wrinkle in Oracle's announcement timeline and might even lead to a much smaller announcement/PR blitz whenever the time comes to make it official. Just speculation, but Oracle doesn't want any unnecessary heat or unwanted attention, and they don't seem to be afraid to operate behind the scenes.

This is a good thought, along with the current Covid spike putting a damper on in person gatherings for the time being. 

[MLBrumby]

More on the state's deal with Oracle, from NBJ today...  https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/09/07/oracle-funding-board-vote.html

Newly disclosed state records reveal exactly how many jobs Oracle Corp. committed to create in Nashville in exchange for a $65 million incentive, cementing the recruitment as the largest economic development deal in Tennessee history.

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) pledged 5,989 jobs at its forthcoming waterfront office campus on the East Bank of the Cumberland River, according to documents made public at the Sept. 7 meeting of the state Funding Board. The board unanimously approved the $65 million grant; board approval is a necessary step before a state grant can become official.

Oracle will invest $1.35 billion, compared to the originally reported $1.2b

[Licec]

On 9/1/2021 at 10:06 AM, ruraljuror said:

As I'm sure y'all recall, it was just a few weeks before Oracle's mid-August announcement goal whenTennessee was making waves in the national news for a few consecutive cycles after we fired the top vaccine-related health official at the Tennessee Department of Health for encouraging teenagers to get vaccinated and then followed that up by doubling down and ending state backed outreach efforts for any/all vaccines to minors across the board.  I figured at the time that would create a wrinkle in Oracle's announcement timeline and might even lead to a much smaller announcement/PR blitz whenever the time comes to make it official. Just speculation, but Oracle doesn't want any unnecessary heat or unwanted attention, and they don't seem to be afraid to operate behind the scenes.

This company has been tight lipped about this development for over two and a half years. How could any of the above cause them to go into "silent mode" when they were already operating like that from the beginning?

Edited September 7, 2021 by Licec

[ruraljuror]

15 hours ago, Licec said:

This company has been tight lipped about this development for over two and a half years. How could any of the above cause them to go into "silent mode" when they were already operating like that from the beginning?

You might be right, but Oracle didn't close on the land purchase until the beginning of June, so being tight-lipped for 2 and a half years before the deal was finalized is pretty irrelevant. Most companies don't make any formal announcements until deals are closed, so that's to be expected.

Once the land and incentive packages had been secured, however, Oracle immediately sent a couple of employees back to Nashville later that same month with the stated purpose of prepping for the formal Oracle/Nashville announcement in mid-August. The period in which Oracle was operating in "silent mode" had evidently come to an end, but then mid-August came and went with no formal announcement and no updates about the cause for the delay, etc.

What happened in the 6 weeks between the Oracle prep crew's return trip to Nashville to plan for the formal announcement and the planned date of that formal announcement itself that came and went? Tennessee was in the national news getting more than its fair share of bad PR, for one. In fact, that PR was so bad that the very Tennessee legislators who created that bad PR almost immediately did an about face and rescinded their new policy in response to the widespread backlash.  

To me, it seems pretty plausible that a company might want to avoid stepping in a PR mess that even the creators of that mess wanted no part in. I mean, why wouldn't they delay the announcement in that scenario? Given that these kind of corporate announcements are almost exclusively PR exercises to begin with, it would be at the very least counterproductive to carry on with the announcement as planned, and could even lead to negative PR for Oracle by association for a policy from which even theTennessee General Assembly wanted to disassociate. Given that climate, I would argue that to carry on with the announcement as planned would have been PR malpractice.

That said, as Downtown Resident noted above, it's also entirely plausible that the Delta spike was a bigger factor in leading to the delay, or any number of other potential reasons to slow down the process that we're not privy to. We'll most likely never know what the main factor behind the delay was, in any case, so please feel free to fill in the gaps with your own speculations if you please. 

Edited September 8, 2021 by ruraljuror

[nashvylle]

12 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

You might be right, but Oracle didn't close on the land purchase until the beginning of June, so being tight-lipped for 2 and a half years before the deal was finalized is pretty irrelevant. Most companies don't make any formal announcements until deals are closed, so that's to be expected.

Once the land and incentive packages had been secured, however, Oracle immediately sent a couple of employees back to Nashville later that same month with the stated purpose of prepping for the formal Oracle/Nashville announcement in mid-August. The period in which Oracle was operating in "silent mode" had evidently come to an end, but then mid-August came and went with no formal announcement and no updates about the cause for the delay, etc.

What happened in the 6 weeks between the Oracle prep crew's return trip to Nashville to plan for the formal announcement and the planned date of that formal announcement itself that came and went? Tennessee was in the national news getting more than its fair share of bad PR, for one. In fact, that PR was so bad that the very Tennessee legislators who created that bad PR almost immediately did an about face and rescinded their new policy in response to the widespread backlash.  

To me, it seems pretty plausible that a company might want to avoid stepping in a PR mess that even the creators of that mess wanted no part in. I mean, why wouldn't they delay the announcement in that scenario? Given that these kind of corporate announcements are almost exclusively PR exercises to begin with, it would be at the very least counterproductive to carry on with the announcement as planned, and could even lead to negative PR for Oracle by association for a policy from which even theTennessee General Assembly wanted to disassociate. Given that climate, I would argue that to carry on with the announcement as planned would have been PR malpractice.

That said, as Downtown Resident noted above, it's also entirely plausible that the Delta spike was a bigger factor in leading to the delay, or any number of other potential reasons to slow down the process that we're not privy to. We'll most likely never know what the main factor behind the delay was, in any case, so please feel free to fill in the gaps with your own speculations if you please. 

Did Oracle have a big PR event when they relocated their HQ to Austin? If you are of the opinion that TN legislators bring bad PR, then Texas is bringing even worse. 

[ruraljuror]

1 hour ago, nashvylle said:

Did Oracle have a big PR event when they relocated their HQ to Austin? If you are of the opinion that TN legislators bring bad PR, then Texas is bringing even worse. 

Yes and Yes

[markhollin]

More coverage on state's just-passed $65 million incentive plan for Oracle.

Tennessean:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2021/09/08/tennessee-65-million-incentive-plan-oracle-nashville/5772396001/

Nashville Post:

https://www.nashvillepost.com/business/technology/of-note-state-oks-63m-grant-for-oracle/article_fb0abb56-102b-11ec-bd18-1bbfe24a8a17.html

[Rick Dalton]

This is a huge move for the city, needless to say

[LA_TN]

I think it's safe to say Oracle will make an announcement when they want regardless of anything else. But everyone is entitled to speculate; let's just not fill up a whole thread about speculation, please and thanks

[markhollin]

Lots of excavation and infrastructure placement continues on site.

Looking west from intersection of Cowan St. and Cowan Ct:

Looking north from intersection of Cowan St. and Cowan Ct:




Looking west from Cowan St.,  1/2 block north of Cowan Ct:

Looking south from Cowan St.,  1/2 block north of Cowan Ct:

[chris holman]

4 hours ago, markhollin said:

Lots of excavation and infrastructure placement continues on site.

Looking west from intersection of Cowan St. and Cowan Ct:

Looking north from intersection of Cowan St. and Cowan Ct:




Looking west from Cowan St.,  1/2 block north of Cowan Ct:

Looking south from Cowan St.,  1/2 block north of Cowan Ct:

Go big lol