The Sinclair, 27 stories, 315', 334 residential units; 31,500 sq. ft. retail; 13,040 sq. ft. restaurant; underground garage

[titanhog]

Really a cool building.  Can you guys tell if the building is the same height the entire building…or does it slope down from front to back (towards the east)?  I can’t tell if that’s a tropical delusion or not. 

[markhollin]

22 minutes ago, titanhog said:

Really a cool building.  Can you guys tell if the building is the same height the entire building…or does it slope down from front to back (towards the east)?  I can’t tell if that’s a tropical delusion or not. 

Definitely slopes downward from west to east:

 

[downtownresident]

Planning staff is recommending approval with conditions of the preliminary SP for this project at the upcoming planning meeting on Aug 26th. 

One of the conditions for approval is for GBT to conduct a “road diet study for 25th Avenue / Elliston Place / Church Street from West End Avenue George L Davis Boulevard. The analysis will include all signalized intersections and any other key intersection.” 

According to the report GBT has committed 1 million dollars to complete “off-site mobility improvements.”

Analysis starts on page 108 of this document: https://www.nashville.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/210826sr.pdf

Here is a new diagrams that show pedestrian enhancements to the intersection: 

Source: https://epermits.nashville.gov/download.aspx?id=605201

[MagicPotato]

On 7/6/2021 at 10:28 AM, markhollin said:

NashvilleNowNext's coverage of the 2416 West End announcement:

https://nashvillenownext.com/2021/07/06/nownext-fresh-renderings-reveal-the-proposed-mixed-use-tower-in-midtown-nashville/

Some more zoomed-in versions of the renderings:
 

Great looking deign, too bad it's not 800ft instead of 370ft. 

[PruneTracy]

13 hours ago, downtownresident said:

One of the conditions for approval is for GBT to conduct a “road diet study for 25th Avenue / Elliston Place / Church Street from West End Avenue George L Davis Boulevard. The analysis will include all signalized intersections and any other key intersection.” 

Didn't Metro just restripe Church Street from 19th to the interstate? Is this an implicit admission that turned out to be a hot mess? And how do you road diet Elliston when it's already two lanes and a TWLTL?

[downtownresident]

47 minutes ago, PruneTracy said:

Didn't Metro just restripe Church Street from 19th to the interstate? Is this an implicit admission that turned out to be a hot mess? And how do you road diet Elliston when it's already two lanes and a TWLTL?

Church Street flows much better in my experience with the added turn lanes. 

[smeagolsfree]

2 hours ago, PruneTracy said:

Didn't Metro just restripe Church Street from 19th to the interstate? Is this an implicit admission that turned out to be a hot mess? And how do you road diet Elliston when it's already two lanes and a TWLTL?

Eliminate the parking on Elliston will be a start I will bet. Just guessing. That’s what they did on Church.

[UrbanWes03]

8 hours ago, PruneTracy said:

Didn't Metro just restripe Church Street from 19th to the interstate? Is this an implicit admission that turned out to be a hot mess? And how do you road diet Elliston when it's already two lanes and a TWLTL?

 

5 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Eliminate the parking on Elliston will be a start I will bet. Just guessing. That’s what they did on Church.

It looks like they have combined the left turn lane with the center turn lane to make room for the bike lanes based on the picture. I do believe currently the left turn lane is separate on Ellison and the center turn lane is just striped off next to it.

[downtownresident]

6 minutes ago, UrbanWes03 said:

 

It looks like they have combined the left turn lane with the center turn lane to make room for the bike lanes based on the picture. I do believe currently the left turn lane is separate on Ellison and the center turn lane is just striped off next to it.

That appears to be the plan. Here is the current condition of the site from the plan I linked earlier: 

[smeagolsfree]

This is one project I will be excited to see rise, and one of my favorite projects in a long time. Hopefully GBT will soon give information about a timeline once it makes its way through Council.

[downtownresident]

6 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

This is one project I will be excited to see rise, and one of my favorite projects in a long time. Hopefully GBT will soon give information about a timeline once it makes its way through Council.

I’m really excited about this one as well.

I haven’t seen the roof plan posted yet, this gives a good idea of how the steps up along Elliston Place relate to the rest of the tower, I think the offset along this part of the facade will look really cool: 

In my opinion, this tower is an absolute stunner. Would’ve loved more masonry elements, but overall very happy with the proposed design. The angled facade along West End, the offset step up along Elliston  Place will look good for years to come. 
 

Hopefully GBT buries those utilities, would be an absolute shame for them to build such a beautiful building to have ugly telephone / power lines running along it. 

[AronG]

On 8/21/2021 at 8:31 PM, UrbanWes03 said:

It looks like they have combined the left turn lane with the center turn lane to make room for the bike lanes based on the picture. I do believe currently the left turn lane is separate on Ellison and the center turn lane is just striped off next to it.

Ugg, are we still dumb enough to keep painting "bike lanes" squeezed in between fast-moving traffic and parallel parked cars? There's like a million people trying to get around this city on bikes and scooters, but no-one is ever going to use these, because they're a death trap. It's like design 101 to move the bike lane inside the parallel parking. 1000% safer for all concerned, and people will actually use them.

[downtownresident]

1 minute ago, AronG said:

Ugg, are we still dumb enough to keep painting "bike lanes" squeezed in between fast-moving traffic and parallel parked cars? There's like a million people trying to get around this city on bikes and scooters, but no-one is ever going to use these, because they're a death trap. It's like design 101 to move the bike lane inside the parallel parking. 1000% safer for all concerned, and people will actually use them.

I brought this up in my comments to Planning when I emailed them. I doubt they’ll actually listen. 

[BNAfan]

21 hours ago, downtownresident said:

I brought this up in my comments to Planning when I emailed them. I doubt they’ll actually listen. 

What is needed to make “bike lane between the parallel parked cars and the curb” the default for any new bike lane, unless a waiver is granted for a particular situation? Does a regulation need to be revised or written and approved? This seems like a no brainer.  What am I missing?  Thx for anyone’s thoughts. 

[PruneTracy]

1 hour ago, BNAfan said:

What is needed to make “bike lane between the parallel parked cars and the curb” the default for any new bike lane, unless a waiver is granted for a particular situation? Does a regulation need to be revised or written and approved? This seems like a no brainer.  What am I missing?  Thx for anyone’s thoughts. 

• They're really wide, especially with the buffer zone (that's intended to keep car doors from swinging into the bike lane). Not many streets have sufficient width to accommodate bike lanes, buffers, parallel parking, and travel lanes even in a road diet scenario. Note that 13th Street in Philly (the street in @AronG's photo) is 40 feet wide curb-to-curb but has one 12-foot-wide travel lane.
• Physical barriers between the parking and the bike lane tend to be maintenance-intensive or present drainage or trip hazards. The flexible delineators (like shown) get run over, curbs redirect stormwater, and the short barriers are trip hazards for people exiting their vehicles.
• At intersections the parked vehicles present sight distance issues both with vehicles and pedestrians, even where parking ends some distance away from the intersection. This (along with the curbs) is an ongoing issue in Chattanooga on Broad Street.
• Setting aside the average driver's parallel parking skills, the bike lane turns into a staging area for loading/unloading but bikes in this scenario are forced onto the sidewalk instead of a travel lane. This is mostly an issue involving shoppers around retail stores but streets that have a significant amount of freight/delivery (or niche phenomena like musicians and equipment on lower Broad) can still have bike lanes blocked.

Note I'm not arguing against using these, they are the current preferred treatment in a vacuum, but they are also a bit of a Cadillac option. There really isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, especially for retrofits, which is why a law/regulation might not produce the expected result. Every street has different needs, different multimodal demands, and a different typical section to work with.

[downtownresident]

The preliminary SP for 2416 West End was approved with conditions at last nights Metro Planning Commission meeting. 

[MLBrumby]

Does that mean the height was approved as presented?  

[downtownresident]

Just now, MLBrumby said:

Does that mean the height was approved as presented?  

Yep! As this is a re-zoning, this still needs to pass at Metro Council, and will need to get final approval before GBT can start construction. Surprised at the relative quiet of Historic Nashville and other area activists, but this does have the support of Vanderbilt(according to a letter posted in the public comments). 

[UrbanWes03]

Fantastic news! I think this building’s beautiful design is speaking for itself. 

[nashville born]

[Baronakim]

As I only get to visit downtown about once a month from the Columbia area between being retired and the Covid mess, I have been posting recently photos and memories of what areas were like when I was growing up.  West End is a very special part of town as I visited often as a kid and worked in the Loew's Office tower next to the hotel for almost 2 decades.  I am extremely impressed and pleased at the magnificent tower proposal at the split and the final demolition of the nasty dorms that cursed West End for over four decades.    The area is transitioning from the early 20th century into the 21st.  There is a lot of hand wringing and pants pissin' over "losing"  some of the remaining 'treasures" by a bunch of Nashvillians  who waited until the horses had left be barn before shutting the doors.  Here are some of the buildings that should have been saved and what junk replaced them as well as some which were worthy to be razed.  First, here is the site for the new tower about 100 years ago and about a decade ago when it was still useful as a pharmacy.  Now of couse it has been vacant since Walgreens closed it several years ago. The tiny covered space has been used for a photo shop and now an ice cream shop...pretty useless IMO.  The site is at the junction of Elliston Place  and West End Avenue.  The photos I have  to show are of the two streets as they were before and during my growing up.  I do not need to show the south Vanderbilt side or the blocks down by the Soda Shop; I think we on the forum are pretty familiar with whose areas historically. So let's visit West End Avenue first with some really old photos, then some of the buildings  from around 2000 to those there now.  I am going to guess the first one is about 1910 or so as there is only one tower on Kirkland hall and there are a few cars only.  I would gusss this is from a vantage of about 19th Avenue, but this street of homes has completely vanished.  I estimate it once ran through what is now the site for the Vanderbilt Graduate Village.  West End would have been very like this in the blocks between 19th and 22nd looking west just before the Methodist Church.  You can clearly see the Cathedral and St. Thomas in these 1960s photos.  The first taken from 17th Avenue shows the single surviving stone home with the two big magnolias in the center of the photo.  The next one is also from 17th showing the two houses on the right which would be the Daily convenience store next to the Broadwest Hilton.  You can see the early car dealerships begiining to show up at the area of the Broadway split.   Back down West End, here is the old Governer's mansion  where now the Catapillar tower is sited.  Nearer to the Elliston split was this very classy Packard dealership which became a literally  ritzy women's clothing store, in the 1950s.  I recall mom dragging me there shopping as a teenager.  Then it became Tower Records for several decades before being razed for the current boutique hotel building.  On the other side of the split, there was the Hippodrome where I mispent a great deal of my youth.  The Holiday Inn Express replaced it in the 1980s.  Another survivor at the split ids the funeral home at the corner of Centennial Park and 26th Avenue.  This is at the end of Ellistom Place which was named for theqwnersof this graceful home in the late 1880s.  This was demolished to build th beautiful Father Ryan High School in a magnificent English perpendicular style.  Regretably, the Catholic dioscse  of Nashville sold the property out for the current nondescript Hampton Inn and eventually the Elliston 23 apartment blook.  lastly, here is an 1950s photo from the gass station right across from Rotiers.  This is now a small strip center and a automobile lube change.  Hopefully they will go away soon as the new tower will make the land to valuable for such piddling uses.  I hope y'all enjoy these jaunts of mine into the past.  let me know if there are other places in Nashville you would like to see me post.  I hope to finish the series I started last years of the big demolition in the 1960s and 70s around Union, Deadrick and Charlotte soon.P.S.   Here are three more I found.  West End from the tower site looking west in the earky 50s.  sorry about the small size.   An aerial view probably mid 1930s from the trees in the great lawn of the Parthenon.  And the Old Women's Home right across from the Piggly Wiggly, now a strip center with the Honey Baked Ham Shoppe.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Baronakim

[nashville born]

Who would have "thunk" it...Goober, lift that taillight and fillerup!  Awesome!

[Nash_12South]

The new tower will be fantastic, no doubt. I do think it will diminish the presence of the new, outstanding, Vandy tower. I always thought that the open area could have been enclosed with glass and a terrific restaurant could have worked here. But that won't happen. I think many of the owners of properties, like these, purposely underuse them, letting them languish often for years, with the intent or redeveloping them when people are tired of waiting and lose interest. That frustrates me, but I get that's how it works. I look forward to the new tower.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Nash_12South

[downtownresident]

The ordinance for the zone change passed tonight on second reading, with an amendment detailing the infrastructure improvements, and provisions regarding blasting, construction parking, and project updates. I believe this will need to pass on third reading before the zoning change is complete. 
 

Here’s a link to the amendment: https://nashville.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9928823&GUID=72E3DDAF-AA58-474A-9324-510497868D54

And a screenshot of the amendment: 

Edited November 3, 2021 by downtownresident

[nashville born]

Rode past this site and imagined this one being there.  That drive into downtown on West End is really impressive as you approach Broadwest.  And as someone else posted, that Vandy residence tower at night is super impressive.