May Town Center

[timmay143]

I think Hickory Hollow would be perfect for a development like this. Space in HHM and the Crossings, close to warehouses in La Vergne/Smyrna, close to large populations in Nashville, Rutherford, and possibly stretching to eastern Williamson, next to an interstate. However, it seems the development isn't really what is at large here. It's the May's who own the land and want to develop it.

[MTSUBlueraider86]

Nashbill is correct. With everything in place in downtown, I don't see the need to expand the carbon footprint any further. I prefer the term "re-development" as opposed to development.

BR86

[timmay143]

Yeah, how cool would it be if a developer said, ok I'm buying so many empty lots downtown and creating a coporate campus/mixed used facility spread around the area.

[theplanetsaved]

I think Hickory Hollow would be perfect for a development like this. Space in HHM and the Crossings, close to warehouses in La Vergne/Smyrna, close to large populations in Nashville, Rutherford, and possibly stretching to eastern Williamson, next to an interstate. However, it seems the development isn't really what is at large here. It's the May's who own the land and want to develop it.

I think you are missing the point the may town project is about creating jobs and attracting corporate relocations to davidson county. Davidson co. does not have 50 acre corporate campus sites-even the mayor recently acknowledged this. The surrounding counties have these sites and in a good economy they have been successfully attracting them. Davidson county needs to get its fair share of corporate relocations and in the past 10 years we have not-something has to change or davidson co will economically suffer if we continue this same pattern for another 10 years. Unfortunately there are only a couple thousand acres of buildable land left in davidson co. Most are a few acres in size and only a handful are over 100 acres.

New development downtown is great. But downtown development is less than 10% of the davidson co. economy. What about the other 90% of development in davidson co. Are we going to continue letting almost all of it go to the surrounding counties? That has been the trend. Shouldn't we think about new ideas? Don't we we need to increase our tax base and provide new jobs. Developing HHM might seem like a good idea to some, but are they not in financial trouble out there currently? Would you invest your money let alone10's of millions dollars? I do not think companies from CA, MI or where ever are looking to locate in HHM. There is hope for HHM-I just do not know what it is. The mayor thinks it is a flee market run by metro.

[theplanetsaved]

I don't know why these developers are ignoring parts of downtown that are seas of surface parking lots for these developments. I don't buy their reasoning they use to justify these suburban office parks.

BR86

I do not think developers are ignoring downtown. Projects have been built recently downtown and many more were proposed till the economy tanked. Once the economy gets on solid ground there will be a lot of new activity downtown- An office building, condo's again and maybe some retail. Look at how much downtown nashville has changed recently. Just a few years ago there was basically no residential downtown.

I know reducing the carbon footprint of nashville is important and infill in nashville's core is important. But the reality is that there are only a couple thousand people living in downtown and one and a half million people live outside downtown in the suburbs and almost all of them do not shop and most do not work downtown. When the people demand to shop, work or live downtown then developers will build a lot more downtown. Developers have to respond to the market and it's demands. If you build it and the people are not ready for it goes bankrupt and that would be bad for our downtown. It is a slow process. The reason developers build suburban office buildings is because that is what the market and people want. And if you do not build suburban office buildings in nashville then the market and people go to the surrounding counties where they are building suburban office buildings.

[Shuzilla]

I was holding my comments until there was some meat on the bone. Hard to tell if this was May jumping on a spur-of-the-moment opportunity created by the Mayor or if it's the tip of a many-months-of-planning iceburg. And it's hard to judge the dynamics yet; i.e. if Jack may forced the planning commission to act to decide between a smaller May Town or the zoned 600 homes, what would the discussion be centered on then? Or, what if if prior to going to Planning he went to TPTB with two proposals, one proposal for the Bend and an equal proposal for the mythical site between Mt. Juliet and Lebanon near 840's termination, and asked THEM to make a decision. Then which way would critics go, accept sprawl in Davidson Co or let Wilson Co have it?

I decided to jump in because of the discussion that downtown is better than an empty field to develop because infrastructure is already there. Fair enough. But the real question is which has the greater capacity, downtown or Bells Bend? And how much capacity does the existing downtown infrastructure actually have?

I've read about the dire need for reconstructing antiquated sewer downtown. I've also seen business lost to water main breaks. Recent news reports grade traffic in and out of downtown at rush hour is some of the worst in the nation, spurring on the call for a greater push for mass transit. Those and other issues point to downtown actually having a NEGATIVE infrastructure capacity; that is, what is there is less than required for just the present demand.

Look at traffic. Consider there are around 45,000 daily commuters downtown (if someone has a better number please post). If downtown boosters could succeed in getting development downtown that was equal to the old May Town Center proposal in tall, cool office buildings - an additional 30,000 workers - and most of them commuted from the 'burbs (downtown has similar problem to May Town, where will the workers live?) then such development would increase traffic by over 50% from today's uncomfortable levels.

There was a lot of discussion about the real and perceived cost to taxpayers of developing Bells Bend. Building in a field makes all expenses bare, since nothing of use is there to begin with. The developer was going to spend their own money to construct a bridge, at least one school, fire station and police precinct station. Even so, people were concerned about all the hidden costs that would be born by taxpayers.

However, I contend that, while development in the Bend requires 100% new infrastructure, development of similar magnitude downtown starts from a DEFICIT. Build enough downtown and you must improve or replace infrastructure; there's only so much capacity you can steal from the existing users before it breaks for you and them. Increase commuters and you have to rebuild roads or go all out on mass transit. That all takes taxpayer money. The convention center is primarily, if not exclusively, for the benifit of downtown Nashville business, paid for entirely with taxpayer money. Every business that opens due to increased convention traffic is subsidized in part through taxes they don't have to pay. Sports arenas as well benefit downtown businesses and aren't particularly good investments without that economic benefit. Similarly, restaraunts that are viable because of sports fans are also subsidized by those investments. And just to spruce things up a bit, to make downtown more attractive and thus improve things for downtown businesses, we pay for streetscapes and new traffic signals.

Developing downtown won't come without enormous expense, much of it hidden in taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects beyond the development. I'm not arguing against that. I'm arguing that downtown growth isn't particularly cheap on the taxpayers. What good is it to bank on existing infrastructure if you have to replace it or reconstruct it by digging up busy city streets in order to grow it the size such that a May Town is not needed?

I'm not arguing that putting 30,000 jobs in Bells Bend is the answer. I'm just asking the folks that believe Jack May should fund a mass transit system for May Town why they didn't require the developer of the Pinnacle to pay for mass transit to get workers from the suburbs without adding cars on the road? Before the Gateway bridge was constructed, did downtown businesses pass the hat amongst themselves to pay for it? I'm not aware of it. How about the fairgrounds - when the ramps off I-65 have to be lengthened and the railroad bridge over Wedgewood has to be widened, will we demand that whoever develops that property also pay for those improvements or just be thankfull they showed interest in Nashville and suck up the peripheral costs? How come nobody but me even gives a rip about the cost of improving access to the fairground property for its development when we know that will be taxpayer funded since it's the Mayor's baby? Where are those critics who are suspicious of May's offering to pay for infrastructure, even miles from his site, on possible taxpayer money going to the fairgrounds deal now that the fairgrounds WILL be developed and infrastructure must be improved for thousands of cars clogging the I-65/Wedgewood intersection at rush hour daily?

[Shuzilla]

Duplicate post.