Nashville Bits and Pieces

[PaulChinetti]

The rain didn't help, though I went a few years ago when it was pouring rain and it was still packed on Broadway. The 3 very different bands didn't help. 

I went for Moon Taxi. And it was semi crowded but you could tell that the majority of people were there for Styx or Keith Urban. No singing, no dancing. 

It had the look of a NYE party but the feel of a free concert on a random night. More live on the green than rocking NYE. 

Pretty disappointed all around. 

[smeagolsfree]

I don't think I would want to be prancing and dancing around in the wet grass and mud. 

[donNdonelson2]

57 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

I don't think I would want to be prancing and dancing around in the wet grass and mud. 

Didn't stop the fun at Woodstock! (Of course, those folks had the added "motivation" of weed & acid.)

[Pyramid Scheme]

28 minutes ago, donNdonelson2 said:

Didn't stop the fun at Woodstock! (Of course, those folks had the added "motivation" of weed & acid.)

And if you don't like muddy clothes just go nekkid.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Philip

[Canuck87]

Nashville was featured on the Today Show this week.

 

[grilled_cheese]

"you can find affordable housing"

Carson is stuck in 1998 and thinks he's still hosting TRL.

[MLBrumby]

The WSJ has an article on a coming "apartment glut", and mentions Nashville. http://www.wsj.com/articles/luxury-apartment-boom-looks-set-to-fizzle-in-2017-1483358401

Interesting graph of top cities with luxury apartments under construction. Nashville has nearly 8500, That figure is 3500 more than in SF. 

Nashville could see some 8,500 new apartments, more than triple the typical 2,400 apartments completed annually. John Tirrill, managing partner at SWH Partners, an Atlanta developer that has several projects under way in the Nashville area, is leasing a new five-story property with a fitness center, yoga and barre studio and swimming pool. He has lowered rents from $2.25 a square foot to $2.10 a square foot—a $150 discount on a 1,000-square-foot apartment—and is offering one to two months of free rent.

Image of Terra House

Edited January 3, 2017 by MLBrumby

[Vrtigo]

On 1/2/2017 at 8:23 AM, PaulChinetti said:

The rain didn't help, though I went a few years ago when it was pouring rain and it was still packed on Broadway. The 3 very different bands didn't help. 

I went for Moon Taxi. And it was semi crowded but you could tell that the majority of people were there for Styx or Keith Urban. No singing, no dancing. 

It had the look of a NYE party but the feel of a free concert on a random night. More live on the green than rocking NYE. 

Pretty disappointed all around. 

I heard on WPLN this morning that they estimated about 50k fewer attendees this year than in years past.

It's hard to tell at this point whether that was because those people decided to stick to Broadway, or just skipped it altogether. Definitely will be interesting to see how the official numbers turn out!

[LA_TN]

54 minutes ago, Vrtigo said:

I heard on WPLN this morning that they estimated about 50k fewer attendees this year than in years past.

It's hard to tell at this point whether that was because those people decided to stick to Broadway, or just skipped it altogether. Definitely will be interesting to see how the official numbers turn out!

City officials estimated that there would be 50,000 less BEFORE New Years Eve, while planning the event

If anyone learns the official attendance estimate, please share. I have not been able to find the official attendance online, or anywhere, and we may not ever know. But I can assure everyone the attendance was not 100k. I highly doubt attendance was over 20k

**Last year official attendance was 150k, planners anticipated 100k this year

Edited January 3, 2017 by LA_TN

[NashvilleObserver]

Lower Broadway was pretty much dying down at 3 am (although it was already relatively dead), but it still took about 15 minutes to move 15 feet on 4th Ave South in a limo. Traffic cops had no clue what they were doing.

[Nashtitans]

22 minutes ago, NashvilleObserver said:

Lower Broadway was pretty much dying down at 3 am (although it was already relatively dead), but it still took about 15 minutes to move 15 feet on 4th Ave South in a limo. Traffic cops had no clue what they were doing.

What a fail. Move it back to broadway

[Pyramid Scheme]

Sounds like they deliberately wanted less people. Security concerns?

[Rockatansky]

Has Dennis DeYoung rejoined Styx yet? I have a soft spot for them, but I want to see Tommy & Denny together.

[markhollin]

Tennessean has a wrap-up of the NYE event with interviews of officials and merchants (both along Broadway and in Germantown area) about how they felt it went.  Most felt it was successful.

 http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/01/03/did-nashville-new-years-eve-move-bicentennial-work-city/96107550/

[PaulChinetti]

Them calling the rain a damper seems like a cop-out. I went to on on broadway a few years back, where it poured rain the whole time and it was still packed. 

Also how can security for 100,000 people not be handled when other cities with much larger parties seem to handle it just fine? Not enough officers overall? Lack of experience?

[markhollin]

From today's Nashville Post regarding overall tightening of office space availability in the Nashville area:

The Nashville office has released its quarterly Marketplace office and industrial reports, with the market having seen its overall office vacancy rate drop to 5.5 percent from 6.9 percent in the same quarter of 2015.

Class A inventory, which increased by 921,000 square feet (while absorbing 594,000 square feet), recorded its first significant increase in vacancy rate in several years, according to the report, moving from 2.8 percent at year’s end 2015 to 4.7 percent by the end of 2016.

But with overall vacancy rates decreasing, rental rates continue to increase. Other than seeing a slight decline in 2013-14, rates “have risen steadily” for the past 10 years, the reports notes. For example, Class A asking rates ended 2016 at an average of $27.72 per square foot, up almost $3 from the corresponding mark from 2015.

For the quarter, Cool Springs Class A rates were the highest at $30.92 per square foot, closely followed by Midtown at $30.85 PSF and the central business district at $28.96 PSF.

Class B rates also increased during 2016 from $21.92 PSF to $23.80 PSF. Brentwood led the submarkets for Class B space at $27 PSF.

For the second year in a row, Nashville’s industrial real estate market absorbed more than 5.8 million square feet in 2016.

Weighted average lease asking rates inched up slightly in 2016, from $3.96 PSF for Q4 2015 to to $4.07 PSF.

In 2016, the construction of 13 industrial buildings with a collective 3.3 million square feet was completed, with 1.2 MSF of that figure delivered as speculative. Sixteen industrial buildings were under construction as of Q4 2016, totaling almost 5.3 MSF and scheduled for completion within the first three quarters of 2017.

[LA_TN]

11 hours ago, markhollin said:

Tennessean has a wrap-up of the NYE event with interviews of officials and merchants (both along Broadway and in Germantown area) about how they felt it went.  Most felt it was successful.

 http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/01/03/did-nashville-new-years-eve-move-bicentennial-work-city/96107550/

As one who was there, it is literally impossible to believe there were 100k

[titanhog]

14 minutes ago, LA_TN said:

As one who was there, it is literally impossible to believe there were 100k

As I read that report and weighed it against the reports I heard from people who were there...it sounds like two totally different events.  The Tennessean version almost sounds like something the visitor's bureau would write to sell a future event.

[rookzie]

Funny how the local media as a whole has kept a zip-lip about the issue as a whole, with not even a single reported questioning by any reporter or columnist (that I am aware of so far).  But they'll always find something else to harp and pounce on and to turn it into an issue.  The Tennessean's metrics I surely question, particularly since I find it hard to tally that many.  They must have measured meat per square yard as a statitical, rather "statistical" factor for projections.

[titanhog]

I saw a report on the news earlier today and some men from the park service were showing the torn up ground of Bicentennial park.  Looked like a cattle farm.

[Canuck87]

Not directly related to Nashville, but definitely relevant to urbanism, MIT’s Senseable City Lab has initiated a project called "Treepedia" that catalogues the density of the tree canopy in cities. As of right now, only 12 cities have been surveyed, but the website promises "More cities to come…"

Shoutout to my hometown of Vancouver, BC for having the current high score. I am very curious to see how Nashville would stack up against some of these locales.

http://senseable.mit.edu/treepedia

[PaulChinetti]

10 hours ago, titanhog said:

I saw a report on the news earlier today and some men from the park service were showing the torn up ground of Bicentennial park.  Looked like a cattle farm.

Well I mean that was to be expected regardless how many people where there, it was pouring rain all day. 

When we got there for Moon Taxi around 8ish, the end of the crowd was kinda around cross path with the trees. We had no problem getting pretty close. 

[MLBrumby]

Anyone know what building this is?   Nashville's largest advertising agency The Buntin Group has settled on restoring the former Tennessee Central Railway train shed off Hermitage Avenue just south of downtown for its permanent headquarters.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/real-estate/2017/01/05/ad-agency-buntin-plans-headquarters-historic-nashville-train-shed/96220326/

• In October, The Buntin Group sold its longtime South Gulch offices on Hawkins Street for $10 million.
• CEO Jeffrey Buntin Jr. just paid $2.9 million for the 2.05-acre former train shed next to the Tennessee Central Railway Museum.
• The 110-employee Buntin Group plans to relocate its headquarters there by year's end.
• Jeffrey Buntin Jr. expects more investments along that key corridor for accessing downtown.

 

[rookzie]

21 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

Anyone know what building this is?   Nashville's largest advertising agency The Buntin Group has settled on restoring the former Tennessee Central Railway train shed off Hermitage Avenue just south of downtown for its permanent headquarters.

 

 

That shed, shown in the upper-center, was a part of the former Tennessee Central RR's maintenance facility, as it had appeared, around 1967-68 just prior to its bankruptcy in '68.  The only other structure that remains from that photo is the Master Mechanic's building, shown with that full-hipped roof in the upper-middle of the right photo edge (two storied, windowed), which was acquired by the TC Ry. Museum sometime in the late 1990s and currently is the main museum visitor's center, hobby-shop store, and meeting-room space.  Everything else in that photo, including the freight cars, the arched-roof passenger (baggage cars), the diesel locomotive, and the lone rusty-a$$ railway post-office car (passenger train car) in the weeds was long ago scrapped.

The shed itself, which has long since been modified and reinforced, now is fully enclosed but without the original clerestory roof.  It actually is only a small portion of the total property, which until the recent sale, was owned by TCW (Tennessee Commercial Warehouse) for many years.  TCW property extends (extended) along Willow St. from just west of Decatur St., east to Stanley St., a distance equivalent to of about 2 city blocks.  The article doesn't appear to have mentioned the complete details of the sale of this property, but I just was told tonight, during an annual safety certification session at that museum, that the transaction included the entire TCW property, not only the shed, whether correct or not.

former TCRR shed (TCW)

 

TCW property includes the entire quadrilateral between the TCRy Museum main bldg and Stanley Street (beyond right)

[claya91]

Stumbled across a very nice interview with Nicole Kidman about living in Nashville. Wanted to pass along to you all.

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2016/11/23/why-nicole-kidman-loves-nashville.html