Nashville Bits and Pieces

[bnacincy]

For the longest time I thought the AT&T building was an aesthetic nightmare being on 2nd Ave. Now, tragically, it has become an existential nightmare. Sooner or later given the world we live in these days someone may try to finish what this person started. And if that happens they may not be in the mood to give a prerecorded computer generated voice warning 15 minutes before the blast.

This damn thing needs to get off of 2nd Ave ASAP....I mean it!! It has no business being across the street from some historic buildings in which people live!!

[BnaBreaker]

One thing I don't really understand is why parking is allowed directly in front of that building.  

[TNinVB]

4 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

if i'm not mistaken at think The Spaghetti Factory building is three or four buildings down from there to the right... I'm sure it was probably significantly affected too though.

The Old Spaghetti Factory is next door to the business wit the blue and white facade on the ground floor. In the picture, you can make out the awning of the OSF. 
 

 

[chris holman]

[LA_TN]

Nashville Recovery Efforts

That is the link to the AT&T status, although that is the watered down public version 

[smeagolsfree]

 

Finally back on line after more than two days off. Trying to keep track a little by using a hotspot from my phone, but that is a data eater. Looks like from hat I heard and this may have been discussed is he may have had something against 5G tech.

Who knows what was going on   in the mind of a mentally ill person.

[MLBrumby]

Saw that on Reddit.  Something unexpected here in Chattanooga was that stores could not process sales b/c their registers had been knocked offline. 

[NashRugger]

19 hours ago, bnacincy said:

For the longest time I thought the AT&T building was an aesthetic nightmare being on 2nd Ave. Now, tragically, it has become an existential nightmare. Sooner or later given the world we live in these days someone may try to finish what this person started. And if that happens they may not be in the mood to give a prerecorded computer generated voice warning 15 minutes before the blast.

This damn thing needs to get off of 2nd Ave ASAP....I mean it!! It has no business being across the street from some historic buildings in which people live!!

Okay, that sounds great in theory, but from an actual infrastructure standpoint, is it actually feasible to do? How do you rewire the entire region to a different site?

Also, pretty sure those apartments & places people live above the bars were likely not there before this building was. Sure, that actual row of buildings has been, but what does that have to do with anything? Nashville is hardly the only city with its major switching station right downtown and highly doubt the only one with some residential directly adjacent to it.

Edited December 28, 2020 by NashRugger

[smeagolsfree]

I started a new topic titled Rebuilding Second Avenue so hopefully we can shift some or most of this discussion there. This is going to be a long term fix and we are talking about parts of three or so blocks downtown.

[LA_TN]

Summary of status today:

Given its importance to customers and first responders, we prioritized restoration of wireless service. As of now, 96% of our wireless network is restored, 60% of our business services are restored, and 86% of our consumer broadband and entertainment services are restored

Cities I noticed impacted were: Birmingham, Huntsville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, all Middle and East Tennessee, Murray, Hopkinsville, Louisville, and Lexington

the building’s commercial power connections are damaged and offline. We are working with the local power utility on repairs. In addition, there is other significant damage to the building from the blast, including to the elevators, some beams/columns, and the building’s facade

Yesterday, more than three feet of water was pumped out of the building’s basement, but access to the lower floors of the building is still limited

Power restored to floors 1-4 and making progress on 5th and 6th. All generators have completed at least one refueling cycle

expect to have a fleet of 24 additional trailers of disaster recovery equipment on site by the end  of the day

@bnacincy, while we will probably all agree with you, where can we find a trillion dollars to do it? 

 

[MLBrumby]

Wow! Maybe ATT will decide it's time to move out of the CBD.  Amazing! 

[titanhog]

I would imagine, in hindsight, there are many “targets” around the US who wish they could buy a large piece of land and build a structure to hold their equipment, with plenty of space between their facility and the roadway (similar to changes with federal buildings).  Many of these structures built before the 90’s have to be thinking of ways to up their protection.  The only thing I can think of for this building would be thicker skin and make sure the heart of the equipment is in the center of the building…not near the outer walls.  Even then…who knows if that will help.  If someone really wanted to destroy that building…all it would take is a bigger bomb.

[Hey_Hey]

I don't know if there is a way that we can diversify our telecommunications hubs any, but this clearly illustrates a weakness in our system. I doubt Nashville is the only place that has something like this either. As time goes on this becomes increasingly critical infrastructure. For our household we are entirely dependent on the internet and cell phones for communication and information gathering. In its absence we are completely blind. 

That being said, the structure of the AT&T building held up remarkable well. It seems like the telecom infrastructure survived the blast and only went offline a few hours later. I'm not sure if battery backups finally went down, if it was water damage or something else, but it wasn't directly related to the blast effect from what I can tell. 

Last point: I predict this will lead to the closure of Lower Broadway to automobile traffic within the next year. This episode is going to serve as a wake up call for our local PD and Emergency Preparedness people about the risk that Lower Broad presents. If this RV bomb goes off on a Friday night on Lower Broadway we are dealing with four digit casualties and triple digit deaths.  Fortunately, that is not what this person was looking to do, but I really don't want to wait for someone to come around with that motivation. 

[markhollin]

ElectraMaccanica, the electric car manufacturer from Vancouver, will announce if Nashville or Phoenix will be their new HQ city in January. Could be as many as 500 new jobs.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2020/12/28/electrameccanica-search-update.html?cx_testId=40&cx_testVariant=cx_34&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

[Tennessine]

What a year. Tornado in March, pandemic takes hold right afterward, followed by lockdown, riots, recession, and we conclude the year with this (hopefully nothing else before the 31st.) I respect you all for staying on top of Nashville's urban development and business news for the past 10 months. I'm amazed at how some of you are so prudent with posting in spite of these disasters. I can hardly keep my head clear of the national news, let alone the tragedies we've had right here at home. Again, a lot of respect to you guys for keeping this place active. 

I hope to return to posting more frequently. I've backed off a bit this year but I plan to contribute to all 3 Tennessee boards next month.

 

[smeagolsfree]

Thanks for your contributions!

[smeagolsfree]

I was watching YouTube last night and old snippets of Jay Leno's Headlines from 2007. This was obviously from much earlier than that but I got a good laugh from it bringing back memories of the old Nashville some of you will remember.

 

[Sean blackdog]

[jmtunafish]

This could potentially be big news for Nashville.  Ben Shapiro announced today that The Daily Wire is going to get into the entertainment business by making movies and TV shows.  I can't help but wonder if this is one reason they moved to Nashville, a city that already has much of the infrastructure necessary to pull this off yet at a fraction of the cost of L.A./Hollywood, and in an area that would certainly welcome this.  There is already so much creative and technical talent in this city.  If this is successful, I'm thinking this could be a real shot in the arm to Nashville's entertainment industry.

https://www.outkick.com/ben-shapiro-entertainment-hollywood/

[Salbato]

Two base jumpers leap from the top of Grand Hyatt Hotel.

https://www.wsmv.com/news/two-base-jumpers-leap-from-the-top-of-grand-hyatt-downtown/article_94f09b66-4d07-11eb-85fe-43e24a59ec41.html

[LA_TN]

18 hours ago, jmtunafish said:

This could potentially be big news for Nashville.  Ben Shapiro announced today that The Daily Wire is going to get into the entertainment business by making movies and TV shows.  I can't help but wonder if this is one reason they moved to Nashville, a city that already has much of the infrastructure necessary to pull this off yet at a fraction of the cost of L.A./Hollywood, and in an area that would certainly welcome this.  There is already so much creative and technical talent in this city.  If this is successful, I'm thinking this could be a real shot in the arm to Nashville's entertainment industry.

https://www.outkick.com/ben-shapiro-entertainment-hollywood/

I think I recall this place was going up for sale, some time ago. Does anyone know if this is available? Or changed hands?

[smeagolsfree]

Two base jumpers jump from Grand Hyatt downtown. From WSMV

Two base jumpers leap from the top of Grand Hyatt downtown | News | wsmv.com

[e-dub]

Stolen from Reddit.

[markhollin]

The country as a whole grew about .35%, or about 1.1 million people, between 2019 and 2020. Tennessee grew by more than twice the national average at .83%.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/01/06/nation-population-slows-tennessee-grows.html?cx_testId=40&cx_testVariant=cx_34&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

[markhollin]

Local real estate experts weigh in on Nashville's office market going into 2021:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/01/08/office-space-2021.html?cx_testId=40&cx_testVariant=cx_34&cx_artPos=1#cxrecs_s