Will

This ordinance concerns me. The underlying principle seems that it is worth restricting the freedom of new business owners in order to further homogenize the types of land uses downtown in an effort to increase tourist spending. I am all for people visiting Nashville, but I don't think we should treat tourists as a protected class.

If this is the same Cook Out chain that operates in the Carolinas and East TN, East Nashville is in for a treat. It's kind of like an East Coast In-N-Out.

Construction on the new 7-story Vanderbilt engineering building to start in May: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/04/engineering-science-building/?utm_source=myvupreview&utm_medium=myvu_email&utm_campaign=myvupreview-2014-04-28

It bears a passing resemblance to an early-aughts condo building in Green Hills called The Alexander, which has the distinction of being the only place in town where $700K gets you full-frontal views of an Exxon Tigermart:

The approved land use for several properties on that side of Kirkwood is for duplex/condominiums. I believe it's a situation where, because of past land use, that type of construction is grandfathered in. That part of the street is quite homely, mostly because of the NES substation closer to Belmont. If you think that one's bad there's another under construction across the street that is straight out of the Urban Renewal playbook. Awful.

And don't forget the Obama Market at 40th and Clifton.

Agreed. My interpretation is that the objections aren't so much about actual traffic in terms of car counts, intersection performance, etc. so much as the perception of traffic or the fear of increased traffic, or perhaps less quantifiable issues such as neighborhood character, historical density, etc.

Now that would be an interesting idea. When was that MTA meeting?

I wonder, if the Dean administration had been more creative about funding sources for the Amp early on, might the vigor of the opposition have been less than it is now? I am for an integrated, city-wide transit system, of which I think the Amp could be a part, but there are other ways to pay for it besides dollops of federal and state largesse. For example, a fee-based express lane system on 440 and select arterials could be a way to reduce congestion and raise funds for transit solutions. Pricing could be pegged to demand, as it is in L.A., or there could be a flat congestion charge, a la London.

Agreed. It is is a very fetching edifice indeed.

Colonial Bakery on Franklin Road closing by 1/13/14: http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2013/12/nashville-colonial-bakery-to-close.html This 2 acre property is about two blocks from the 23Hundred at Berry Hill development.

There's an article in the Tennessean today about a proposed mixed-use redevelopment of the Cayce projects. Not much content in the article; there's no formal plan yet.

There are a lot of talented folks doing the best they can at the Tennessean. One explanation for slipups like this is the high turnover in reporting staff. I left about 3 years ago and today there are just a handful of people on the news side who were there when I left. The new blood tends to come from recent college graduates from other states, so the result is a very young reporting corps with little knowledge of Nashville's layout, history or personality. This isn't the reporters' fault; they're just new. Blame the management. It's just another symptom of a bigger problem: Out-of-state ownership = less local investment, knowledge and credibility.

The vacant, Starfleet Academy-esque Imperial House Apartments next to St. Thomas could get the axe. NBJ has the story.

Pretty sure those are for some new trails Parks and TDOT are putting in for portions of a 440 greenway. There was some discussion on the Belmont-Hillsboro listserv about this recently. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/belmont-hillsboro/c5f4h5dTZGo

To focus on drive-thru fast food restaurants in the urban core specifically, I did a bit of research and Taco Bell on West End, for example, pays about $20K in real property taxes per annum, according to the Trustee's web site tax calculator. The last appraisal was for FY2012.

On the topic of property values, I was wondering about the McDonald's quagmire at Broadway and 12th, and to a lesser extent properties such as the Taco Bell or Checkers further up the road: At what point do property values and/or property taxes become too high to sustain what many of us would call underutilization of urban real estate? Within the industry, is there a commonly understood ratio of rent+tax / revenue or some other tipping point where it just doesn't make financial sense to operate a single-story standalone business in an urban setting? Or is it just up to the owner's good sense (or lack thereof)? To ponder from a different angle, could the city adopt some kind of property or use tax that, while respecting constitutional rights, in some way makes it unpleasant for such businesses to operate in areas targeted for development?

This has been on the drawing board for a while, but there's a new building slated to go up next to Olin Hall (Engineering) at Vandy. It's called the TEAM building and there are preliminary drawings, etc. here. Not sure about a construction timeline. This would occupy the grassy, treed space across from the baseball field where they set up tents for alumni weekend.

I used to work at the Tennessean and during a particularly nutty spell, we found that there were only about 10 people behind the nastiest comments on our site. They mainly just sniped at each other, and some of them maintained multiple screen names in hopes of intimidating their opponents. It was exasperating, but looking back I must admit that there is something of an art form in twisting a conversation about cupcake bakeries into a shouting match over immigration policy.

Agreed. The downtown circulator, for example, has been an invaluable resource on weekend nights. When I'm going downtown, all I have to do is find a spot on 11th or one of the side streets in the Gulch, hop the bus and then walk a block or two to wherever I'm going once I hop off downtown. No more circling around Deaderick and the Municipal Auditorium, looking for spots. BTW, if anyone ever needs a free way to get around the Vandy area without a car, there's nothing stopping you from hopping on the Vanderbilt medical center shuttles that go all around Vandy as well as 100 Oaks. They even go out to the lot next to Greer Stadium, so I suppose you could catch an afternoon doubleheader and then shuttle back to Vanderbilt once it gets warm. There's a map of routes and pickup times here.

BRT lite to begin on Murfreesboro Pike April 1 per the CP; service will go to BNA. Same great taste, but won't fill you up.

Give City House a try. It's not what you'd call a pure Italian restaurant in the sense that the chef, Tandy Wilson, blends Southern ingredients like catfish with Italian techniques and recipes, but it's got some truly marvelous pork/seafood/pasta dishes that are on par with anything I've had in northern Italy. The pizzas are done in a classic Neapolitan style with a wood-burning oven and the wine list is well-curated.

Anybody know anything about 20th & Belcourt, which was announced back in 2008 or so? The sign and website are still up. This was to have been built atop the P-lot across 20th from Sunset Grill. http://20thandbelcourt.com/

Seattle's system is cool and a breeze to use, though as you hinted it's pretty slow once it gets into the core and the number of stops/at-grade road crossings increases. I remember it taking nearly 1 hour to get from a hotel downtown to the airport. Imagine if you could get from BNA to downtown in <10 minutes just by stepping off a platform onto a train. No rolling the dice on 440 as one does when going from/to the airport between 6-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m., respectively. No waiting in the rain or cold for the BNA parking shuttle. No $25 cab ride. It could happen.

To UTgrad's point about being able to visit Nashville without a car, what about a dedicated airport LRT line to downtown?