Brownfield

Accurate.

Don't forget that all the rock and soil have to be properly managed and/or disposed of. With the number of subgrade parking garages now being used/required, this has significantly increased development cost. Just for instance, a site in the Gulch has approximately 90,000 cubic yards of soil and rock to be excavated. This will cost over $3M.

Yes

They were gasoline tanks. That garage had a service station in the bottom floor back in the day.

It's a Brownfield in an urban environment so this is not a surprise really. Before the last parking garage was taken down about 13 underground storage tanks were removed. And, yes, the proper agencies were contacted (back in 2009). When Bridgestone Tower was built, there were about 8 USTs that no one knew were there. This seems to be more of an issue in SoBro than in the areas north of Broadway.

I'm sure there are. TDEC's Division of Water Resources and/or Metro Water would have those reports.

Prepare to get into the weeds... The EPA uses a system called HRS to score site for listing to the National Priority List (Superfund). The Hazard Ranking System (HRS) evaluates the relative risks to human health and the environment posed by uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The HRS evaluates three things; 1) the likelihood that a site has released or has the potential to release contaminants into the environment, 2) the characteristics of the waste (toxicity and waste quantity), and 3) the people or sensitive environments affected by the release. So for this site in particular you'd have to identify a release to the environment (the contamination that's undoubtedly present), it would have to be toxic (it likely would be), and you would have to have the contamination impact people. This is where the potential listing of the site would fall apart. Based on its location and land use, there won't be enough people impacted. In Tennessee, we get sites listed primarily by two exposure routes; impacted groundwater supplies (which are not used in Nashville) and impacted soil with residents nearby/on the property (which is not the case here). I hope this explanation is clear enough. Obviously, its a complex federal program. For those interested, TDEC works closely with the EPA on sites where people are actually at risk from uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. FYI, there are no Superfund (NPL) sites in Nashville.

This won't be a superfund site, it won't meet the listing criteria for EPA. That said, it's a perfect brownfield site and a savvy, motivated buyer won't be discouraged from purchasing and reusing the property safely.

Just about every project in downtown and SoBro is a brownfield.

Actually, we can do a lot through the Brownfields program to manage soil contamination in a way that safe for reuse and provides liability protection to new owners for past contamination. A full and complete cleanup may not be required.

Don't be so sure. Had an interesting conversation about this property yesterday and I've heard some rumblings about a potential move.

http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/2017/04/28/past-success-has-tennessee-concerned-federal-brownfields-cuts/100921572/ Not sure how much folks realize the impacts that brownfield redevelopment has had on the growth we've seen in Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. In Nashville, generally all of the development in the Downtown/SoBro area has been on brownfields.

I saw this in the Tennessean last week and this looks like a great reuse for this property. The concrete pads in the picture above are actually the foundations of above-ground storage tanks for the Triangle Refinery/Kerr McGee terminal facility that once operated here. Hopefully the redevelopment takes any issues that may have been left behind here into their design plans.

My understanding is that the development is enirely residential, though I have no information on the terms of the contract between Metro and Embrey. On the parking garage, environmental and geotechnical work are underway, my understanding is that the design/cost of the structure have been in flux.

That was related to the geotechnical and environmental assessment work.