Nashvilletitans

There was not one project that it ignited Broadway rebirth but several trends that had been going on for years. 1. 2nd ave N was being renovated for 20 years with new restaurants and new offices. There was eventually an appreciation of the old buildings by nashvillians and tourist.Investors spread from 2nd ave to broadway and now sobro. 2. The old broadway of adult movie houses was pushed out of the area for new business such as boot shops, tourist shops, and country music bars. These business survived in the early years and are now very profitable. 3. The surge in nationwide popularity of country music-and the evolution of country music into pop music-made nashville music city brand much more significant- With broadway and the ryman its soul 4. successful projects such as Batman bldg./broadway arena/country music hall of fame/and encore continued the transition of the area such that other big projects could follow

The west side under the shelby bridge in the heart of sobro is also a great opportunity for a new functional us of space. The city recently removed the construction trailers that have been there for over a year for the construction of the riverfront park. This area if properly planned is a great feed through area connecting the new riverfront park to sobro/broadway.

Especially since they changed the name from a good name Gateway bridge and gateway blvd. Maybe that is why almost all of the new development by private investors is all on the PC correct "South Korean" side of Korean Blvd.

I know you may be joking but one of my concerns is this unprecedented growth of nashville's downtown and our new nashville midtown is lack of a good planning vision. Due to our success we now have developers who mostly may be creating projects mostly on the ability to assemble land. Now assembling land is important but it does not mean it is the best locations for the uses they are proposing. Nashville with its new downtown code went from a FAR of typically 5 floor building's in much of downtown and midtown to much higher density. This opened the flood gates of the possibility of all these new high-rises. Yes we needed to update the old zoning-but we did not put much of a plan or direction of a good master plan- long range vision of the city. Now one can build high density structures on hundreds properties in midtown and downtown. Much of this is good but we still do not have a vision that includes important elements such as transportation, open space, and concentrated higher density. I fear our plan will just be determined based on whether developers can assemble the properties. As long as we have strong demand you can put a condo or apartment almost anywhere and that seems to be what we are doing. Many of the developers assemble the property, build the building and then sell it, and make their profit. They may not have to worry about the long term success or impact their project has on the neighborhood or city. When all of the cranes come down in three years what kind of mess will we have. Will it be grid lock, with there be enough parking, will there be access to transportation so it is walkable. I also understand that the city will be raising building heights again in sobro for more taller buildings south of KVB in the future. pop pop pop Boom. not necessarily a pretty situation. Similarly since since LoBro is full with no vacanies for more honky tonks are we going to get the noise blasting music boxes in high rise Sobro full of apartments, condos, and hotels. I feel this is a concern. Or church street, printers alley or ben west building.

Almost all of the apartments that are on 2nd ave north where built 20 years ago such that the residence were there before the loud street music. I was just pointing out that if one wants more diversity on some of the lower floors and and occupants on the upper floors of broadway that there may need to be a limit at some point if the noise due to speakers gets to loud.

The unfortunate component to this is that they make a lot of money. example one of the noisiest of them all down there is honky tonk central. it iis usually packed and overflowing off the balconies- tourist must love this. it is doing so well it seems that the owner paid about 8 million dollars and bought the trail west then tore it down and now is going to bulld another building. They publicly say is a steak house but I worry about honky tonk central II in the future of that site. The proposed new building looks very much like there first building which also is not complying architecturally broadway guidelines. It seems these noisy drunken buildings make a lot of money

There are existing residential units up and down 2nd ave n on upper floors that have had to tolerate the loud music for years. There are very few residents on upper floors on lower broadway.

I am glad someone else voices the noise level concerns and the diversity concerns. It is loud and much of the public likes that on broadway. But my concern is there are no rules enforced on the noise level. There are rules even on broadway and second avenue about noise levels yet there is no enforcement. Example on second ave North you are not allowed to have speakers on the front facade blasting loud music. Yet it is happening all over the street- if one complains to police there is no enforcement. The concept of some noise and music is ok but there are no limits and some bar owners can go to the extreme. In terms of diversity it would be nice to have more of it. There is some retail, some residential on upper floors, and a few small hotels proposed. It would be nice to have more diversity

I do not think the cost to repair was the real problem in this example. Here we have a developer who bought his building for a high price who had a specific idea of what he wanted and the building he bought was not able to do this and he had a loop hole where the building was not protected from demolition so he tore it down. Now he gets to build what he wants. The argument that the building was not structurally sound or could not be repaired is not really very truthful here. the developer is trying to look like they made every effort to save the building - they wanted to tear it down the day they bought it and waited till they could tear it down. and that was sunday night. The developer learned a little bit from there last illegal teardown at 3rd ave s.

The trail west bldg before it was done had the same typical historic significance as any other typical one hundred year old bldg in the broadway historic district. Its facade, bldg scale were typical of broadway bldgs. the building like most buildings on broadway are in average condition. The trail west bldg structural condition was no worse than other buildings on broadway and could have been saved. However the owners appear to have taken advantage of the loop hole that this buildings was in an sp for a hotel that was never built. so this buildings was not part of the broadway historic district. The historic comm and staff did not get to review or approve this proposed project nor did they have a say if the building can be torn down. The fact the owner and his paid consultants said that the building is structural in to poor condition is very convienant. And appears to be their rich to tear it down since it was not protected by broadway district guidelines. The developers drawings, floor elevations and exterior have shown a new building since they first proposed the idea, the existing building did not have good floor to floor heights nor had window patterns to the liking of the developer. I wonder if this proposed new building if not tectniquely in the broadway district will have to set there broadway facade and 3 rd ave facade back a few feet to comply with the new sidewalk guidelines. I also wonder if they will be able to have balconies on broadway and 3rd ave which are also no longer allowed in the district

Trail west bldg getting a renovation permit for the picture shown in article does not make sense. I have not seen where this property was approved by the historic commission which should be required if they are demolishing a historic bldg. I would be concerned if the sp overlay for the hotel gave this property a non historic comm. review situation

Elevations.pdf

architecturally putting residences above most of the small old buildings is very difficult. many of the buildings are only 20 to 30 feet wide. the units require two exits one in the front and one in the rear typically. With an entrance in the front with an elevator-this usually conflicts with the ground floor retail that needs its frontage to attract customers. Also it is very expensive to renovate existing buildings. So between putting in an elevator and have each unit connect to two rated stair towers only a few buildings are suitable for residential renovation.(larger are more suitable buildings). Also most building have few windows except corner buildings -most apartments need windows in living rooms and bedrooms to be desirable.

Is anyone familiar with the "detached Accessory DEWELLING Unit overlay district" DADU legislation that is before metro council and zoning that effects nashville suburbia R and RS areas and green hills. Is zoning and council finding a way to double up on housing in a general sweep without looking at what this might be doing. Looks kind of scary when broad sweeping concepts are introduced with no details clarified.

One thing I know is that parcels fronting on KVB can be max 30 floor height and parcels on rear of that same block fronting on Peobody are significantly shorter.

There are tasteful way to activate buildings in the broadway historic. Honky Tock Central design speaks for itself...... I clearly question repeating that concept on another block on broadway On the issue of balconies a few upper floor residential balconies could be nice on 2nd, 3rd, or 4th ave South

I was mostly referring to allowing balconies for apartments or hotels where drunkeness is not an issue. The encore with hundreds of balconies and no one is falling off the 15th floor. The historic comm no longer allows balconies for residences

Unfortunately this is the same developer that pulled renovation permits for dinner building on third - and then tore the building down to the ground. Historic comm is extremely concerned about this building on 3rd and broadway where the developers drawings show renovation but different floor levels than levels than the existing building and a totally different exterior elevation. One problem I have with projects and developers like this is that it freaks out the historic commission. example -design guidelines use to allow balconies on broadway-then honky tonk central put all those balconies on broadway. Historic comm staff hated how this project used balconies so much now they do not allow balconies for any other future projects in the broadway historic district. One developers unsatisfactory use of a design feature causes a bad reaction from design staff such now Historic comm wants all building to look similar to historic buildings not allowing good architects much leeway

When buildings are in the historic district they leave all asthetic detail issues to the historic comm and staff. to a certain extent this does make sense. MDHA staff and board do not have the experience nor do they want to pass judgement on what is historically appropriate in renovation or infill. Historic commission does not pass judgement on the proposed use of a building where as MDHA does review proposed use is comparable with with the plan of the area. Many of the land use plans in downtown nashville are managed by MDHA. There is a historic comm staff person on the MDHA review committee that votes. In my opinion When MDHA is responsible for designing some of the downtown plan and their guidelines and then they are selected as the developer of property within that planned area -they have a huge conflict of interest. An example of this Is KVB design guidelines where MDHA designed and was involved inn the convention center and convention center hotel. Much of there design for these buildings conflicted with the KVB Guidelines but since they reviewed their own project nothing was ever said when they conflicted with guidelines. Also These projects were able to do things that no other property owner or developer can do. Such as convention center Hotel had an unfair competitive advantage over other adjacent hotels.

This looks like a good project. There is office space demand. It is a great location. No matter how good a project is it takes time before construction starts. There is coordination, drawings, engineering, financing and more.... everyone needs to be patient

My guess is MDHA approved the trail west conditionally. This usually means they approved the project on the condition that the historic commission approves the project. Most likely MDHA approved the type of use of the building. MDHA lets the historic staff and commission deal with the aesthetics and architectural issues on projects in the Broadway historic commission. I can not imagine that the historic commission would allow this building exterior to be torn down. They mostly would approve the interior being redone or rebuilt. The buildings interior and exterior are more or less structurally sound and can be repaired. The existing three story building may not structurally be able to support an additional floor without additional structural elements(similar to acme project). My guess this project concept is in for a big fight with historic commission. If the historic commission allows this project to tear down the buildings exterior they will be setting a precedent for demolition of historic buildings on broadway. This building is basically in similar poor condition like most other buildings on broadway.

This and many of the projects we are starting to see look interesting. But I have a big question how do they fit into the area. How much can nashville take. a developer gets rights to a property - there is demand - so lets put a big building on it. where is the overall plan. with all these interesting proposals if we build say build 25 mid to high rises in mid town what do we have in the end. Where is the study or master plan of the area. I like most of these projects but not in the context of the neighborhood or their neighbors.

If is hard to look at nashville in square miles - So I think of It as the aprox 330,000. acres. Unfortunately when nashvllle next was doing it studies they did not differentiate between undeveloped land that was buildable ( not in flood plane, water, and steeps slopes.) The NW quadrant of the city has vast amounts of undeveloped land but almost all of it (approx 95%) is steep slopes and some of it is flood planes. There could be approx 100,000 acres in that part of the city that is steep slopes with very few residences located on it. Only a very small percentage of that is farmed as well. It is steep hills with trees and a few residences scattered in the valleys. That Bells bend concept a few years ago dealt with the fact that it was the largest remaining accessible and build able piece of land left in the city and perhaps one of the largest build able parcels in a city in the country. The land in that area is zoned for single family homes on 2 acres. They did not want to do a sub division like the neighbors wanted. And they proposed a 30 year master plan of mixed use medium density development on 600 acres surrounded by 900 acres of green space. as well as the larger area surrounding it remaining green space ( because it is steep slopes). To make it worse there is only the brilley parkway bridge connecting it to the remained of the city- the next bridge is in ashland city. For 25 years TDOT has considered building another bridge to this area but Nimbys and other factors have prevailed. Of Nashville's 330,000. acres we are down to a few thousand left that are suitable to build on (not steep slopes or flood plain). Most of those parcels are a few acres scattered throughout the county

I have never attended one of your meetings or mini meetings. Can you tell me what happens at meets and about how many attend.

I bought a totally electric car and put solar panels on my house. I feel good every where I go especially when I am stuck in traffic. It makes sense to me and I invested it . My attitude is I can do my part. but I am not a vegetarian yet.