Deepdish53

Looks like this may be starting up. Some equipment and construction workers are on site and they've already removed some of the parking lot asphalt.

Any sort of tunnel construction in the United States has become notorious for taking longer than initial projections and with big cost overruns, so innovation making tunneling more efficient is always a good thing. That being said, I'm still skeptical of how all this will pan out because of Elon's ideal use for tunnels. As far as I know he's still essentially making them single-lane tesla-only tunnels, which effectively is just like adding another highway lane to increase car traffic capacity. While this tunneling method may be a significant cost improvement over traditional tunneling methods, it's still way more expensive than adding a lane to an interstate and has the downfall of serious capacity restrictions since only cars can use it. Building a 29 mile underground transportation loop to hit all of the big tourist spots in Las Vegas has some serious potential to be very popular and useful, but it won't succeed if it's filled with cars instead of trains. As for tunneling in Nashville, I don't think we'll see very many tunnels ever constructed here regardless of use. Getting through the bedrock is incredibly difficult and expensive - I would be surprised if the methods Elon's devised to work in the desert would also work here. He might be able to come up with some methods that make tunneling here efficient eventually, but I would suspect that would be years (maybe decades) from now, if at all.

It really is a shame that this building will be next to Haven. Great architecture with some serious height (especially with the base elevation being so high) and it's right next to one of the most bland buildings in downtown Nashville.

It's important to note that the $50 million figure that was approved in December (half from TDOT, half from Metro) was for ROW acquisition. Construction cost is a separate number from that.

All good! Us engineers aren't known for our artistic qualities haha

These aren't pictures of the bank offices, they're pictures from the recent build-out of the fourth floor for Kimley-Horn.

I can promise you things are moving behind the scenes. Design for a complete site overhaul, along with the roadway design for Cowan Street and the interior street network, is going to take a while to get done.

This is kind of a chicken or the egg scenario. Right now, developers look at our transportation infrastructure that is built solely for cars and balk at the idea of building at a density or site layout that would create walkable neighborhoods to support rail. Additionally, many people look at our built environment and question why we would ever build rail if the density and neighborhood layout won't provide enough ridership support. If we are going to shift from an auto-centric transportation system to a more multi-modal one, somebody's going to have to take the first step. The logical first step is for us to develop rail infrastructure that connects walkable nodes throughout Nashville to provide a solid starting point and go from there. Higher density can then be provided at these nodes to make sure we're maximizing ridership and incentivizing public transportation use over personal vehicles. Eventually, as more of the city is well-served by public transportation, it may become more normal for new developments to design with more walkability and multimodality in mind. If we don't invest in more than just car infrastructure (although that definitely needs investment as well), we will only end up with worse traffic and gridlock.

You certainly could be right! With how we've seen proposals for other parcels this large in SoBro be presented, I wouldn't be surprised if this one went a similar way. I was just pointing out that I don't think the ROW acquisition line along Division Street precludes the developer from building up to Division. The leader lines from the "Interior of Building/Garage" label seem to be very general in nature and aren't necessarily delineating where any structure would go, IMO.

Long time lurker, first time poster. @smeagolsfree I believe that ROW acquisition line is just illustrating that sliver along Division Street being dedicated to the city's ROW. Right now, the sidewalk is bumped out to avoid an existing structure - I'm sure the city would prefer to make that a straight path and provide continuous street parking for that whole block. I'd be surprised if that kept the developer from being able to put a building on anything north of the yellow line.