Inner Loop - CBD, Downtown, East Bank, Germantown, Gulch, Rutledge

[TMcKay9]

Fair, but it's more than just a bridge while being a crappy Highline.

The downtown one was a retrofit of an antiquated vehicle bridge wasn't it? So I should hope it was a bit cheaper and on top of that it connects a major tourist area with the stadium and now a reasonable park area. Also I can see using it on a bike. Not sure what routes from say midtown would involve Pine St.

I think this is primarily a yellow brick road connecting MarketStreet, Turnberry, Westin, convention center, etc. I don't think any residents have been champing at the bit in mass for this to happen because it's about the developers and (future) tourists first with an ancillary that walking to Cummins Station might be 30 seconds faster.

 

The retrofit of Shelby Street Bridge cost over 15 million and its much much more expensive to maintain than this new bridge would be.  It originally connected to a major tourist area to a stadium thats used about 10 times per year.  If it would not have been the "reasonable park area" would definitely not have been built nor would the bridge building have been renovated.  One could make the argument that the retrofit of the bridge led to the parks which will ultimately lead to the redevelopment of PSC.  And yes you can use it on a bike if you're a decent cyclist but people riding those B-cycle bikes usually have to get off and push up the ramps.

 

Again this is an urban development forum, so what if its a yellow brick road connecting massive developments that will be full of people to places where they can shop and eat.  Most of the residents I've talked to are for the bridge, It makes no sense why they wouldn't be.  As the roundabout side & KVB becomes more dense it will make even more sense than it already does.  Walking 5 minutes isn't a long time but psychologically its enough to kill the connectivity of a area.

 

Do you guys think the city is going to take the money they don't spend on this bridge and go spend it in some run down part of they city where people are walking in ditches?  I doubt it.  If urban planet forumers could get together and do a dollar for dollar swap with the city let us decide what to do with the money I might be for it.

[nashvylle]

I could imagine them doing something like that in the distant future, but it would cost hundreds of millions, I suspect.  But...they wouldn't have to cover all of the tracks...just a portion.  It would need a lot of green space...but also retail and something else to make it a "destination" and a place that residents and tourists would want to visit.

 

I would rather us spend millions of dollars redeveloping the PSC Metals site, with an Eiffel Tower like element... pipe dream but could happen. 

[nashvillwill]

Do you guys think the city is going to take the money they don't spend on this bridge and go spend it in some run down part of they city where people are walking in ditches? I doubt it.

For the record, I take offense to that statement. There is a high majority of areas in this city where people are forced to walk in ditches. It's a city wide problem that is well known. It's not a sign of a "run down" area, but a result of improper past development. I'm not sure if you're a Gulch resident or not, but that statement sounds a little elitist. I don't mean that as a personal attack, i just want to be clear that not all neighborhoods are shiny and new, but that doesn't mean they are run down.

As far as your question of would metro necessarily redirect these funds to other sidewalk projects goes, no, I'm not sure it would. So I can agree with you there. It may not be a one or the other source of funds.

[FromParkAveToTN]

Didn't the city propose installing some trees around the PSC Metals property some years ago to camouflage the scrape yard? What ever happened to that? That would help with the look around there.

[Paramount747]

The retrofit of Shelby Street Bridge cost over 15 million and its much much more expensive to maintain than this new bridge would be.  It originally connected to a major tourist area to a stadium thats used about 10 times per year.  If it would not have been the "reasonable park area" would definitely not have been built nor would the bridge building have been renovated.  One could make the argument that the retrofit of the bridge led to the parks which will ultimately lead to the redevelopment of PSC.  And yes you can use it on a bike if you're a decent cyclist but people riding those B-cycle bikes usually have to get off and push up the ramps.

 

Again this is an urban development forum, so what if its a yellow brick road connecting massive developments that will be full of people to places where they can shop and eat.  Most of the residents I've talked to are for the bridge, It makes no sense why they wouldn't be.  As the roundabout side & KVB becomes more dense it will make even more sense than it already does.  Walking 5 minutes isn't a long time but psychologically its enough to kill the connectivity of a area.

 

Do you guys think the city is going to take the money they don't spend on this bridge and go spend it in some run down part of they city where people are walking in ditches?  I doubt it.  If urban planet forumers could get together and do a dollar for dollar swap with the city let us decide what to do with the money I might be for it.

10 times, are you serious? The Titans Stadium was used 40+ times last year! Titans, CMA, Other Concerts, TSU, Music City Bowl, Giant Prayer Meetings for several groups, and  Vandy this year...please!

Edited September 12, 2014 by Urban Architecture

[TMcKay9]

For the record, I take offense to that statement. There is a high majority of areas in this city where people are forced to walk in ditches. It's a city wide problem that is well known. It's not a sign of a "run down" area, but a result of improper past development. I'm not sure if you're a Gulch resident or not, but that statement sounds a little elitist. I don't mean that as a personal attack, i just want to be clear that not all neighborhoods are shiny and new, but that doesn't mean they are run down.

As far as your question of would metro necessarily redirect these funds to other sidewalk projects goes, no, I'm not sure it would. So I can agree with you there. It may not be a one or the other source of funds.

 

Don't take offense because I am very pro sidewalk and it irks me to see people walking in the ditch down Harding Place.  I think its ridiculous that the city hasn't remedied all of these areas.  If you knew me at all you would know that I'm as far from elitist as it gets.  I grew up in Nashville in the hood in a house the size of a bedroom!  I sell/invest in real estate all over this fair city and look down upon no areas.  When I said run down area I was speaking mostly of rundown infrastructure.  My main point was that it wont be a dollar for dollar swap into an area that actually needs it.

[TMcKay9]

10 times, are you serious? The Titans Stadium was used 40+ times last year! Titans, CMA, Other Concerts, TSU, Music City Bowl, Giant Prayer Meetings for several groups, and  Vandy this year...please!

 

Okay you got me there!  40 out of 365 as opposed to a bridge in an area with shopping, hotels, dining, convention center, full time residents, offices, etc.

 

Don't take me wrong, I was all for the Shelby Street conversion because I knew the value of it.  I'm just saying this bridge shouldn't be wrote off and would be very valuable as well. 

[vinemp]

Do you guys think the city is going to take the money they don't spend on this bridge and go spend it in some run down part of they city where people are walking in ditches?  I doubt it.  If urban planet forumers could get together and do a dollar for dollar swap with the city let us decide what to do with the money I might be for it.

RIGHT to the point! (And, maybe, on to another point regarding the participants in this forum.)

 

No one who's lived in Nashville for any significant amount of time should be under the delusion that the City is in any way pressed to expand the sidewalk network out onto all the pikes and the meandering (and unconnected) streets that exist between said pikes.

 

My family moved to Nashville in 1996. I finished high school there, attended university there---I lived off and on in the city for over thirteen years. And, in that time, nary a single, solitary pike became easier to traverse. 

 

And, really, the refrain of "either...or" in this discussion is just tiresome. (At best it shows one of the more unattractive of the Anglo-American cultural ways of knowing. At worst, it's less than profound enough to be considered realistic.)

Edited September 12, 2014 by vinemp

[Paramount747]

Okay you got me there!  40 out of 365 as opposed to a bridge in an area with shopping, hotels, dining, convention center, full time residents, offices, etc.

 

Don't take me wrong, I was all for the Shelby Street conversion because I knew the value of it.  I'm just saying this bridge shouldn't be wrote off and would be very valuable as well. 

I agree though, even 40 times is not enough. We need development around the stadium. It seems baseball parks welcome the development, but football stadiums don't. For what I have been told, the large Titans surface lot is for the new Titans Stadium when this one is too dilapidated to use, and the fact they never paint, or repair anything, I bet we get 20 years out of this stadium before they ask for a new one. That is one reason why I still have reservations about professional sports. They are leeches that suck the blood out of cities.

 

The NFL is such a greedy organization that they will suck a city dry before they actually give back anything. For a Non-Profit organization, they are such greedy beotchs!

[nashvillwill]

Don't take offense because I am very pro sidewalk and it irks me to see people walking in the ditch down Harding Place.  I think its ridiculous that the city hasn't remedied all of these areas.  If you knew me at all you would know that I'm as far from elitist as it gets.  I grew up in Nashville in the hood in a house the size of a bedroom!  I sell/invest in real estate all over this fair city and look down upon no areas.  When I said run down area I was speaking mostly of rundown infrastructure.  My main point was that it wont be a dollar for dollar swap into an area that actually needs it.

 

Fair enough. I didn't mean to call you elitist either. I just meant that it may come of that way if that were an argument from the Gulch.

[nashvillwill]

Just for shiggles, I took a ride through the current route today that goes around the proposed bridge. Here are my results.

 

Distance: 0.7 miles

Time: 2:57 

 

For the record.

 

A; I'm not an athlete. I'm conditioned for riding, but i'm in pretty bad shape right now, so i think my result could be considered "average".

B. To be fair, i made the climb out of the Gulch instead of the descent into it.

C. I got caught at a traffic light for a few seconds and waited at it (as a safe cyclist always should) for fair comparison. 

D: Not that it would make a huge difference over such a short distance, but i ride a hybrid (traditional upright bike) and not some sport bike. So i think that would also qualify my results as "average".

 

 

Obviously, the difference on foot vs. on a bike would be vastly different. I just wanted to illustrate this for those who like hard numbers. If i had to guess how long it would take a cyclist to cross the proposed bridge, including dismounting and carrying down the stairs, I would guess about 1 minute. If they chose the elevator, probably 1:30. So we are talking about a 1.5-2 minute savings for a cyclist.

 

 

It may be even faster to take 8th. I'll try that next time.

 

 

Edit: I will admit. It's an incredibly short distance between the two points they are planning to connect. Quite literally a stones throw. It would certainly make the walking route much shorter for the segment of people whom need to connect the two points on foot.

But I take issue with the idea that it will somehow lead to a bicyclists paradise. It's not often you hear a cyclist arguing AGAINST bicycle infrastructure. But in this case, i just feel like the people promoting the bridge are using cyclist as a bargaining chip (and therefore demonized by the rest of the population) where i really don't think it helps cyclists one bit. I would much rather see bike infrastructure in other areas than to end up with the argument of "well, you cyclist got that Gulch bridge, so that's all for now".

Edited September 12, 2014 by nashvillwill

[Rockatansky]

As I understand it the bridge is being funded by TIF money which, if not used on the bridge, could only be used for other infrastructure improvements in the Gulch. Can someone confirm or deny this?

[Nashville Cliff]

As I understand it the bridge is being funded by TIF money which, if not used on the bridge, could only be used for other infrastructure improvements in the Gulch. Can someone confirm or deny this?

 

No.  Any TIF collections over the amount needed to pay the bond debt or budgeted for another improvement in the zone is returned to the general fund.

[nashvylle]

One point that has never been mentioned but should is what happens if the RET allocated to the bridge come up short...

 

While I haven't read the TIF agreement specific to the bridge, I would suspsect (as is the case in most TIF agreements) that the Landlords of the 7 Gulch properties would come out of pocket personally should there be any shortfall.

 

Shortfalls do happen, and I would rather have the developers/landlords of the 7 Gulch properties backstop the financing for this bridge, as opposed to paying for the bridge AND any shortfalls out of the general fund. 

[Nashville Cliff]

One point that has never been mentioned but should is what happens if the RET allocated to the bridge come up short...

 

While I haven't read the TIF agreement specific to the bridge, I would suspsect (as is the case in most TIF agreements) that the Landlords of the 7 Gulch properties would come out of pocket personally should there be any shortfall.

 

Shortfalls do happen, and I would rather have the developers/landlords of the 7 Gulch properties backstop the financing for this bridge, as opposed to paying for the bridge AND any shortfalls out of the general fund. 

 

No, I'm pretty sure it would come out of the general fund (or maybe MDHA's budget, depending on how it is structured).  I believe the TIF is for the designated district, not just seven buildings.  It looks like this is, as Brett suggested the other day, the TIF for the Arts Center district.  Here's MDHA's redevelopment district map: http://www.nashville-mdha.org/pdfs/Redevelopment_Districts_Map.pdf.  

[Paramount747]

One point that has never been mentioned but should is what happens if the RET allocated to the bridge come up short...

 

While I haven't read the TIF agreement specific to the bridge, I would suspsect (as is the case in most TIF agreements) that the Landlords of the 7 Gulch properties would come out of pocket personally should there be any shortfall.

 

Shortfalls do happen, and I would rather have the developers/landlords of the 7 Gulch properties backstop the financing for this bridge, as opposed to paying for the bridge AND any shortfalls out of the general fund. 

Sorry, please explain how the 7 business owners would foot the bill for a bridge?

[Nashville Cliff]

Sorry, please explain how the 7 business owners would foot the bill for a bridge?

 

I think this misconception is coming from how the mayor characterized the developments in the gulch as paying for the projects.  He was simplifying the concept that the TIF that would be used to pay for the bridges comes from the incremental increase in tax collections resulting from the increase in property values caused by those 7 (and other) developments.

[ruraljuror]

I think we're kind of missing the point by talking about what-if scenarios with regard to the Gulch property taxes and potential ROI for the bridge.  The ROI that the city is concerned with here is the MCC, not the bridge itself.  We've all seen the stories about larger conventions we've missed because of lack of full service and high end hotel rooms available.  Even with the demand already in place and waiting, we're still having a hard time getting hotels out of the ground, and the development money and quality that people have been willing to put on KVB so far has not has not been servicing that need.  As I see it, the city needs this 15 million dollar bridge to close the deal on hundreds of million dollars of hotel investments that are necessary in order to protect half a billion dollars we've already spent on the new convention center.  

 

Locals will use this bridge too, especially once the area around the new roundabout is activated, and it's a vanity project in the sense that it is attractive and the panache that goes with it is important to its purpose, but the primary goal of the bridge is providing access to convention goers and encouraging development near the new roundabout by connecting it to the Gulch.  On this site, we regularly discuss how a non-activated streetscape kills pedestrian traffic and urban continuity.  It's a strange market to target by building a top-of-line convention center, then a four seasons in the Gulch in part to service it, and then expecting those traveling in between to walk across the viaduct with cars whizzing past.  Maybe we shouldn't have built the MCC?  Fair enough.  I think it's still got a lot of potential to be a success, but not if we don't provide the infrastructure necessary to make it work. 

[Leif]

Ruraljuror I think that's the most eloquent summation of this thing thus far.

[Paramount747]

Ruraljuror I think that's the most eloquent summation of this thing thus far.

+1

[ruraljuror]

Ruraljuror I think that's the most eloquent summation of this thing thus far.

 

Thanks for the kind words.  I'm glad to see that a lot of y'all seem to think there's some value in this perspective as well. 

[BnaBreaker]

Bravo ruraljuror, very well said!

[dReAmWiELdEr]

Wow... thanks ruraljuror... those are also my exact thoughts on the subject!

Edited September 13, 2014 by dReAmWiELdEr

[titanhog]

So...are we saying that a 4 Seasons is still a possibility in the Gulch?

 

I was thinking most of the 4 star full service hotels they are attempting to get out of the ground were basically just across the street from the MCC...and not all the way in the Gulch.  But...if you're saying that with the bridge, it would open up the possibility of getting a full service hotel in the Gulch...that makes sense.

[smeagolsfree]

Hall of Fame park to get upgrade. From the Post.

https://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2014/9/12/sobro_civic_space_to_get_2m_upgrade