The Mall at Green Hills

[101_ce]

I'm pretty sure Ct36 is a paid spokesperson for Simon Malls. You seem to hop from board to board hyping Southpark, Phipps, and Lenox.

Nope, I just love those malls, which they all happen to be Simon, aren't they? I love Simon, it is my favorite retail property group. Also, many of the malls that are upscale are Simon (I love upscale malls). So I can assure you I am not a spokesperson for Simon.

[deninnash]

Green Hills Mall is really not that great, and the area around it is ugly and a great example of unplanned piecemeal development. The tangles of power lines, roads to nowhere, no continuity between developments, different mismatched styles of sidewalks, mismatched street lights, stop lights, and other infrastructure, ugly high school in the middle of everything, really make the area unattractive. The infrastructure in this city is embarrassing and severely outdated and there is no better example then the Green Hills mall area. I won't even start on the roads in and out of Green Hills. So you want to charge money to park here? Get real, it is not really that special.

[ariesjow]

^You're preaching to the choir. Your complaints about Green Hills are the exact same ones we've been posting here for years.

[DavidH74]

I like to think that what Nashville lacks in manmade aesthetic beauty, it makes up for in character.

[satalac]

I like to think that what Nashville lacks in manmade aesthetic beauty, it makes up for in character.

try telling that to those stuck in rush hour traffic

[jdavidf]

I just heard from a friend that West Elm @ the Hill Center has closed.. It's a shame they've closed and there was the big 75% off sale that we knew nothing about

David

[dmillsphoto]

I just heard from a friend that West Elm @ the Hill Center has closed.. It's a shame they've closed and there was the big 75% off sale that we knew nothing about

David

Wow... that is rather depressing... Makes me wonder what else is underperforming at the Hill Center....

[FromParkAveToTN]

I hate to hear that about West Elm @ the Hill Center, but honestly, I'm not surprised. I just think their product line was too young for the demographics in that area. I think they would have done better in the Gulch area. The residents in Greens Hills, including myself, tend to have a more mature decor in our homes. The only thing I've been able to purchase in West Elm was candles. I don't mean to sound pompous or anything, but the cheapest painting in my home is about $1,200.00 dollars. So, with that said, there's nothing in West Elm that would fit in my home in Green Hills.

[dakota]

West Elm hasn't gone out of business, and doesn't seem to be planning to do so.

[deninnash]

Green Hills Mall is really not that great, and the area around it is ugly and a great example of unplanned piecemeal development. The tangles of power lines, roads to nowhere, no continuity between developments, different mismatched styles of sidewalks, mismatched street lights, stop lights, and other infrastructure, ugly high school in the middle of everything, really make the area unattractive. The infrastructure in this city is embarrassing and severely outdated and there is no better example then the Green Hills mall area. I won't even start on the roads in and out of Green Hills. So you want to charge money to park here? Get real, it is not really that special.

Major announcement coming at 1PM regarding Hillsboro Road/Green Hills. Maybe Mayor Dean read my post

http://www.wsmv.com/news/19567462/detail.html

[jice]

Major announcement coming at 1PM regarding Hillsboro Road/Green Hills. Maybe Mayor Dean read my post

http://www.wsmv.com/news/19567462/detail.html

Apparently they are just expanding the center turn lane.. hopefully other improvements too

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city...-hillsboro-road

[titanhog]

Apparently they are just expanding the center turn lane.. hopefully other improvements too

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city...-hillsboro-road

Yeah...they've really needed a turn lane from 440 up to the mall. Get stuck in the left lane when someone's turning and you may never get out of it!

[jice]

Yeah...they've really needed a turn lane from 440 up to the mall. Get stuck in the left lane when someone's turning and you may never get out of it!

yeah true... i just had hopes that they were gonna announce plans for some kinda secret mass transit project

[jice]

Sweet.. baby steps, i guess..

[timmay143]

Agree, better than nothing. Baby steps are needed though in the "down times." Small improvements such as those go a long way IMO.

[timmay143]

A few items from the Tennesean:

My Green Hills Slideshow

More expansion for Vanderbilt, in a 100 Oaks kind of way. Big props to Vanderbilt for reusing retail space for their expansions.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center will lease up to 70,000 square feet of space next door to The Mall at Green Hills for back-office functions. Up to 500 Vanderbilt employees are scheduled to move into the new digs this spring, Vanderbilt officials said. The deal has been deemed among Nashville's biggest lease signings of last year.

New West Precinct for Metro Police

Although not directly in Green Hills, the West police precinct will move to a new location at 5500 Charlotte Ave. The spot is the former location of the Bob Frensley auto dealership. Construction on it and Nashville's first DNA crime lab has been scheduled for late spring or early summer. The current West precinct headquarters, near Nashville West shopping center on Charlotte Avenue, is Nashvilles oldest and smallest precinct, at about 4,000 square feet. The project is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

Actual Mall expansions

Click through to see some of the plans Green Hills has for 2010. Construction on the 144,500-square-foot Nordstrom department store has been scheduled for the beginning of August, with an opening date set for October 2011. The parking deck attached to Macy's will also get a makeover this year. The work on the two-level expansion started earlier this week, mall officials said. Entrances and the parking area will be closed at times because of construction. The project is scheduled to wrap up by this year's holiday season.

[timmay143]

This study does not need to be done. There is tons of traffic in the area, fix it, end of story!

State to study Green Hills traffic

NATALIA MIELCZAREK • THE TENNESSEAN • JANUARY 15, 2010

A congested stretch of Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills will get another whammy this spring: up to 500 new commuters. Some residents worry that the thoroughfare will soon clog up, unable to handle additional traffic and force more cars to take back roads that already serve as shortcuts. Others welcome the new neighbors, Vanderbilt University Medical Center office workers, saying they’ll boost spending. State traffic experts, who will launch a Green Hills transportation study next month, assess that although still functioning, Hillsboro Pike is approaching capacity limits. "Vanderbilt will be adding some traffic, but we don’t really know how much. Nordstrom just broke ground. Given all those plans, what will it be traffic-wise if we didn’t do anything?” asked Ed Cole, chief of environment and planning at the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

Nordstrom department store’s construction at The Mall at Green Hills started earlier this month, with an opening date scheduled for October of 2011. No one knows how much traffic Nordstrom, a popular and highly anticipated department store, will bring in when it opens.

“Hillsboro Road, as is currently configured, is pretty much at capacity, especially during peak hours. It’s working, and believe me, there are parts of the country that would love to have the congestion we have on Hillsboro. But there’s not a whole lot more capacity left in that access,” Cole said.

The intersection of Hillsboro Pike at Woodmont Boulevard was ranked 12th on a list of top 20 busiest intersections in Davidson County in 2007, with a daily average traffic count of 53,310 cars, according to Metro Public Works Department. The busiest intersection that year was Nolensville Road at Harding Place, with 73,190 cars passing it daily. The 2007 statistics were the latest available.

The year before, that Hillsboro-Woodmont intersection saw an average of 56,850 cars a day, according to 2006 data.

The Green Hills Action Partners, a group of residents, Metro Council members, retailers and others, has partnered with TDOT, Metro government and others to launch the Green Hills transportation study, which will also look at sidewalks and bike lanes.

Rest of article is here. State to study Green Hills traffic

[jice]

Yea... I thought it was funny how they made such a big deal over extending that center turn lane a while back... its now done... annnd there's still traffic.. imagine that

I can't say it loud enough... mass transit!

[Nashvillain]

Yea... I thought it was funny how they made such a big deal over extending that center turn lane a while back... its now done... annnd there's still traffic.. imagine that

I can't say it loud enough... mass transit!

I came across a transportation study somewhere recently that said increasing lanes is essentially useless because it only has the effect of increasing traffic. So, build more lanes, more people will utilize that road. Back to square one. Road and highway builders thrive on taxpayer money. What is needed are transportation alternatives. Duh. Can you imagine if the amount of car traffic currently in Green Hills were spread across a variety of transportation modes: bus, train, car, bike and foot? Of course, the current physical state of the area would have to be completely retrofitted to account for people sans automotive armor.

[Shuzilla]

I think the problem with vehicular circulation through Green Hills is the same as so many other areas in Nashville: Local stop-and-go traffic mixes with through traffic. I think the bones exsist to develop Hillsboro Circle / Cleghorn / Crestmoor into a local loop for access to the retail area and the surrounding suburb. Hillsboro Rd could then have limited access points and be redesigned as a boulevard with perhaps a grassed median down the center and some sort of formal gateways into the retail area at the street intersections. The Hill Center could remain connected to Hillsboro Rd, Richard Jones could bust through to Bandywood and Abbot Martin could dead end at the mall. That would leave only two lights on Hillsboro rd between the endpoints of the local loop. That would also mean much of the old retail structures with parking accessible from Hillsboro rd would have to relocate to the local loop, making it more dense. When complete, a streetcar or similar could service the local loop (Hillsboro circle, Cleghorn and Crestmoor), which could carry folks to within a five-minute walk of most places in Green Hills. That plan will work with or without a broader mass transit plan.

[AMc]

Nordstrom expected to lure more high-end stores

[UTgrad09]

Whether or not you like the aesthetic look of the Green Hills area, you must know that it is a critical commercial district to Nashville and Davidson County. With Cool Springs taking so much of the upscale retail these days, Green Hills has emerged as a small elite spot (by Tennessee standards, at least) for high end retail shopping. If we expect high end merchandisers to continue to open locations in the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area, then we need to make sure that Green Hills remains an attractive spot for them to locate.

I agree that much needs to be done with the traffic and sidewalks in the area. That is absolutely critical if this area expects to grow and expand. Traffic-wise, the biggest problem I see is a lack of a true cross street in the middle of the district.

Overhill/Hobbs Road to the south and Woodmont to the extreme north of the area are the only streets I can think of that really cross Hillsboro Rd. Richard Jones, Abbott Martin, and Glen Echo are all decent sized roads that dead end into Hillsboro.

If there was a way to create a cross corridor in the middle of the district, then it would allow traffic to spread out from Hillsboro to the parallel roads such as Estes, Belmont, and Lone Oak to find an alternate way to Green Hills, and go across the road rather than having to dump all traffic onto the highway.

I can't say I have an idea of how exactly this would work, but we should probably look into the possibility/feasibility sooner rather than later.

There is no feasible way to widen Hillsboro road...unless you're talking about between Harding and Old Hickory.

[Nashvillain]

Whether or not you like the aesthetic look of the Green Hills area, you must know that it is a critical commercial district to Nashville and Davidson County. With Cool Springs taking so much of the upscale retail these days, Green Hills has emerged as a small elite spot (by Tennessee standards, at least) for high end retail shopping. If we expect high end merchandisers to continue to open locations in the Nashville/Middle Tennessee area, then we need to make sure that Green Hills remains an attractive spot for them to locate.

I agree that much needs to be done with the traffic and sidewalks in the area. That is absolutely critical if this area expects to grow and expand. Traffic-wise, the biggest problem I see is a lack of a true cross street in the middle of the district.

Overhill/Hobbs Road to the south and Woodmont to the extreme north of the area are the only streets I can think of that really cross Hillsboro Rd. Richard Jones, Abbott Martin, and Glen Echo are all decent sized roads that dead end into Hillsboro.

If there was a way to create a cross corridor in the middle of the district, then it would allow traffic to spread out from Hillsboro to the parallel roads such as Estes, Belmont, and Lone Oak to find an alternate way to Green Hills, and go across the road rather than having to dump all traffic onto the highway.

I can't say I have an idea of how exactly this would work, but we should probably look into the possibility/feasibility sooner rather than later.

There is no feasible way to widen Hillsboro road...unless you're talking about between Harding and Old Hickory.

Sounds good, but of course, as I'm sure you know, none of the current east/west streets off Hillsboro Rd. line up with each other. For instance, Glen Echo and Crestmoor, Abbot Martin and Richard Jones. I think either of these two pairs would be good candidates for realignment. However, this would require acquisition of rights-of-way and demolition of buildings, a messy and complicated proposition. I think there would be huge resistance from the community and business leaders in the area to all the disruption any infrastructure improvements would entail. I'm sure the argument would be: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Traffic congestion be damned. The success of the Hill Center should be held up as an argument for drastic infrastructure improvements and the benefits it would bring.

I think Shuzilla had some really good ideas a few posts back. It would be great to see some renderings of various proposals for infrastructure improvements in Green Hills.

[UTgrad09]

Sounds good, but of course, as I'm sure you know, none of the current east/west streets off Hillsboro Rd. line up with each other. For instance, Glen Echo and Crestmoor, Abbot Martin and Richard Jones. I think either of these two pairs would be good candidates for realignment. However, this would require acquisition of rights-of-way and demolition of buildings, a messy and complicated proposition. I think there would be huge resistance from the community and business leaders in the area to all the disruption any infrastructure improvements would entail. I'm sure the argument would be: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Traffic congestion be damned. The success of the Hill Center should be held up as an argument for drastic infrastructure improvements and the benefits it would bring.

I think Shuzilla had some really good ideas a few posts back. It would be great to see some renderings of various proposals for infrastructure improvements in Green Hills.

Yes, I'm well aware of the cross streets not connecting. That's why I think we need an East/West crosser in the middle of Green Hills. I realize it would probably be terribly expensive, but there are few other options. Even if you create easier access to the parallel streets to Hillsboro (which the locals should already be utilizing ) it still leaves the problem of actually getting to your destination in the retail center.

They probably could have made it possible for Warfield Dr. to cross Hillsboro into the Hill Center, but Warfield is truly a back road and it really wouldn't alleviate the problem.

Richard Jones ---> Abbott Martin would be the best solution, but it would require displacing an entire shopping center (Hillsboro Plaza) and possibly an office building...so that's really not an option right now (unless the shopping center were to go under financially...which I don't think it is in danger of doing).

It would be incredibly tricky, but the best possible solution I see is connecting Glen Echo to Crestmoor. They just barely offset, and it could possibly be done with the acquisition of just one property (the CVS pharmacy), but it would probably flow better if two or more properties were acquired.

Even though the main traffic flow of Crestmoor flows into the Cleghorn/Hillsboro Circle route, the advantages of this plan would be:

-Access to the Mall without getting on Hillsboro Road (north side entrance via Green Hills Village Dr.)

-Access to Abbott Martin, creating another way to cross Green Hills without getting on Hillsboro Road (the other being Hobbs/Overhill)

-An easier way to get to the Green Hills Post Office and Library from the West side of Green Hills

-A connection to Belmont Blvd, which could serve as an alternate North/South route to the Green Hills area

The spacing is a little tight, but I believe it would be possible to 4-lane the section of Glen Echo from Hillsboro Road to Hillmont Dr. (the road that goes behind Hillsboro High School and connects to Richard Jones Rd.)

All in all, I think it would be a more viable solution than adding any lanes to Hillsboro Road, which would be incredible costly and mess up traffic for years.

[J0e]

So with the Davis-Kidd bookstore closing in mid-December, according to the Tennessean, TMAGH will have a big opening. Any thoughts on what might fill this bi-level space? Perhaps it'll be the right time for Crate & Barrel (CB2 even) to open in Nashville? Or would it be a new clothing store say Ralph Lauren or H&M? Thoughts, anyone?