Nashville Bits and Pieces

[LA_TN]

35 minutes ago, CityHeart said:

What would your version/vision of 5th + Broadway look like ? 

I think there will be regrets when this project comes online, because it will fill up so quickly. The retail portion could have been 3x and the office tower probably should have gone, at least, the original 35. How does 26 floors of condos on top of 34 floors of apartments sound? But, hey...nobody could forsee this future when these pie-in-the-sky plans were drawn up! This is a massive project involving cooperation with the Renaissance Hotel, etc. Pat Emery was accomplished the impossible!

[nashvylle]

I agree that with hindsight being 20/20, 5th and Broadway most likely would have been 35 stories office and 40 stories condos and apartments.

The silver lining- we still have tons of surface parking lots within the downtown/interstate loop, and when projects like 5th and Broadway are underbuilt, that leads to nashville’s Real estate market as a whole being underbuilt, and potentially more surface lots being developed. 

[Hey_Hey]

I was able to pull the data from 2010 - 2017 for housing starts in Davidson, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, and Wilson Counties. I've put together some graphs of the data as well.  It is very confusing to me that the Census Bureau has all of these counties having higher in-migration than Davidson despite Davidson having significantly more building of residential units. 

One thing does jump out to me as a possible inaccurate data point supplied from Metro to the Census Bureau.  The Census Bureau breaks down units as either single family, 2 unit, 3 or 4 unit, or 5+ unit construction. What's interesting is that Davidson has essentially no two-unit construction reported despite all of the duplexes we see going up. The most ever reported out was 31 back in 2013, although we all know it is several times higher than that. This got me thinking and wondering if Davidson County's 2 on 1 lots are being counted as single family units. If they are being counted as single family units (because they are replacing single family units on lots zoned as single family) then this could result in dramatically increased numbers of units as well as affect population estimates. 

Here are the graphs of housing starts I mentioned above: 

 

I’ve got several more things I can add, so stay tuned.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Hey_Hey

[chris holman]

Does anyone think that the city population is well over 700,000 people at this point?

[OnePointEast]

It's probably hovering at around the mark or if not, surpassed it.

[Baronakim]

I  hope this is the best thread for this bit of urban Nashville history.   For several years now I have been looking around the banks of the Cumberland  like at Gay Street and under the bridges next to the stadium parking lot.  I had seen some old stone work, but did not realize what I had found.  Recently the old stonework was cleaned up and recognized by historians as the ruins of the first bridge over the Cumberland in Nashville.  It is under the Victory Memorial bridge constructed in the early 50s. The abutments  are what remain of the old Nashville Toll Bridge which opened in 1823.   Here is a brief description from the native History Association website www.nativehistoryassociation.org/tollbridge.php :

"The first bridge in Nashville, which was also the first bridge over the Cumberland River, was built in 1823 at the northeast corner of the city's public square, near the location where the Victory Memorial Bridge now stands. It was a three-span, covered toll bridge constructed of wood and iron, supported by stone abutments on each bank, and two stone piers in the river channel. In the late 1830's thousands of Cherokees crossed this bridge on the Trail of Tears. By the mid-nineteenth century, the new generation of steamboats was too tall to pass under the bridge, so in 1850 the first Woodland Street Bridge was built to replace it. The 1823 Nashville Toll Bridge was then dismantled in 1851"

Like the old City Cemetery and the limestone block walls in the Gulch, this shows one can still ferret out bits of old Nashville.

In the aerial shot, you can see the east bank abutment  standing just to the left of the Woodland Street Bridge approach.  This photo is from 1940 and shows how dense the city was back then with one and two story buildings.  It was in the late 1960s when so much of this became the vast sea of parking lots  which we are still striving to refill.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Baronakim
incorrect date

[nashvylle]

Wow, thanks! 

[dmillsphoto]

[Rockatansky]

On 4/21/2019 at 3:15 AM, Hey_Hey said:

Davidson County's 2 on 1 lots

As I understand it each dwelling unit is on its own piece of property (similar to a townhouse or condo) so most tall skinnies are not duplexes.

[PaulChinetti]

For example O.I.C. is listed at the overall owner of the land but then the individual buildings have different names attached to them.

I've had it described to me as Nashville doesn't allow that size of properties, it wasn't very clear as to why it was like that, anyone who could break it down would be great. 

 

[markhollin]

Panel discussion on Nashville's growth from Urban Land Institute's convention here  last week:

 https://urbanland.uli.org/economy-markets-trends/nashville-leaders-reveal-what-draws-100-new-residents-to-their-city-each-day/

[MLBrumby]

I'm so tired of staged 'big armchair discussions'... trying too hard to appear unscripted and casual. Sorry... carry on now! 

[nashvylle]

42 minutes ago, markhollin said:

Panel discussion on Nashville's growth from Urban Land Institute's convention here  last week:

 https://urbanland.uli.org/economy-markets-trends/nashville-leaders-reveal-what-draws-100-new-residents-to-their-city-each-day/

The photo has eddie george, jay turner, and john ingram- all part of the MLS committee. Not much in the article written about that, but does anyone know if their plans were shared in that panel discussion? thanks

[Mr_Bond]

On 4/19/2019 at 9:02 AM, titanhog said:

Everything seems to be pointing towards a recession soon.  We are historically overdue, I believe.  I was looking at US historical numbers a few months ago and I think this is one of the longest stretches of growth (after the late 00’s recession) we’ve had without receding.  It’s going to eventually catch us.

Some metrics suggest we had a shallow recession in 2016.  If so, the 'longest economic expansion in U.S. history' moniker no longer applies.  Hard to predict when.  As the saying goes, economists have predicted nine of the last five recessions.

Eventually we will experience a recession and it will likely be very painful because the steps we took to get out of the last recession just piled on the debt and created credit-related bubbles.  Until the Federal Reserve stops using Keynesian economic theory, we will experience deep recessions caused by credit contraction.

We can hope that Nashville will endure the recession with less pain due to our health care and tech focus.  The tourism industry here could fare better than other parts of the country because we are a 'cheap' vacation for many people in the eastern U.S. (they can drive rather than fly, no expensive park pass to buy, plenty of cheap things to do for fun).

[Bos2Nash]

4 hours ago, PaulChinetti said:

For example O.I.C. is listed at the overall owner of the land but then the individual buildings have different names attached to them.

I've had it described to me as Nashville doesn't allow that size of properties, it wasn't very clear as to why it was like that, anyone who could break it down would be great. 

 

I may be misunderstanding the overall question, but this is my interpretation....

Overall lots are not allowed to be smaller than 50' or 40' for the reasons of building area and access and even public utilities. Depending on alley or street access the FAR (floor to area ratio) of the house will take up more or less of the available land . The reason for the multiple names on the parcel is because of the Horizontal Property Regimes (HPR). The land itself cannot be owned by the individual owners due to the lack of access to the lot if it is too narrow. So the land is technically owned by the Homeowners Association (HOA) that is formed when the formal HPR is created. The structures themselves are then owned by the individual land owners while the land is owned by them jointly (hence the HOA)

I think this is mostly correct, but @bwithers1 I'm sure has a better understanding of how these work though.

[PaulChinetti]

I’m going out this afternoon and don’t have anything particular in mind, I could do a couple picture requests. 

[thenorthchannel]

1 hour ago, PaulChinetti said:

I’m going out this afternoon and don’t have anything particular in mind, I could do a couple picture requests. 

In the neighborhood....Southgate Station,  The Finery, the developments on Hamilton in the 600 and 700 blocks that are proposed, a shot of city cemetery, and eoutside the neighborhood a  shot of draft set up from Sieganthaler Bridge.

[PaulChinetti]

Didn't get anything good today the wind up at altitude was killer and was tossing me around. I'll post some things I already had =)

Nashville City Cemetery, this is actually from April 1st, you can see a lot better without the leaves. 

[nashvylle]

That stretch to our right of the cemetery has to explode as a connection between downtown and WeHo, right? 

[PaulChinetti]

And here is the stage set up, this is from the 14th, not much has changed from the air, all the activity has been under the tents now.

 

2 minutes ago, nashvylle said:

That stretch to our right of the cemetery has to explode as a connection between downtown and WeHo, right? 

I would think so but 4th is one way race track out of town. If they did a road diet it would definitely slow people down and make those businesses more attractive to stop at, especially with biking/scootering and street parking. There are already nice wide sidewalks on each side, so that's a plus.

[PaulChinetti]

On 4/22/2019 at 6:00 PM, thenorthchannel said:

In the neighborhood....Southgate Station,  The Finery, the developments on Hamilton in the 600 and 700 blocks that are proposed, a shot of city cemetery, and eoutside the neighborhood a  shot of draft set up from Sieganthaler Bridge.

Ask and you shall receive @thenorthchannel  
Southgate Station. The Finery and where the next phase will go and Hamilton and Hagan and a few others.

[Mr_Bond]

@PaulChinetti, amazing pics.  If we get one more flyer on the forum, you can start a new thread for the UP Squadron.

[MLBrumby]

Thanks for the drone pics @PaulChinetti

Those pics will show a remarkable evolution in a really short few years. Had not thought about this until your photos: South Nashville (aka IHo, YouHo, WeALLHos) appears to be ready to change like North of downtown (G'town, S'town, HBV, etc.) did the last 10 years. The beauty is that you guys (both north and south) don't need to go with ALL the rest of the world either West or East. 

[nashmoney]

Interesting draft video tour with Titans player Taylor Lewan

https://www.titansonline.com/video/nfl-360-welcome-to-nashville-with-titans-ot-taylor-lewan

 

[Baronakim]

For the  Nashville history buffs, here are a few old photos. The first is the west side of the square looking up Union (demolished in the 60s).   The second is the Shelby Street Bridge east banks, site of the stadium and the park area with the long ramp up to the bridge.  The third is the Neuhoffs building back in the late 30s.  It was little different when I worked there in 1966. Right by the opening in the corner of the curve was where you entered and punched the timeclock.  Where I worked was right under the square roof popup on the first floor.  Hot, sweaty and put me off luncheon meats for a decade.   The last was of Candyland where every kid had to carjole his mom to stop on a trip to the department stores.  This was at the corner of 6th and Church. The fascade was a mirror shiny cobalt blue porcelain tile.  To the left was a very narrow Kystal (about 8 feeft wide).