These photos were taken on Saturday, Nov 28 and Sunday, Nov 29, 2020. 

 

These two towers and the entertainment complex at the base are on the site of the city's original small convention center, which was built around 1988.  It was vacated around 2013 or 2014 when the gigantic new convention center opened a few blocks away in 2014. 

 

 

Looks like that complex at OSU with the Ugly Tuna Saloona:

 

 

Trump Tower:

 

The only remaining old buildings near the new Amazon complex, which will have several towers:

 

The skinny brick building was built at the same time as the tower - I don't know if they were built separately or if a single developer built both as some sort of stunt:

 

Close but not touching:

 

This opened during the pandemic:

 

 

This opened in late 2019 or early 2020:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Division St. viaduct opened in the last year.  It connects SoBro with The Gulch.  The microbrewery at center opened back around 2012 or so.

 

 

View from the viaduct:

 

 

 

The huge convention center:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They built up the whole Gulch around the Station Inn.  It's just like Sodosodopah going up around historic Kennyshouse:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brand-new and no tenants:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former Lifeway Publishing campus is being redeveloped:

 

 

 

 

First of several Amazon HQ2 towers:

 

At some point they'll be building on the air rights over the railroad yard:

 

 

Gravel drive up to the railroad tracks from Charlotte:

 

 

 

Next to the railroad tracks looking toward Amazon:

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon HQ2:

 

 

The tower is state government offices:

 

Amazon:

 

A 1970s-era bypass around the state government offices.  They tore down a historic neighborhood to build this dumb thing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This thing went up around 2017:

 

 

 

 

Near Hillsboro Village:

 

 

 

I used to be friends with a guy who bartended here back around 2002-04...I was amazed that it's still there, has the same sign, and still pretty much looks the same. 

 

The famous Bluebird Cafe...I haven't been there in 20 years. 

 

New apartment across from Greenhills Mall:

 

This is the exact point where you first see the city when driving in from semi-rural Williamson County:

 

A new mountain bike course in Williamson County:

 

 

 

An overpass over the Natchez Trace Parkway:

 

The crazy pork barrel parkway:

 

 

Some incredibly small new suburban homes near Montgomery Bell State Park:

 

This is a 3-bedroom - three very small bedrooms on the second floor and a single room measuring about 15x25 on the first floor and a single-car garage:

 

This is the whole first floor!

 

Look at these weird lots!

 

Exterior of the 2-bedroom ranch:

 

Interior of the 2-bedroom ranch:

 

Look at these sad concrete block foundations:

 

Groan:

 

 

New English-looking dorm at Vanderbilt:

 

There used to be four of these towers - the new dorm replaced two of them:

 

 

The ramp to the parking garage or loading dock goes right under the tower:

 

This thing is right next to the new Vanderbilt dorm...it was built around 2003 and was like the biggest thing to go up in the whole area for 10 years.  Now it's dwarfed by one new thing after another:

 

And last but not least, my best friend from college is building this house.  He hired an architect and is acting as the general contractor:

 

It sits on 1.7 acres about 3 miles from the downtown in East Nashville...it's slightly outside the form-based code zoning so it's not legal to build more than one house on this parcel. 

 

 

It's got a concrete slab floor for the kitchen and main family room:

 

 

 

Carport:

 

Another side of the carport:

 

Here is the front of the house:

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 20204 yr by jmecklenborg

I know there is a pandemic and everything but why are the streets so dead.. Do people actually live in Nashville downtown?

 

7 hours ago, troeros said:

I know there is a pandemic and everything but why are the streets so dead.. Do people actually live in Nashville downtown?

 

 

Yes there are several thousand apartments downtown.  But the overall street activity level is way down.  I imagine that nearly everything at the convention center has been cancelled all year.  

 

7 hours ago, troeros said:

I know there is a pandemic and everything but why are the streets so dead.. Do people actually live in Nashville downtown?

 

The pandemic has slowed the rate of bachelorette parties that fuel the Nashville economy.

Fantastic job! Great photos. I still haven’t been to Nashville yet, I hope to go next year and do a bit of a walk around. The amount of construction down there is intense from the looks of it.

57 minutes ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

The pandemic has slowed the rate of bachelorette parties that fuel the Nashville economy.

 

I only saw one.  They were riding in a flatbed truck being towed by a light-duty John Deere farm tractor on Broadway.  They started yelling at me and I ignored them.  

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

Yes there are several thousand apartments downtown. 

 

I wonder how many of those apartments are occupied by permanent residents, how many are used as AirBnBs, how many are part time residences for musicians, and how many are speculative units banking on future growth. I would venture to say the percentage of apartments occupied by permanent residents in Nashville's downtown is a much smaller percentage than most cities. 

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

 

I only saw one.  They were riding in a flatbed truck being towed by a light-duty John Deere farm tractor on Broadway.  They started yelling at me and I ignored them.  

 

WoooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooOO

Generica

3 hours ago, cbussoccer said:

 

I wonder how many of those apartments are occupied by permanent residents, how many are used as AirBnBs, how many are part time residences for musicians, and how many are speculative units banking on future growth. I would venture to say the percentage of apartments occupied by permanent residents in Nashville's downtown is a much smaller percentage than most cities. 

 

I agree, but a tourist of any type is much more likely to be out and about, meaning an area with 1,000 apartments used as vacation rentals is going to have a lot more street and storefront business activity than an area with 1,000 apartments that are used by residents.  Also, at any given time, maybe 10% of the residents in an apartment building are out-of-town.  

13 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

They built up the whole Gulch around the Station Inn.  It's just like Sodosodopah going up around historic Kennyshouse

I don't always enjoy JMecklenborg snark, but when I do I prefer it directed at Nashville (or Cranley) 

 

Also that dorm on Vandy's campus is really impressive. I'm not sure I like it, but compared to most post-modern attempts at old-timey grandeur it's about as good as I've seen with the possible exception of Duke University. The scale of the building and tower are great, the a-little-too-on-purpose-random-stone-work is not great, but the quality is commendable compared even to other expensive private schools. 

On 12/7/2020 at 11:39 PM, troeros said:

I know there is a pandemic and everything but why are the streets so dead.. Do people actually live in Nashville downtown?

 

 

One of the things I've found curious is that Nashville's growth is relatively slow compared to its level of construction.  It's regularly beaten by other cities in its peer group, despite incorporating essentially all of its home county.  The vast majority of the growth is in the outer metro areas.

You men population growth I assume. If so, it's probably the same deal as OTR where a 5-person family leaves the SFH and it gets torn down and replaced with 3 units that all have one single person living in them so you actually lose 2 people!

That's...a lot.

17 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

You men population growth I assume. If so, it's probably the same deal as OTR where a 5-person family leaves the SFH and it gets torn down and replaced with 3 units that all have one single person living in them so you actually lose 2 people!

 

There are also a lot of illegal workers in Nashville.  The last time I was down there I listened to a caller on the radio talking about how he set up an illegal apartment in the basement of one of his rental homes just for illegal Mexican workers.  He said that they all pay on time because they're so afraid of drawing any attention to themselves and getting deported.  This guy had the audacity to get on the radio and share that story, which is one of the great things about radio as opposed to the internet.  

Dear Lord that is an ugly city. The newer buildings are horrible. A mishmash of crapitecture.

19 hours ago, jonoh81 said:

 

One of the things I've found curious is that Nashville's growth is relatively slow compared to its level of construction.  It's regularly beaten by other cities in its peer group, despite incorporating essentially all of its home county.  The vast majority of the growth is in the outer metro areas.

There is a lot of investment money that flows to Nashville leading to much more construction. In one regard, it is a bunch of institutional investment companies that trade projects amongst themselves and inflate things. You also have a lot of speculators (especially with the presence of the music industry) that give it a larger than normal flow of capital for all the construction projects. If you look at some of the new high rise condos being built, there are a good number of wealthy people that will buy them, hold them as a potential investment and never step foot in them (nor even rent them). It is like buying artwork or a classic car for them.