STREET CHALLENGED

from Nashville Post Fall 2020

A SPORTS-IS-BACK MOMENT

Will a key stretch of 21st Avenue reach its full potential?

BY WILLIAM WILLIAMS

he topic is one for debate.

T Most Nashvillians likely would name Broadway/West End Avenue from First Avenue at the Cumberland River to Interstate 440 at Murphy Road as the city’s most important stretch of urban street. at approximately 3.5-mile segment bustles with Lower Broad’s honky-tonks, Whole Foods, the Cathedral of the Incarnation (arguably Nashville’s most historically noteworthy religious building), multiple buildings home to restaurants and o ces, Vanderbilt University and Centennial Park. It is a roughly 35-block span that can rival those high-pro le streets found in similar mid-sized cities.

In contrast, there are some — and perhaps more than folks realize — who contend that the span of Broadway/21st Avenue South from 16th Avenue to Interstate 440 at Woodlawn Drive is almost as vibrant and vital to the city. e segment o ers both Vanderbilt University (with the Peabody campus a highlight) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Hillsboro Village (with the Belcourt eatre basically positioned on 21st) and a Kroger. Like its aforementioned and better-known sister street, Broadway/21st Ave. South (the segment highlighted here covers about three miles) also o ers o ce buildings and some food and beverage businesses of note.

Lastly — and clearly worth noting — this 21st Avenue South segment transitions into Hillsboro Road once it snakes south of I-440, leading its motorists into the extremely popular Green Hills.

Regardless of one’s views regarding the comparisons and contrasts of West End and 21st avenues, the latter is a street of signi cance. Yet, it is that street’s segment from Portland Avenue on the north to I-440 on the south that needs some improvements, according to urban placemaking experts the Post interviewed for this article.

e roughly 0.8-mile span is marred by multiple aws and “underachieving buildings,” the sources say. For example, six of seven buildings located on 21st’s east side between Portland and Bernard avenues o er surface parking “severing” them from the street in a suburban (i.e., vehicle-accommodating) manner. One of those buildings, located at 2020 21st Ave. S., is a nondescript modernist structure for which the bland design contrasts jarringly with the traditional former homes (and now o ces) to its north side. is speci c segment is simply one of many that are not fully urban in their form and function and, thus, less than ideal for a street deserving of better.

Asked what buildings located within the 0.8mile stretch need to be razed and replaced, Mark Hollingsworth, president of the local chapter of international placemaking message board urbanplanet.org, is blunt in his response.

“I suppose at least half of them that were built in the 1970s and 1980s could go,” he notes. “But I seriously doubt that’s going to happen.”

Hollingsworth says the type of building perhaps most needed along the stretch is one that accommodates a live music venue.

“When Belmont United Methodist Church was struggling [compared to previous times] about 25 years ago, I thought at the time the sanctuary would make an excellent performance hall,” he says. “But the church seems to have rebounded.

“I know the Belcourt once did live shows occasionally, but I’m talking a club that is fully live performance-oriented,” Hollingsworth adds. ere are multiple empty lots on which such a building could, in theory, be constructed. For example, the parcel located at the southwest corner of West Linden and 21st Avenue (2401 21st) has sat empty for a few years now. It previously o ered a two-story o ce building.

Hollingsworth notes the empty triangular lot located at the northeast corner of the intersection of 21st and Portland Avenue (the point at which Magnolia Boulevard veers to the northeast) would be well suited for a new building. Metro Government owns the 0.4-acre lot.

Similarly, Metro owns a triangular lot nearby at 1923 20th Ave. S. and also Saint Bernard Park at 2025 21st Ave. S., a green space Hollingsworth contends is in need of an update — perhaps with a public art piece.

In the fall of 2018, the Metro Planning Department, with citizen input, worked on possible changes to land-use policy and a potential urban design overlay along 21st from Hillsboro Village to I-440. Participants rated the following (on a scale of one to 10) as the most important themes: mobility and land-use (both 8.5), the character of the corridor’s buildings (7.6) and stormwater management (5.4). e objectives of the community study were as follows: • Evaluate opportunities for green space and open space through redevelopment. • Evaluate programming and enhancements for St. Bernard Park. • Protect the integrity of Saint Bernard Park through appropriate redevelopment on adjacent private property. • Plan for 440 greenway connections. • Consider standards and procedures that incorporate street trees into the design of the streetscape. • Address stormwater needs through use of permeable surfaces and other innovative techniques.

A key element of the future improvement of the stretch involves e Kinnard’s Building,

The Kinnard’s Building

located at the southeast corner of the intersection of 21st and Blair Boulevard.

Many contend that intersection is the single-most important of those found within the stretch.

Incorporating some elements of 1960s brutalist design, the four-story structure is hampered by various aws — horizontal slits for windows, a bland color scheme, a tired and faded red awning and a modest-sized main entrance. But e Kinnard’s Building’s appropriate height and bulk, and a quirky form and function could prove helpful if it were to ever be updated.

Gary Gaston, CEO of the Nashville Civic Design Center, says the pedestrian-focused character of 21st Avenue South — which renders, he notes, Hillsboro Village “such a welcoming and walkable stretch” of the city — “degrades and becomes ever increasingly car-centric as one nears I-440, where people are rarely seen walking along the lonely sidewalks.”

Gaston says Blair Boulevard and 21st is a “critical intersection” that could be improved so as to yield an “important and active node.”

“Any new developments undertaken farther south would be well served to try and recreate the scale, rhythm and patterns of safe, engaged pedestrian design experiences found in the heart of the Village,” he says.

One such development is Linden Row, located at 2400 21st Ave.

Under construction via an LLC comprising local developers Steve Armistead and Jared Bradley and Washington, D.C.-based Tim Morris, the 38-townhome development sits on the site previously home to e Catholic Diocese of Nashville.

Linden Row is being developed in two phases, with the residences in Phase 1 to be priced from $1 million to $1.22 million and housed in two buildings.

Linden Row is expected to be the type of development Gaston feels is needed south of the 21st and Blair intersection. at roughly four-block stretch lacks buildings, as he notes, that activate the street with pedestrians.

For example, the aforementioned lot located at the southwest corner of West Linden and 21st previously o ered a modernist o ce building but has sat empty for a few years now. Spanning 1.5 acres, the parcel is the largest located within the stretch, notwithstanding the site of residential building Enclave at Hillsboro Village.

Nashville’s Carell family owns the property at West Linden and 21st, with the family not known for its willingness to sell empty sites for redevelopment — as evidenced by its various downtown parcels used for surface parking.

“Since it is eight blocks south of the primary Hillsboro Village retail/restaurant area, I could see a two to three-story mixed-use building with some ground-level retail/restaurant space at that site,” Hollingsworth says. “And any future building will need to be brick.”

Phil Ryan, an a liate broker with Village Commercial Real Estate and a long-time resident of the Hillsboro-West End neighborhood, says both residents and property owners should be considered regarding any future change on the street.

“ ese two constituencies are strongly interested in positive change for this segment of 21st, and especially the narrowest piece between I-440 and Blair,” Ryan says.

‘Any density [on 21st Avenue South] needs to be accompanied by solid improvements to the infrastructure.’

TOM CASH, METRO COUNCILMEMBER

For example, Ryan says many neighbors in the area want pedestrian crosswalks south of Blair (there are none), the point at which the ve-lane 21st narrows to four lanes.

“It’s currently all about the auto,” he notes. “ e neighbors would like to see a variety of transportation modes, including crosswalks, as long as the changes don’t yield cut-throughs for motorists on the side streets.”

Many commercial property owners are open to having their sites redeveloped, but might want buildings that o ers more density and uses than is currently the case, Ryan adds. Clearly — and with the neighbors to be considered — creating change is a “balancing act,” he says.

Beyond what people want and don’t want, 21st o ers various strengths that often go overlooked. For example, the buildings home to retailer Friedman’s Army Navy Store, law rm MHPS, restaurant J. Christopher’s, law rm Freeman & Fuson — each of which is located between Bernard Avenue and Blair Boulevard — are underrated in their form and function.

Likewise, the brick structure accommodating both Village Real Estate Services and Core Development at 2206 21st Ave. S., though basic, o ers a clean symmetry and well-de ned entrance.

Many locals speak positively about the Kroger building at 21st and Blair, pointing to its widthto-height proportionality, materials, color scheme and corner piece (with a clock) as attractive.

Still, the stretch needs work.

Metro Councilmember Tom Cash, in whose District 18 the street runs, said the previously mentioned meetings yielded two themes: 1. better infrastructure — including wider sidewalks, crosswalks between Blair and Woodlawn and more trees; and 2. uses that might make the stretch more engaging, including, for example, light retail (“more local businesses like much-loved Brown’s Diner and Hillsboro Hardware”).

“ ere wasn’t a solid consensus on appropriate density increases, but there was some agreement that any density needs to be accompanied by solid improvements to the infrastructure I mentioned,” he says.

Cash says business and property owners feel the area located near Magnolia/Acklen could use more neighborhood maintenance and, possibly, mixed-use buildings on its east side, as Hollingworth notes, too.

Cash knows to transform the stretch will require years — and likely yield varying opinions. As such, he takes a practical approach to the matter.

“I’m not going to suggest any speci c buildings that need to be razed or refurbished,” he says, “though I think some variety and deviation from the 1970s-style o ce buildings would be welcomed.”

BLDG 90038,500 SF

BLDG 85040,000 SF

BLDG 70090,000 SF