A couple of quick Friday ballpark thoughts

During his speechifying on a new Sulphur Dell ballpark a few days ago, CM at-Large Jerry Maynard called the project the first major economic investment on Jefferson Street. For your consideration:

• It seems to me that the National Museum of African American Music that had been slated for the state-owned property at the corner of Jeff St. and Rosa Parks Boulevard (currently a parking lot) could have been the first major economic investment, but its leaders bailed on the site when Karl Dean allowed the project to languish and then declared that he wanted to move it downtown (after his Med Mart plan crashed and burned). How did CM Maynard respond? By supporting the Mayor and defending NMAAM's abandonment of Jeff St.
• Given the contaminated soil down the street at the 5th and Jeff intersection next to the proposed ballpark properties, I'm left wondering what lies in the soil at Jeff St. and Rosa Parks. Given that this intersection has been a magnet for gas stations, I'm tempted to search for what was on that corner before the state acquired it. It is pure speculation on my part now, but what are the chances that the soil there could be contaminated to the point where clean up would be too expensive to allow museum construction?

UPDATE: I'm not the only one peeved by the apparent wish of ballpark supporters that working people with families to support in the local community not be allowed to weigh in on a new Sulphur Dell.

I wish she had put as much energy and enthusiasm into stopping Metro Water's new toxic landfill near Germantown

CM Erica Gilmore predictably is super excited that the Mayor is finally coming out of the closet on Sulphur Dell. So super excited that spell-check eluded her:

Today, Council Lady Erica Gilmore reported the 19th  District constituents are thrilled with the idea of a proposed new Sounds stadium at Sulphur Dell. Sulphur Dell is the original home of professional baseball in Nashville, and minor league and Negro league teams played there dating back to the 1860s.

After many months and years, “I am excited the Mayor is moving forward with this proposal, stated Council Lady Gilmore.” This challenge is a tremendous opportunity for the North Nashville area. This proposal will create more jobs and will be a valuable community asset with the ability to expand economic development.

Council Lady Gilmore stated, “We are grateful that Sulfur Dell is being considered in District 19 and know this will be a Homerun for the North Nashville area.” [sic]

I am glad CM Gilmore broke with her seeming indifference in the past about planning quality and smart growth at the intersection of Jefferson and Rosa Parks (given that she was willing to welcome a predatory lender and bid farewell to the National Museum of African American Music).

On the contrary, she expresses no interest in or insight on transit questions which plague the idea of building a ballpark at Sulphur Dell. Would not bus rapid transit from downtown be a perfect compliment to a new ballpark? But, oh, she has already gone all in on the Mayor's bus rapid transit connector between East and West Nashville; the plan that leaves North Nashville out of the transit equation. What a squander.

Further evidence of Mayor Karl Dean's benign neglect of North Nashville

Last spring we learned of the plan to move The National Museum of African American Music away from its logical and spiritual home on Jefferson Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard to the old Nashville Convention Center. The failure of NMAAM organizers to leverage funds was blamed.

Now comes news that Mayor Dean is including NMAAM in his call for developers for the culturally neutral convention center.

Was Karl Dean behind this move--ill-fated for our North Nashville neighborhoods--all along? We know CM Jerry Maynard, who often follows Hizzoner like a colt behind its mare, was enthusiastic about moving what could have been a catalyst for smart growth to Downtown. So, I'll wager that this plan was hatched in the Mayor's Office, which no doubt views the important Jeff St. intersection more as turf for fast food, gas pumps and predatory lenders than positive, community-oriented institutions.

National Museum of African American Music abandons Jefferson Street

The intersection of Jefferson St and Rosa Parks Blvd is one of the most important intersections around Downtown Nashville, and it has been historically misused by developers and planners who treat it more as a transitional, pass-through crossroads oriented to cars and not people. As a result, the four corners of Jeff St and Rosa Parks now possess a gas-station, a drug store (parking lot in front), a predatory lender and a vacant lot. The lot had been slated to bring the intersection up with the construction of the National Museum of African American Music.

Now comes word from the Tennessean that the museum dedicated to African American culture is giving up on predominately African American North Nashville:

Organizers behind Nashville’s long-discussed National Museum of African-American Music are no longer committed to building a facility near Jefferson Street and are seeking Mayor Karl Dean’s assistance to find space in the tourist-concentrated part of downtown, ideally in the city’s old convention center ....

A museum near Jefferson Street would likely be inaccessible by foot for most tourists on Lower Broadway. Sharon Hurt, executive director of Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership, said though she previously hoped Jefferson Street would land the museum, she’s no longer sure it’s the ideal spot ....

Metro Councilman Jerry Maynard, a supporter of the museum project, called the old convention center “a fine place to have it,” adding that it would be a “boost for downtown and a boost for tourism.”

He downplayed the loss for Jefferson Street, which could benefit from the museum as the corridor undergoes a revitalization effort.

“We’ll find some other uses for that land,” Maynard said. “There’s endless possibilities of organizations or institutions that would like to be at the corner of Rosa Parks and Jefferson Street.”

Yeah, maybe they can find another payday lender, a new pawn shop, or a bail bonder to drop into that spot.

This is just another example of resources and planning efforts flowing away from North Nashville. Even the business leaders and CMs who view North Nashville as their territory are writing us off. Frankly, I believe that North Nashville leaders who are not seething at the tragic neglect driving this called audible likely have ulterior motives. The silence of "civic designers" who have drooled over the area for ballparks and charter schools is also sad. No one is standing up for North Nashville.

Maybe if the Mayor had put more effort into spreading rapid mass transit evenly around the city to places like Jeff St then inaccessibility to Broadway wouldn't be blamed for lack of commitment to seeing this 10 year project to its end where it most appropriately belongs: on Jefferson.


UPDATE: The homepage of NMAAM still has a banner mural of its concept located at the Jefferson St location. Notice the North Nashville view of Downtown on the horizon:

Might be a good idea to replace that one with a new one since they're fleeing Jeff St.

By the way, I put a post on their website questioning the decision and linking to this blogpost. I assumed when I put it up that it would be taken down immediately in order to protect their brand (and it was), but I was surprised to see several weeks of February status updates that I did not see earlier today. The most recent update that I saw earlier was late last year. Just to confirm that, here is what another reader posted in February:

This afternoon there are lots of 2013 updates.

Facebook chatter on Germantown's Advance Financial

Metro planners were criticized a couple of weeks ago in a thread on the new predatory lending store (Advance Financial) going up in Germantown at Rosa Parks Boulevard and Jefferson Street. Of course, observers pointed out that predatory peddlers are always dumped into more transitional neighborhoods and that you would not see this happening in West Nashville.

One person insisted that a liquor store replacing the demolished gas station would have at least given something back to the North Nashville community rather than simply taking away.

Local jazz and blues column writer Ron Wynn was expressly concerned about about the lack of warning we got about the arrival of the lender:

The time to do something about this was before they got on the property. Where are the elected representatives for North Nashville and why did this happen without some comment from them? I don't blame the business. They are doing what business people always do, trying to maximize profit. But these things don't happen in other communities because they get stopped before they get started.

While I believe that our council member more than likely should shoulder some of the responsibility for her part in allowing this to happen without due diligence to the community, I also think that Mr. Wynn lets Advance Financial off the hook too easily. What he fails to include in the profit-maximizing equation is the political influence the lender flexes through the vehicle of campaign donations, full-time lobbying and leveraging public support. Advance Financial, after all, has its own "527" political advocacy committee (remember "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"?). This not just some shop owner trying to make an honest buck. Advance Financial is a player and the politicians predictably fall in line with the players' money.

And these things don't happen in other communities because other communities have either organized money or organized people to stop them. North Nashville needs more of the latter. Yet, any of us who stand up and argue that not all growth is good for our quality of life are often met with knee-jerk and baseless criticism from people who have issues with confrontation of and debate with Nashville's patrician class, the "job creators".

I do not disagree that we need more people here who are willing to be an early warning network of watchdogs digging up dirt that otherwise is spirited under the radar. I've curated and blogged (8 years last week!) with that as my intention.

A neighbor here in Salemtown who joined in the Facebook discussion quoted one of my previous blog posts on Germantown's new predator to point out that zoning, use and historic overlay requirements were all met by Advance Financial, making it legal. Mr. Wynn responded:

I can guarantee you that there are plenty of other places in this city where Advance Financial would have never gotten approval to set up where they are. They are directly across from the planned Black Music Museum. You think the city would let a predatory lending company establish itself across from the Country Music Foundation?

Point taken. But Advance Financial greases deals like this. They contributed thousands to the Germantown Street Festival. I believe that they could get a predatory lending company across from the CMF if they were willing to donate millions. Of course, that would fly in the face of the whole "maximizing profits" equation. But money changes everything. It can purchase anything in any part of town for the right price. In reality Advance Financial makes more from preying on working class and poor people, who are compelled to concentrate away from affluence. Putting Advance near the CMF makes bad business sense in an established tourism district, but if they needed to locate there the price would be higher than it is on Jeff Street.

Once a company has the zoning and the use requirements lined up and then the local neighborhood association cows to their money, how can they possibly be stopped?

Undeterred, Mr. Wynn seems to have an answer:

The killer here is that this MIGHT have been stopped if action was taken way back in the beginning. It's not like businesses have never been prevented from setting up shop in areas due to neighborhood opposition. But the opposition has to happen beforehand, and it has to be informed .... I didn't find out about this until it was already set in stone. Where are our (the community) sources with access to this type of information regarding who's obtaining property and for what purposes? You better believe anytime something is vacant, for sale or available in Brentwood or Belle Meade or even Madison it is closely tracked and people living in those communities are briefed and informed about possible buyers, businesses, firms, etc. I don't believe that the people of North Nashville would have stayed silent had they known what was happening in advance.

So, Advance Financial is not to blame for this deal, but "community sources" who did not properly warn North Nashville are? (Also, note that North Nashville, which has not been organized well enough to catch wind of these things and mobilize in the first place, is absolved from responsibility). Who are these community sources he demands step up? Campaign-financed politicians? Bought-out neighborhood associations? The incentives have already been handed out. Expecting them to go turncoat is unrealistic.

So, who is left to sound the early warning system? Neighborhood leaders and watchdogs unplugged from streams of influence?

In all fairness, waving red-flags about power moves in Nashville is highly risky. You can be ostracized as "conspiratorial". You can be stigmatized as "NIMBY". You can be ignored as someone who merely looks for a fight without higher goals. There is very little benefit in watchdogging in Nashville. After so many years of doing it through this blog, I do not blame anyone for not stepping up and sticking their necks out.

And there's the rub. If by "community sources" Ron Wynn is referring to ordinary people, why isn't he willing to step up and do the job himself? Why not start his own hyper-local blog?

Maybe because hosting your own neighborhood blog is tough and thankless? Neighborhood groups and watchdogs proliferated under the previous Mayor and his relatively robust Office of Neighborhoods. The focus on neighborhoods has died in Karl Dean's administration. The courthouse class effectively counters community watchdogs with communications specialists, PR flacks and rumors of anonymous trolls on online comment boards.

Speaking of flacks, there is no shortage of reporters who are willing to echo what they are fed about growth and development.

Journalists have colonized the blog lifeworld and they promote the dominant narrative there. The local blogosphere was at one time an alternative channel for voices that would convey news that the news media ignored. News companies now pay social media managers and enlist bloggers who gatekeep the legitimate voices more effectively than dead-tree versions could.

Hence, there are so many obstacles to the communication for which many of us wish before developments move from concept to reality.

We do need community watchdogs. We do not need unrealistic expectations about community watchdogs, who assume remarkable risks in service to the community.

"Legal loan shark" to occupy prominent North Nashville intersection

I was disappointed to read that a development going in at the corner of Jefferson Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard is Advance Financial, a payday loan business that profits on working-class desperation and houses itself in tedious buildings:

“We’re trying to rebrand and reinvigorate a community,” Kwame Lillard, a community activist and owner of property off Jefferson Street, said. “That’s a sign of regression.”

There’s not much critics can do because the Advance Financial site was already zoned for commercial use and the storefront will meet requirements under the historic district overlay for that area. [CEO Mike] Hodges hopes to eventually win over hearts and minds with the design of the planned building — which includes a glass-and-brick structure with 15 teller windows and a drive-through window ....

“Part of that is a perception issue — our industry has done a very poor job of curbside appeal,” Hodges said. “You’ve got a historically underserved Jefferson Street and we just think it’s a great location. We do well where you have high-traffic intersections.”

Some of their "high-traffic" intersections do not exactly have what I would consider "curbside appeal" (images via Google Maps):

Clarksville Hwy

Tusculum Road

Gallatin Avenue

The concept of a "glass-and-brick structure" does not sound attractive when I see pictures of Advance Financial structures of the same materials elsewhere. Bad enough, they are located on parking lots at odds with walkability but their strip-mall styling is out of character with high density urban character.

Contrast Advance Financial's status quo with the development scenario for Jefferson Street near Rosa Parks Boulevard laid out by the 2010 North Nashville community plan that many of us here helped formulate:

In this development scenario buildings are shown with shallow setbacks sitting close to Jefferson Street with parking placed behind the building. Parking is also located beside the building, and in some cases off-site in other parts of  the Community Center to facilitate shared parking between businesses. New buildings along Jefferson Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard should be among the tallest and most urban in the area. As a transition between mixed use development the existing residential development, new residential building types such as townhomes and multifamily are located on the edges of the Community Center.

How the community plan envisions Jeff St at Rosa Parks

Here's hoping that Advance Financial will not follow its standard practice of showcasing parking lots, especially on a corner dominated by a drug store and gas station with parking in front. However, the 2010 plan also recommends innovative building types compatible with existing residential patterns and increasing neighborhood density. I do not see Advance Financial offering much in the way of innovation given their low-profile, cookie-cutter, convenience-store layout with screaming signs disproportionately mondo to the modest size of their buildings.

In fairness, I have not seen any drawings of the new building, but the current Advance Financial holdings do not offer me much hope that it will fit the community plan or the character of the North End as it has developed. And frankly the existing outlets look trashy and unkempt. The last thing Jeff St needs is the scruffy and dirty look of what passes for "curbside appeal" on Tusculum or Gallatin.

Furthermore, council member Erica Gilmore's comments to journalists do not give me much faith that Advance Financial will bring the quality of life of our community up to what we expected in participating in the planning process: “You don’t want it to be predatory or whatever, but if other banks or businesses aren’t coming in, you have to have something at the end of the day. They’re not going to set up anywhere where people have adequate banking needs.” That's not exactly a ringing endorsement or assurance that the development is going to amount to what the major, historic intersection deserves. (Will the National Museum of African American Music ever be built so that its patrons can stop across the intersection and pick up an Advance Financial loan first for admission and souvenirs?) The fact that CM Gilmore cannot at least throw us a bone to discourage us from feeling like we are a leeward dumping ground for industries that prey on systemic poverty and community hardship is astonishing (Advance Financial will have a bail bonds business as a neighbor).

I do not know whether Advance Financial greased the skids for this deal by donating $7,000 a few months ago to Historic Germantown, Inc. for their October street festival, but I have not heard complaints coming from their affluent end of the community. I did receive a forwarded email exchange in which one festival organizer defended the donation to a critic who called the loan company a "legal loan shark". The festival organizer called the critic "assuming" and offered to send him an invoice next year with their expenses to see how much he could finance before they start soliciting other donations. Hence, I am not expecting bold opposition from Germantown leadership on this question, which means they may get the ugly that they deserve for $7,000. Some living there already complain about their Autozone.

The rest of us free from the Advance Financial dole deserve better, and by better, I mean something along the lines of the community plan that caters to people's everyday lives instead of scoring on their lowest moments.

North Capitol

In a recent commentary on development around old Sulphur Dell, the Nashville City Paper comments on the status of public and private development:

Until a group of private investors announced earlier this year the rehabbing of two buildings at the southeast corner of Jefferson Street and Third Avenue North, Leibowitz’s District Lofts and Craighead Development’s two-building Harrison Square and conversion of Riverfront Apartments to a condominium building essentially had been North Capitol’s only significant private development since the Bicentennial Mall opened 16 years ago.

And if private development has been modest, the construction of civic structures on the multiple acres of state-owned property within the district has been nonexistent.

Plans for the public-private $47.5 million National Museum of African American Music, now pushing 10 years in the making, seemingly have stalled indefinitely. The most recently available tax return shows the nonprofit had only about $2.57 million on hand at the end of 2010. The tax records also indicate the organization tasked with spearheading the project operated at a deficit that year.

Support for a new home for the Nashville School for the Arts magnet high school has gained minimal traction. Progress has been painfully slow on a new Tennessee State Museum building. And a Nashville Sounds baseball stadium on the old Sulphur Dell site doesn’t appear likely.

I wasn't aware of any proposals for a new magnet high school. The last I heard was that the Nashville Civic Design Center was pushing the idea of a charter school for the area. While the journalists maintain that a new ballpark does not appear likely, I keep hearing about the prospect of it here in the community. Some here don't seem to be as willing to let it go. The prospect of the African American Music museum sadly lists in malaise, and in my opinion it could have been prevented if the Mayor's Office had put more of its own energies into it. The concept has dropped off the radar here in the North End. Chatter I hear from the associations shows no hint of political will to work on it.

I think that "North Capitol" is a much better moniker than "Capitol District" a name recently pitched by association officers here in Germantown and Salemtown. The term "district" is hackneyed and trite; NoCap is more attractive, less sterile and stale. In the past I have pitched the idea of calling our area "Capitol Downs".

One exception that I take to the City Paper is that the Bicentennial Mall area is "eerily people-free". We go to the area on a regular basis at all times of the day and we see quite a number of people, especially neighbors who live around the Mall using the common spaces and the Farmers' Market. Granted, it is usually not as densely packed with tourists as Downtown is (for some of us that makes it more attractive), but the park area has been consistently used in the 8 years we have lived here. My next door neighbors even had their wedding ceremony at the Bicentennial Mall chimes this year. The times we have seen denser crowds of tourists in the area include the Music City Marathon and the National Folk Festival (an event cancelled this year due to neglect from corporations and courthouse).

More on the Mayor's lunch with neighborhood leaders: Bellevue library, Fairgrounds, David Torrence, Public Schools, legal options on nondiscrimination, Sulphur Dell

Earlier today West Meade neighborhood leader Mina Johnson published a report to the Nashville Neighborhoods elist on her exchange with the Mayor a couple of days ago during the lunch I mentioned in the previous post. She gave me permission to republish some of her Q&A based on her neighbors' feedback here:

Q: Could you reinstate the former brush pick up schedule of four times per year instead of current three times a year? If not, can special arrangement be made especially after the massive storm damage like we had recently.
A: Currently no budget to increase the regular schedule. However the emergency clean up should be placed and I think they have dispersed those services right after the recent storm.

Q: How about tornado warning siren in our neighborhood?
A: There is a county-wide evaluation going on right now regarding sirens to determine where new one should go.

Q: What is the plan for Bellevue Center and library? Can Metro buy [Dillard’s] building to put library instead of building a new one to save the cost?
A: We would like to put library in the Bellevue Mall and it is still our plan and negotiation is ongoing. However, we don’t know what the Mall management team wants to do with the site at this time. It is a private company and the Metro cannot just buy Dillard’s building or tell them how to redevelop the site. We need to wait what they decide to do and hopefully pick the best location for the library to benefit both.

Q: Why does Metro want to sell the Fairgrounds which makes money and bought flooded airport in east Nashville?
A: The council voted to create a master plan for the fairgrounds site. It will be determined when the master plan has developed. Although I am not convinced that the Fairgrounds making money. Cornelia Airport in east Nashville was bought because it was flooded and unsafe. It will be made to Greenway as a part of Open Space/Green initiative.

Q: What can be done to the elected official David Torrence? The report was unacceptable.
A: Yes. It is very bad. He sent me a letter of apology right after the TV interview. I told him to do the right thing as I don’t have authority to remove him. He can resign or needed to be recalled. Don’t quote me on this but I heard DA’s office is looking into the way. Also the judge he works for might be able to request some kind of disciplinary action or dismissive. Something has to be done for sure and will be done.

Q: Why did Metro Public School System fired 300 teachers in part to make way of new project “Teach for America”?
A: Teach for America is the one of the best project in the country right now. They are not fired because of Teach for America. Each year Metro School System looses 400 to 500 teachers. We may not be able to rehire them because there is no more stimulus money coming in.

Q: It won’t be fair to the experienced teachers to be replaced by freshly graduated teachers?
A: We need to choose what works best for the students.

Q: Can Metro School System do better to retain good experienced teachers rather than losing them to elsewhere?
A: Yes, we need to do better in our School System. We have made quite a bit of improvement, the graduation rate is up in all area and the test scores are getting better. We are on a right truck but still a long way to go.

Mina also discloses that the Mayor says he has no plans to pursue a legal remedy to the Tennessee General Assembly's crack down on Metro's nondiscrimination ordinance. That's news to me.

On the subject of the ballpark, Mina writes:

The location of a new ball park stadium was asked. The Mayor responded RFP was issued a recently to study and compare new stadium site. He said he is somewhat biased towards Sulphur Dell site because the location is supported by a lot of neighbors and it will be great to energize North side of down town.

"A lot of neighbors" may or may not support a Sulphur Dell ballpark without any qualifications or assurances or attention to community character. However, until bona fide community meetings are held this baseball fan is not buying the vacuous marketing or the campaign fodder. If I had been present I would have asked Karl Dean why a construction timeline for a new ballpark should jump ahead of the one for the Museum of African American Museum of Music, Art, and Culture, which is no less important for North Nashville's economic development and has been planned for a much longer time. Although, I fully grant that museums are not as sexy during election campaigns as ballparks are.

After being swallowed up by chatter on Sulphur Dell ballpark, the question of long-planned African American culture museum resurfaces

Last month I openly questioned why top-down discussions about a proposed ballpark at Sulphur Dell--generated mostly by a campaigning CM Jerry Maynard--have mowed down older plans for building the Museum of African American Music, Art, and Culture at the corner of Jefferson Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard.

This week CM Erica Gilmore's Office sent out an e-mail that includes an update on the museum:

Community Meeting

Goodwill Industries

1000 Herman Street

Nashville, TN 37208

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

6:00PM

Update and Renderings from the African American Museum, Director Paula Roberts

Let's hope the focus on development gets back on the long-term and older commitments instead of chasing election-year dreams of a ballpark that help sweeten campaigns but don't help our North Nashville community at this point. Local news media still hasn't touched the question of the museum in a long time.

Clock is ticking for Bicentennial Mall/Jeff Street museum

According to Michael Cass:

Organizers of planned African-American museum now have until Dec. 31, 2010, to break ground on land they're leasing from the state.