While Metro Planning trains neighborhood leaders, in other places neighborhood leaders do the training

For all of its hype, Metro Planning's attempt at developing a community-influenced county-wide plan, called "NashvilleNext", has always felt like a do-over to me. Years ago when we worked producing community plans (like North Nashville's) it seemed like Planning Director Rick Bernhardt was attempting to involve the community. I have never understood the reason for leaving behind the community plans that many of us gave a great deal of time and energy to develop.

When the planner in the NashvilleNext video below talks about how she and others have worked the past year with community meetings to bring us to the current NashvilleNext plan, I'm left with the sense that if they can so easily replace our community plans with NashvilleNext blueprints based on gimmicks like post-it notes and spinning wheels, why can't they just abandon the NashvilleNext plan behind once it is written? Sticky notes are easily misplaced.

And what troubles me deeply about video on the NashvilleNext plan is that community leaders have to be trained to be "better engaged". Leaders are already by definition plugged in, aren't they? Rather than finding out from leaders what they need, it seems like Bernhardt's department is doing a total about face.

 

Compare Metro's classroom-style treatment of neighborhood leaders to a neighborhoods conference recently held in Oregon, where neighborhood leaders trained other neighborhood leaders.

The risk of simply allowing Metro government officials to "train" Nashville's neighborhood leaders is that the expectations of the latter may not be effectively communicated to the former. The power equation causes government leaders to manage the expectations of neighborhoods rather than respond to them with good service. Neighbors are more than trainees, and planners should approach them with their own open, teachable hearts.


UPDATE: The Nashville Civic Design Center did not mean to say only what appeared in their Twitter stream about Metro Planning's intentions in NashvilleNext "trainings," but part of the problem of feeding Twitter their messages from other social media applications is that the 140 character tweet truncates and distorts the message. The casual observer scanning their Twitter feed might be left with the impression that, again, planners are educating the community about themselves:

While a purely innocent in intention, the tweet does communicate a flawed message.

Was the Nashville Civic Design Center contest on ballpark designs a process of imagining or of realization?

In 2011, I emailed Gary Gaston, the head honcho of the Nashville Civic Design Center, and I asked him about an event they were holding that April (co-sponsored by the Friends of Sulphur Dell, a group boostering a new North End ballpark) that would include University of Tennessee student renderings of ballparks for the Sulphur Dell area near Bicentennial Mall State Park along with commentary by Professor Mark Schimmenti. I was particularly concerned as to whether the students, who had visited various ballparks for ideas, had also attended 2010 North Nashville Community Plan meetings in order to learn more about local community character.

Mr. Gaston replied to me:

This is not a public meeting on the topic of a ballpark - these are student projects, theoretical exercises .... Student projects are wonderful ways to explore imaginative visionary solutions for sites - they are not meant to be grounded in the practical (otherwise we would be asking them to limit their creativity).

The NCDC has been all over the rapidly unfolding disclosure that indeed, Karl Dean favors a ballpark for Sulphur Dell (news that had been on the street for years) and, when they promoted it on their Facebook page this week, an official with their partner, the UT College of Architecture and Design commented:

This is incredible! Fantastic to see the work of Professor Schimmenti, our students, and the NCDC realized.

I don't understand. Was the purpose of the 2011 NCDC workshop to help expand our imaginations without regard to practicality or to help practically realize Mayor Karl Dean's plan to build a ballpark at Sulphur Dell?


UPDATE:  I went back over my posts from 2011. A commenter to one of those posts had the following observation to put after attending the meeting:

Someone asked why the NCDC and UTK did not study the Thermal Site, to which the UTK professor replied that the real planning should be left to the experts and a "professional" study will need to be undertaken. Further proof this was a sloppy PR move by the powers that want the Sulpher Dell site (or should I say, the powers that want the Thermal Site for something other than baseball), but had very little to do with actually advancing the planning debate.

Again, the purpose of the design contest is muddied by the question of whether it was supposed to have practical effect even as now NCDC and UTK are celebrating practical effects of the contest.

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).

Plans being drawn up for the Werthan Packing Plant site

A couple of weeks ago City Paper reporter Joey Garrison asked me if I had heard of an Atlanta developer's proposal to demolish parts of the Werthan packing site (on 5th Avenue North between Taylor and Hume) and build a mixed-use development there. I told him that that I had not, and he referred me to a CP article on it quoting one SWH Residential Partners manager speaking of plans to go to the Planning Commission on August 15 with the intention of breaking ground in 2013 if approved. The CP also reported that while the exact use remains unclear, the building at the corner of 5th and Taylor (pictured above) will not be demolished, even though the staff seemed to recommend demolition of all buildings on the site. The large brick building farther down the block would be demolished under the plan.

I told Joey I had not heard anything about the plan, although I talked to a number of Salemtown neighbors who live near the Werthan plant with definite ideas about what should be done with the property. He asked if I knew of any concerns about tearing down historical structures on the property. I could think of none.

I could not attend the August 15 commission meeting, but after reading that the proposal was "partially approved with conditions", I did follow up with the planner overseeing it. She responded that the plan was partially approved because during the commission meeting SWH scaled back the number of buildings they were requesting to demolish. The condition required by the commission is that SWH provide photographic documentation of the site as-is, prior to demolition. She reiterated that Metro Planning has received no plans for construction or reorientation of the site and that an environmental study is being conducted at present.

I told the planner that, as a nearby neighbor of Werthan, I am not opposed to quality mixed-use construction at the old plant site. As I told the reporter, I cannot think of any reason why the buildings should not be demolished for something new that enhances our quality of life. My main concern about the Werthan facility has always been their heavy, large, highway-oriented traffic using Salemtown's narrow streets. The fact that the developer has an idea for mixed use at the site makes rezoning worth serious consideration. I could support it if traffic concerns are addressed in the reorientation. We need less rather than more 18-wheelers coming through Salemtown.


Related: the Nashville Civic Design Center's ambitious proposal for a governor's mansion and "green" down to the Cumberland River never really stood a chance at this site.


UPDATE: A Germantown resident tweets an outstanding idea for creating positive automobile traffic flow around the new development at the old Werthan site: flip Taylor on the south and Hume on the north one-way streets. This is an idea we should organize around and pursue with Metro Planning and Metro Traffic and Parking.

Jones Paideia Magnet to hold open enrollment for Kindergarteners

At last night's Jones Paideia PTO meeting, the PTO President announced that because the magnet school did not receive enough applications for the Kindergarten class, empty spaces would be filled through open enrollment.

It occurs to me that the lower demand for this magnet school might make a concept for a new magnet school proposed last summer by the Nashville Civic Design Center (to be situated a few blocks away on Jefferson Street) obsolete.

The North End is saturated with magnet options, yet the Nashville Civic Design Center recommends another one

Except for one minor detail, this proposal by the Nashville Civic Design Center sounds sublime:

The Nashville Civic Design Center proposes a new magnet elementary school in the Lafayette neighborhood and a magnet arts school in the Sulphur Dell neighborhood. The schools would share an axial relationship, as their sites are flanked by 4th and 5th Avenues (Avenue of the Arts). These locations would provide the schools with close proximity to downtown art and science museums, as well as many other educational institutions throughout the city. Additionally, the locational advantage of the proposed schools addresses goals from the city’s Schools Strategic Plan, namely “to market and promote relevant and engaging extracurricular activities for students risk of dropout”, and to “select and use technology in developmentally appropriate ways to promote active learning, improve student engagement and individualize instruction.”

$157,000 is a lot of lettuce if the Mayor's Office already favored Sulphur Dell before the feasibility study even begins

Seriously. Is Karl Dean just going through the motions on this one? His administration is the catalyst for all of the chatter about Sulphur Dell, and I have no doubt that he intends either to build a stadium near Bicentennial Mall on his terms or leverage concessions from the Nashville Sounds ball club on a location somewhere else. So, why waste $157,000 that could be going to pay for summer youth programming at community centers or keeping libraries open a little longer or extending a greenway?

What community input?

From a curious article announcing but not explaining "community input" on a proposed Nashville ballpark for the Sounds:

Nashville is seeking community input regarding alternative ballpark locations for the Nashville Sounds ..., providing a breath of fresh air to the proceedings ....

the city is taking a more deliberative approach to the new-ballpark issue. The former Sulphur Dell site has been mentioned prominently as the potential new-ballpark site, though there are plenty of issues (parking, state of the surrounding neighborhood) with that site as well, nostalgia aside ....

Last fall the Sounds started working with University of Tennessee College of Architecture graduate students and the Nashville Civic Design Center on alternative ballpark sites. The results of that work is now on display at the Center, and officials there are hoping the proposals will spur further discussions about potential ballpark sites.

I have seen no reports of open community events sponsored by city officials soliciting community feedback.

I have seen Friends of Sulphur Dell, a coordinated, on-message group of unqualified ballpark supporters, dedicated to shaping public opinion to a new ballpark in the Bicentennial Mall area.

"The Anatomy of the Sulphur Dell Sales Pitch" or "How Ballparks Become More Important Than Museums"

I am a huge baseball fan. I love the history. I love the game.

I have been to many Sounds games in the last 20 years. We were Sounds season ticket holders at one point. One of my prized possessions is a homerun ball hit out of Greer Stadium by Prince Fielder. Nelson Cruz's record-setting Major League extra-base hits in the 2010 playoffs reminded me of how he hit the league-winning homerun in 2005 as a Sound.

I participated in riverfront development community charrettes on locating a baseball field in places like the thermal plant site and the East Bank. I eventually grudgingly endorsed the ill-fated plan for the Sounds to move to a mixed-use development at the thermal site based on what seemed to be a minimal maintenance cost to Metro while keeping baseball in Nashville.

Quite logically this might lead you to believe that I would be a natural fit for a "Friends of Sulphur Dell" (whose main purpose is to, in the words of founder Jason Powell, recruit "champions" to promote a ballpark for the Sounds on the historic site). If that is the case, think again. I am a fan, but I do not forget that building a baseball field pretty much amounts to politics not to be treated blindly or uncritically.

More coming to light from Metro e-mails: State Fair Director did not take Civic Design Center plans seriously, ignored potential impact on Fairgrounds future

Local blogger Jay Voorhees analyzes those Metro e-mails that I posted on Google Docs and breaks news, previously ignored by Nashville's news media, that indicates that Buck Dozier and the former State Fair Director of Marketing did not take seriously the democratic process of collecting citizen feedback for planning and development last September:

Mr. Dozier and staff were not enamored with the report from the Nashville Civic Design Center. This report arose from public meetings on the future of the fairgrounds at the behest of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development. During the “public” portions of this process there was criticism by those now known as preservationists that the there was inadequate opportunity for public comment. The report was supposed to guide the Fair Board and Mayor on future directions, ultimately suggesting that a master plan needed to be developed.

Click on image to enlarge

When the report was leaked to the press and then rushed into release, a former staffer emailed Mr. Dozier and asked, “Did you have to pay for THAT?” Mr. Dozier replied that the fair board was indeed charged for producing the report and that it cost around $30,000 to produce. “You can pick yourself up off the floor,” he joked when mentioning the cost. In a later e-mail he told another staff member that apparently they had paid over $30,000 to learn that “…Metro needs to hire a planner.” The report seemed to have little impact on discussions about the future of the fairgrounds.

Mr. Dozier has been accused by Fairgrounds supporters of deliberately running the facility into the ground. In that context it is hard to read these e-mail exchanges and not wonder whether he wasted tens of thousands of Metro dollars on a civic design process that he never took seriously. It also warrants asking the Mayor's council supporters like Megan Barry, Erik Cole, Ronnie Steine, etc. why they never bothered to ask what happened to the community-informed design process, but instead just went along with Karl Dean's bidding.

And there is something relevant here for North Nashville/Bicentennial Mall residents. When discussions for a new Sulphur Dell ballpark revved up before last May's flood, some of us involved in those discussions asked that the Nashville Civic Design Center be brought in to lead us through a community meeting process to answer questions, address concerns, and consider feedback. After I made several attempts to contact him, NCDC Design Director Gary Gaston replied to me by saying that he had been consumed in the Fairgrounds design meeting process.

He also said that his organization was conducting a design competition for the ballpark that would be presented to the community at the end of 2010 (presentation has yet to happen). NCDC has a ballpark event on its March 2011 calendar, but there is no indication that a community planning process will take place. However, if the ballpark development process emerges and follows the script laid out for Fairgrounds planning, North Nashville participation may be rendered a moot mockery by the wasteful courthouse elite.


CORRECTION: Gary Gaston asked me to correct one of the details in this post. He e-mailed that NCDC has not been conducting a competition. Here are his comments from October 2010:

We are working with our partners at the University of Tennessee College of Architecture + Design to host a design studio of student projects on the topic of a baseball stadium. A group of 14 graduate students are currently analyzing two sites (Sulfur Dell and North Gulch) and will be designing baseball stadiums for each site. (The SoBro site was excluded because so much study has been done in that area already, and the city recently submitted a grant that would pay for a complete master plan for SoBro - we felt the idea of a baseball stadium would be addressed during that process).

Civic Design Center leader mentions neighborhood events, leaders as his favorites

Today the Next American City website interviews NCDC Design Director Gary Gaston, who mentions some recognizable names:

Who in your city inspires you the most?

I’m most inspired by people who work hard to make the city a better place, whether that’s through volunteering or philanthropy. During my time in Nashville I’ve been inspired by so many it would be impossible to name them all. A very special few who have inspired my work include: Betty Brown, Bill Barnes, King Hollands, Berdelle and Ernest Campbell, Mike Fitts, Ed Cole and Scott Chambers.

What is your favorite thing to do in your city?

I love attending Nashville’s awesome neighborhood events, including the Germantown Street Festival, Oktoberfest, Tomato Festival, Wine on the River, Hot Chicken Festival. These bring people out to walk and interact with one another, reminding me of what one of our main goals is with our work – to create beautiful streets and successful public spaces that are pedestrian friendly, safe and contribute to the life of the city.

One day the fairgrounds may be called "Deaneapolis"

A local preservation group wants to know why Mayor Karl Dean is passing on the $8,000 bill from a local nonprofit he enlisted to lead the task force he assigned to consider options for future uses of the fairgrounds. Here is part of the press release the group sent to the Nashville neighborhoods e-list:

The invoice in question is from the Civic Design Center, who the mayor hired to run the meetings. Apparently no one on the Metro staff is capable of the task, so it was outsourced.

The CDC, apparently also entered into the job with the understanding that it was the mayor's task force, and sent their invoice to Alexia Poe at the Mayor's Office of Economic and Community Development, who forwarded it to the fair board's office for payment.

Additionally, a look at past Fair Board meeting minutes indicates that this project has not been presented to, nor approved by, the Fair Board of Commissioners.

This seems to be another part of the on-going effort to drain the profits of the Fairgrounds operation. Put this in the same category as other "service fees" that Metro charges to the Fairgrounds, such as the $300,000 annual "Personal, professional and legal fees" or the "Indirect LOCAP expense" of $157,000 or over $8,000 per year for "Vehicle Maintenance" (among others).

I have been slow to take sides in the debate over what to do about the fairgrounds, but it is hard not to pull for the underdogs in the latest episode of mayoral melodrama. The preservationists do not seem to stand a ghost of a chance. However, it is pathetic that Mayor Dean passed on the costs for a task force that was his idea to the trustees of the fairgrounds. It looks like a gambit to saddle the fairgrounds spreadsheet with random expenses so that later someone in Metro Finance might be enlisted to ride in and save the fairgrounds from skyrocketing costs. I cannot see it saved for anyone beyond some wealthy developers to convert into private property.

We Cannot Rely on the Mainstream Media to Keep Up with Riverfront Redevelopment, Updated

Further evidence that the mainstream media requires the presence of weblogs: the total failure of this morning's print dailies to cover last night's important Civic Design Center forum on the latest plan to redevelop the Riverfront and to create islands and more greenspace on the Cumberland. I could not attend due to previous commitments, so quite naturally the meeting does not get covered by anyone (unless the Nashville Scene stepped up to the plate in their regular Wednesday edition, which is due out later today).


09/29/2006 11:00 a.m. Update: Nothing in Wednesday's Scene, but the City Paper did finally do a story on it today based on a Wednesday interview. So, 3 days after the fact and 2 days after their interview, the NCP finally reports on the latest plan; and this in an age when news and information develops within minutes, rather than within days. And how did the NCP hard copy lead? With the jaded, sensationalist headline, "Riverfront Gamble." As if there are ever any investments that do not involve risk.

NCDC: Eminent Domain Will Not Be Used for River Redevelopment

This morning's Tennessean has responses from Riverfront businesses, which all seem valid. The only one I want to take a swipe at is saving the East Bank for acres of surface parking lots--which sit unused for a major chunk of each year--in the name of guarding the sanctity of the Titans "tailgating experience." I have been all over the Downtown area on game days, and I have watched Titans fans create pleasant tailgating experiences wherever they park. The tailgating experience is not restricted to the East Bank, and redevelopment will not kill that experience. The businesses that could locate in the proposed mixed-use areas would obviously attract a number of game-day fans with lots of cash to spend. The money spent around LP would just flow in different ways. And you cannot convince me that Titans' executives have not thought about the possibilities of promoting block parties in the proposed neighborhoods that would sit around LP Field. The proposed mass transit loop would take care of getting remote tailgaters in more efficiently than the current bus arrangement. The "tailgating experience" is not sacred and it would simply adapt accordingly. What makes the tailgating experience is the party, not the proximity.

It should be a positive signal to businesses from the Nashville Civic Design Center Director that eminent domain will not be used to force property sales for redevelopment.

Riverfront Redevelopment Forum Tomorrow

Nine months after large numbers of Nashvillians gave feedback at several public forums for formulation of the "Cumberland River Waterfront Redevelopment Master Plan," the Civic Design Center is hosting another public forum tomorrow night to update us all and to get more public feedback on the project's progress. The forum will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the Adventure Science Center (800 Fort Negley Blvd.). A Call for Design Proposals for this development went out last February. Hargreaves Associates was picked to lead the Plan and six other firms are on the redevelopment team. So, it will be interesting to see what kind of progress they have made based on last year's public feedback.

The redevelopment area includes all of the Riverfront from Shelby Bottoms Greenway on the south to the trailhead of the Cumberland River Greenway near I-65 on the north.

Wide Enough to Be a River; Not Too Wide to Be an Obstacle

The Tennessean just had a story on the award-winning San Francisco landscape architecture firm, Hargreaves Associates, which is one of the seven competing firms that will come up with a master plan for Cumberland River development from Metro Center to Shelby Bottoms, based on comments culled from several public charrettes held last year. The Cumberland's relatively narrow width apparently provides opportunities that not many other river cities enjoy. The Nashville Civic Design Center has asked the contestants to come up with two "catalyst projects that can stimulate development." Looks like some exciting possibilities in store for us.

A New Convention Center?

I've been sort of hanging back on the prospect of a new convention center Downtown without taking a stance. Today I took one, and here it is [originally published at Nashville Metblogs]:

The Most Important Recent Event For Downtown Nashville
By nash_michael
March 6th, 2006 @ 10:40 AM Uncategorized

Here’s my nomination for most important recent (as in, say, the last 5 years) event for Downtown Nashville development: Mayor Purcell’s move of the convention center proposal (which sanctions a supersized $455 million structure in SoBro) to the Nashville Civic Design Center for evaluation.

Just when visions of a residential Downtown are starting to be realized, along comes the tourism industry pushing an archaic plan for a new convention center. What makes the plan archaic is that convention centers have been designed in the past to 1) bring life back to dying downtown areas and 2) keep conventioneers sealed from actual city life, which is assumed to be gritty. The problem is that at least one study shows that convention centers cost more money than they bring in. It would be foolish to stem the rising tide of residential life in Downtown Nashville by eating up a huge footprint in SoBro with a convention center that may look good for private businesses in the short-term, but will drain the vitality of civic life over the long haul.

So, Mayor Purcell did the politically astute thing. It was also one of the most important things he has done in his administration (and bigger than anything Phil Bredesen ever did). He passed the plan over to the NCDC for evaluation. The NCDC is committed to supporting thoroughly balanced mixed-use development, so I expect to see at the very least a modest convention center alternative that incorporates residential development. The ideal decision for me would be to ignore the convention center proposal and to let convention centers be run by private companies like Gaylord. I hope that NCDC comes up with a mixed-use alternative that excludes a convention center and that the Mayor accepts it. Tourism matters in Nashville, but neighborhoods matter more. Let conventioneers stay in Donelson, and let them take taxis if they want to experience Downtown Nashville. Let Downtown Nashville continue along the track to becoming a neighborhood where people live, not just visit.

Nashville Civic Design Center Shows "The Social Life Of Small Urban Spaces"

Last night I attended the NCDC's showing of "The Social Life Of Small Urban Spaces," a local documentary shot during the late 1970s in New York City showing what aspects of public spaces attract people and those that do not. As dated as the movie might appear, it seemed very relevant in underscoring that the primary problem of small public spaces (like small fountain plazas and greens in Downtown areas) is underuse, rather than overuse. If developers are going to attract people to public spaces, they have to build in certain aspects, like lots of "edges" in large empty spaces, places to sit and seats that can be moved around, areas open and oriented to the street rather than cut off by fences, planters or trees, areas compressed to a scale that brings people together, natural attractors like water, sufficient light, and trees, and amenities like food and book vendors.

One of the more fascinating conclusions of the researchers, supported through the use of time lapse photography and data-collectors recording head-counts, was the idea that people in public spaces seem to have an "instinctive feel" for what makes a proper capacity or a critical mass, and they seem to enter, stay, and exit accordingly. Researchers demonstrated that in one popular city plaza during the heavily trafficked lunch hours, while the degree of turnover of people was high, the number of people occupying the space never really increased above or decreased below about 19 or 20 for a significant amount of time. That may be an uncanny capacity instinct, unless researchers failed to factor out the more socialized habits of "regulars" (those people who return to public spaces like clockwork).

Given the projected growth of Downtown residents from 4,000 to 10,000 over the next few years, the NCDC announced the creation of a task force to study Downtown's small public spaces to get a feel for use of the few that exist. Organizers of last night's event said that they could not come up with many examples in Downtown beyond the small park across from the Downtown Public Library, which tends to be occupied mostly by homeless people. But in just walking out of the NCDC and going about a block to my car I was able to identify the small green plaza at the foot of the BellSouth "Batman" Building that seemed to have some of the important aspects mentioned in the film. There are probably a few such spaces around Downtown waiting to be found, but the research that this task force is going to do is nonetheless important for Downtown's growing residential community.

EXCLUSIVE: Nashville Civic Design Center Announces Call For Design Teams

At a meeting to view a movie on pubic space this evening, officials with the Nashville Civic Design Center announced that a "Call for Design Proposals" was sent out last Thursday to 15 of what they called "the best design teams in the country" to submit design plans for the Cumberland Riverfront along a three-mile section adjacent to Downtown. NCDC report that they expect designs to connect urban neighborhoods around the river in the spirit of The Plan of Nashville. The proposal competition is supposed to last 8 months.

Cumberland Corridor

About a month ago I mentioned in passing that I had attended one of the Riverfront Development public meetings held here in the North End. I did not take the time to say much more about it because it did not strike me as significant enough that it could not wait. Now that holiday hubbub is past us, I'll give it the reflection it is due.

I did not see anyone from Salemtown in attendance, and there were a handful of Germantown people there that I could identify. Most of the rest seemed to be consultants, developers, business leaders, and urban designers from various places. Therefore, the tenor of the meeting seemed very different than if those in attendance would have been more focused on how neighborhood issues might affect or direct plans to "connect" Nashville (à la "The Plan of Nashville").

I sat in one of the small groups clustered around a table looking at a map oriented to the river almost exactly like the picture above, but without the detail (the map above is actually an imagined blueprint of the Riverfront). We discussed the things we would like to see along the Riverfront in the area from Shelby Bottoms on the south to the Cumberland River Greenway at I-65 on the north. And we made notes directly on the map. At the end of the discussion time, each small group presented its ideas to the others and then everyone voted for their three favored ideas for developments.

As I said before, if the discussion had involved more neighborhood people it might have been very different. I raised some eyebrows when I spoke of neighborhood boundaries and identity. Others had grander designs. But the conclusions reached would have also been different, in my opinion, if the orientation of the map had been different. The center of the map seemed to be the East Bank/Coliseum area with the Cumberland curving toward the left-side of the map, leaving a relatively smaller swath of North Nashville, Downtown, and South Nashville in view.

I believe that the map's orientation had a good deal to do with the group spending most of its time talking about developing neighborhoods on the East Bank and connecting them with others on the East End. The only time our group focused on North End development was to talk about the old Neuhoff Complex, the Central Wastewater Treatment Facility, and "Nashville Island" (which used to be "Burns Island"). By my unscientific tally, there were perhaps 10 East Nashville development ideas for each North Nashville idea. Even the discussion of the possible new ballpark had to do with whether to build it on the old Thermal Site on the West Bank now or to build it on the East Bank south of the Coliseum later as a spur for East Bank neighborhood growth. I concluded that the total lack of discussion about the South End beyond SoBro and Rolling Mill Hill also resulted from the eastward orientation of the map.

I do not know if the Nashville Civic Design Center oriented the map because they intentionally wanted to focus the discussion the East Bank, but our chat did focus in that direction, and I could not gather that there were more East Enders present than anyone else. The whole NCDC emphasis on connecting Nashville neighborhoods into one city seemed undercut by the NCDC map itself.