A four-acre industrial site in downtown Nashville is looking to be transformed into a 4-building mixed-use development project consisting of office, multifamily and retail space totaling 1.6 million square feet.
Veteran real-estate developer Bill Smith, owner of nationally renowned real-estate development company Smithfield Properties LLC, is joining entrepreneurs Aubrey Preston and Taylor Preston to propose a mixed-use real-estate development at the southern edge of the city on 6th Avenue South and Ash Street, just south of Lafayette Street.
More than 90 residential units would be dedicated as workforce housing for teachers and public employees.
Smith said the plan for workforce housing as part of the residential portion of the development is a nod to Mayor Megan Barry’s call for better housing options for teachers, which she made during a December speech to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Education Report Card Committee.
The signature structure would be a 40-story office tower with 860,000 square feet of Class A office space, suitable for a corporate headquarters or capable of accommodating multiple tenants.
The north side of the project would tie into the new Division Street Extension, Bridge and Complete Street Project, a half-mile $25 million Metro Public Works initiative designed to spur new investment and establish a vital transportation link between the Gulch and SoBro. Completion of Public Works’ Division Street project is critical to the viability of the mixed-use development.
Currently, the site at 6th and Ash is home to a large warehouse. Smithfield Nashville is scheduled to close on its purchase of the property in May, and will demolish the warehouse in order to develop the mixed-use project.
Before moving forward, the proposed development needs approval by Metro government to raise height restrictions in the area and allow for the construction of high-rise buildings. Smithfield Nashville filed a request on March 15 asking the Metro Planning Department to consider high-rise buildings on the site.
