Some downtown Nashville stakeholders are complaining that a new community plan will draw development away from Gateway Boulevard.
The plan proposes to make Fourth Avenue and Demonbreun Street more pedestrian friendly by widening sidewalks and placing retail spaces at the street level.
The discussion played out last night at a community forum about the Metro Planning Department’s proposal.
Frank May is an architect and Gateway landowner. He says the downtown core is already too congested.
“To me, I just like follow through. We’ve started an idea. We’ve built the bridge. It connects to East Nashville. We’ve got big boulevards, interstate access. But now let’s get the zoning in place on that street, not sort of ignore it.”
But Metro Planning policy analyst Jennifer Carlat (CAR-lit) says development pressure, especially for high-rise buildings, has been greatest around lower Broadway.
“And so the thinking has kind of evolved to come to a point that we now envision the downtown, the central business district as our most intense, maybe SoBro as one step less intense, then the Gateway Boulevard acts as the last step down.”
Carlat says her office is still tweaking the plan that will impose height restrictions on First and Second Avenues and require new parking garages to be concealed by retail or residential space.
If approved by the Planning Commission in December, the plan will be used as a guide when it considers zoning changes.
The next public meeting will be held November 16th at the downtown library.
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