Everyone running to be Nashville’s next mayor has been asked what to do about PSC Metals. That’s the privately-owned metal recycling yard across the river from downtown. They all want to see it moved. But only one says he’s willing to use the most extreme measures.

Bill Freeman knows a thing or two about property rights. He’s a wealthy developer. He got his start with the Metropolitan Development and Housing Authority—the agency that condemns property for government use. While he would prefer to simply incentivize PSC Metals to pull up stakes, he says he’s willing to use the trump card.

“If they decide not to take advantage of those incentives to relocate, we have the ultimate tool, which is the power of eminent domain,” he told WPLN. “We can just take the property, pay them a fair price for it and move on from there.”

Asked the same question, the rest of the candidates for mayor sound less interested in hostility.

“I don’t have really any appetite for eminent domain,” former school board chairman David Fox says.
“I don’t like taking people’s property away from them unless it’s for an absolutely essential need for the city.”

Beautifying the city’s prominent riverbank is really just a luxury, Fox says.

Charter school founder Jeremy Kane says he’d prefer to focus on other redevelopment needs first, like public housing projects.

At-large councilwoman Megan Barry says she’s not totally opposed to seizing the property, but for how much?

“At the end of the day, eminent domain still costs money and you have to purchase that property at a price that is fair,” she says. “It’s about talking about how much that would cost.”

Attorney Charles Robert Bone, who helped the city condemn property to build the Music City Center, says there would almost certainly be litigation involved, driving the price even higher. And Criminal Court Clerk Howard Gentry says the cost to clean up the contaminated site adds to his hesitation in going to battle.

Businesswoman Linda Rebrovick is hopeful that real estate prices might rise enough that moving becomes a more attractive option for PSC’s owners, no matter who is buying the property.

“I believe that it will be a better solution to continue to make the land worth more,” she says. “That is the way to have a win-win in this situation for the city and for the owners of the land.”

The candidates, uncut: