Less than a month ago, Nashville’s mayor told the city of his plan for the Global Mall site.

In Southeast Nashville, the former Hickory Hollow mall hasn’t brought significant money in for at least a decade.  

This week, the Metro Council decided to purchase portions of the Global Mall site for $44 million.  

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has signed a tentative agreement to sign a long-term lease to provide health care services, and the city would be its landlord.

More: Hickory Hollow joins mall-to-medicine transitions, which accelerated through the pandemic

The councilmember for the area, Joy Styles, is pitching it as a chance to move southeast Nashville forward.

“The Global Mall has been in dire need of positive attention. The southeast has been in need of investment, and tonight, we have that opportunity to make that happen,” she told her colleagues before asking them to approve the deal.

She says the site would also include arts and youth programs. That would round out the services the city has already spent money on, like the community center, library and Ford Ice Center.

Multiple deals to purchase the property have fallen through, which councilmembers took note of. 

“Do we have a cost estimate for future things that are actually going to make this entire project succeed?” Councilmember Freddie O’Connell asked.

The mayor’s lawyer agrees that taxpayers will be shelling out more than the initial $44 million price tag in order to bring the full project to life. The total dollar amount won’t be clear until the planning study is done.

The mayor touts this as another notch in the city’s investment in southeast Nashville, including the new police precinct and city park off Tusculum Road. And for Vanderbilt, this isn’t the first time it’s turned a dead mall into a medical center.