Downtown and the Gulch come to life

by Carrington Fox

There are city dwellers among us. No longer a deserted urban core, downtown is drawing human traffic to eat, hear music and support visual arts and athletic teams. Some pioneers are even moving in and calling the place home.

By 2009, more than $1 billion will have flowed into downtown improvements since the beginning of the decade. A $120 million symphony hall, Michael Graves-designed federal courthouse and Metro courthouse promise to raise the profile of the urban landscape, while residential projects like The Kress, The Stahlman Building and Tony Giarratana’s proposed 55-story Signature Tower will house a community of people who will need places to eat, exercise—and grocery shop.

In 2006, the $70 million Viridian project on Church Street will open an H.G. Hill urban market on the ground floor, for all practical purposes the first grocery shopping in the urban core. In the meantime, downtowners are ordering grocery delivery online from Plumgood Food and enjoying an expanding, pedestrian-friendly dining nightlife at restaurants like Casabona, Rippy’s and Sullivan’s Steakhouse, soon to open in the space of bygone Seanachie.

A few blocks west, in the former railway scar along 12th Avenue South, Nashville Urban Venture is leading the $400 million redevelopment of the Gulch, which is transforming industrial blight into a diverse retail and residential area. The Gulch now houses the bakery operation for Provence, music venue City Hall and RuSan’s boisterous sushi restaurant. Sambuca is experimenting with high-end cuisine and live jazz at the address of the fleeting 6˚ restaurant, while upstairs, Bar Twenty3 is raising the bar for urban chic. Watermark restaurant will soon fill a turn-of-the-century print shop with regional cuisine, and Judge Bean’s Barbecue has relocated its Texas-style fare to the former Café 123 spot. Two residential projects, Laurel House and Mercury View lofts, offer high-end and affordable housing in a combined 80 units, and the planned 18-story ICON at Division and 12th Avenue will introduce up to 20,000 square feet of retail space and 400 residential units. A redesigned streetscape and a smattering of retail establishments including Genevieve salon and Therapy clothing store provide a welcoming gateway to the enlivened urban neighborhood.