Commentary by William Williams
January 18, 2006

Let the wrecking ball fall.

To make room for the anticipated Summer Street Lofts, demolition is slated to take place this week on a tired little Germantown building.

The current structure, which forlornly sits empty at the northwest intersection of Fifth Avenue and Madison Street, has long been an eyesore.

In contrast, the proposed project, to be developed by Germantown Partners LLC, will offer three small retail spaces and nine condominiums within two stylish brick buildings.

Sweet.

DA|AD, the good people who brought East Nashville the structure that is home to Sweet 16: A Bakery, are designing SS Lofts.

Germantown Partners’ Scott Chambers, who teams with the classy Andree LeQuire, says the project simply awaits Metro granting a building permit.

If all goes well, work will begin in February, with residential units ready by the end of 2006 (Scott, cut me a deal on one of the residential spaces and I’ll serve as manager of the complex).

Chambers says the design of Summer Street Lofts will work nicely with that of the company’s Germantown Building, located across Fifth.

“We’re looking forward to creating some synergy with these two buildings framing the intersection,” Chambers says.

Framing is good for intersections, indeed.

G. Partners is localizing the development, starting with demolition courtesy of Strategic Environmental Contracting Inc. As general contractor will be Baron + Dowdle Construction, with Nashville Bank & Trust to provide financing.

Fridrich & Clark Realtor Richard Courtney, a gracious chap who deftly writes a real estate column for this rag, will handle sales and marketing.

A nicer Cumberland
Apartment/condo tower The Cumberland — arguably downtown’s most bland building rising 15 or more floors — is being given a desperately needed facelift.

Owner McKinney Properties Inc. has added a dark gray-brown (for you folks who known your color palette, the actual designation is “desert taupe”) to the Church Street and Sixth Avenue level exteriors of the building, with a new sign and awnings to follow.

Mark Gillespie, McKinney vice president, says Nashville-based Gresham Smith & Partners is providing architectural consulting for the updates, with Phillip Petty the lead man for the sign effort.

Good choice, as GS&P does quality work.

Word is the sign, to be manufactured by Nashville-based August Enterprises, will play nicely off the eye-catching Bennie Dillon Building sign.

“There are some historical reasons for this,” Gillespie says, adding that the new awnings will be black cloth (to replace the generic green awnings currently in place).

If all goes well, the new-look Cumberland will strike a handsome pose — something it has failed to do prior to now.

Park it
Excavation work is almost finished on the Hill Center at Green Hills parking facility. Jimmy Granbery, H.G. Hill Realty Co.’s straight-shooting CEO, says the approximately $70 million lifestyle center development is slated to be completed no later than June 2007. Originally, the project was to have been finished by April 2006.

Squarely on Harrison
The first phase of Craighead Development’s Harrison Square is fully under way east of the Bicentennial Mall at Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street. Four of the 15 condominiums, slated for completion in June, have been presold in what eventually will be a 63-unit development.

The affable Bill Hostettler, Craighead’s pointman for the project, says the units will sell for $177 per square foot (rather inexpensive by downtown standards), with the exteriors to feature pitched roofs, copper gutters and lots of brick.

Nashville-based Allard and Associates, which is perhaps best known (for better or worse depending upon whom you ask) for traditional designs, is the architect.

Finalizing 2222
Work has begun on the entrance to the 2222 Building in 12South. John Hays, chief manager of 2222 developer The Graymont Group, says the entrance — about which some have expressed concerned due to the building’s first level being well above the sidewalk — should be move-in ready by the end of February.

Hays said local architect Preston Quirk and interior designer Aimee Singelyn have collaborated on an eye-catching design that will result in an attractive street-level entrance.

By Richard Courtney
January 06, 2006

For those who rely on national news services for their economic news, remember that as residential real estate goes, Nashville is in a league of its own. Nationally, new housing starts are down. In the Nashville area, they are up. Across the country, existing homes sales are sluggish. In Nashville, they are robust.

This year will prove even better. David Lereah, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, predicts that home sales for the nation will be down 4 percent to 6 percent for 2006. By comparison, those numbers would still be the second best year in the country’s history, lagging only behind 2005.

Locally, by carrying a record number of pending sales into 2006, Nashville once again will begin the year with record sales. Contrary to conventional thinking, January sales are surprisingly high — almost as if thousands of Nashvillians made New Year’s resolutions to purchases homes.

Many question the origin of these buyers and their collective financial wherewithal to purchase all of these properties. Many are homegrown — the product of the affordable housing initiatives created by the mayor, whose commitment to safe, decent, affordable housing for all Nashvillians was a campaign cry that reached fruition.

The city’s progress in the area of affordable housing has been recognized by the National Association of Realtors, which features Nashville as one of the top cities in the nation thanks to the efforts of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors (GNAR).

Additionally, the Nashville Homeownership Coalition — which is comprised of GNAR, the Nashville Housing Fund, MDHA, THDA, the Nashville Area Habitat For Humanity, Woodbine Community Organization, the Mayor’s Office of Affordable Housing, and AmSouth Bank — was recognized by the U.S. Conference of Mayors for their campaign promoting home ownership.

The efforts in affordable housing have given opportunities for many to, as the mayor has said, “live where they work and work where they live.” Additionally, it has allowed them to accumulate wealth. For example, a house in Normandy Place in Sylvan Park sold for as low as $130,000 when they were first constructed. Only two years later, they were selling for $220,000, a profit of $90,000. Those sellers then bought $300,000 houses, and sold those for $450,000, and so on, leading to the Nashville area selling over 100 houses with prices of over $1,000,000. If surrounding counties are added, the number reaches over 200.

For the naysayers out here, these were sold to mainly first time homebuyers with no “funny money.” In short, the taxpayers did not carry the load for the affordable housing buyers to purchase. Rather, it is through the creativity and cooperation of the agencies from the public and private sector working in harmony, and the awareness of their work.