After bombing, Nashville sees chance for changes
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Lower Broadway is a never-ending party, the teeming heart of the Nashville that tourists come looking for: bright lights and bars overflowing with music and crowds that can rival those in Times Square. But just around the corner, some in the city see an urgent need — and an unexpected opportunity — to create something different.
A year ago, on Christmas morning, a man enmeshed in a web of bizarre conspiracy theories detonated a recreational vehicle packed with explosives. No one other than the perpetrator was killed, but a stretch of Second Avenue — a tree-lined row of restaurants, bars, shops and lofts in some of the city’s oldest buildings — was wiped out. A gaping void suddenly emerged in the center of Nashville.
It was a painful addition to the roster of recent setbacks the city has endured, including a devastating tornado in 2020 and deadly flooding in March. But the challenge of rebuilding Second Avenue has also led civic leaders to confront the side effects of years of extraordinary growth.
“Seize the moment to make something happen,” John Cooper, Nashville’s mayor, said in an interview, describing an expanded vision for downtown, more focused on improving the quality of life for city residents.
He said there had been talk for years about overhauling Second Avenue, yet it had never materialized before the bombing.
Nashville has, in many ways, enjoyed the fruits of its ascendance. Major companies, including automakers and technology firms, have been lured by an accommodating business climate. Shiny glass office towers have popped up all over the city, as have upscale apartment complexes promising amenities like quartz countertops, resort-style pools and — this being Nashville — community recording studios.
Still, as in Austin, Texas, and other midsize cities that have seen similar influxes, that expansion has also brought snarled traffic, staggering housing prices and deep concerns about who has paid the price for Nashville’s prosperity.
City officials and developers have ambitions of turning downtown into more of a neighborhood, a hub of commerce but also a place where a community can flourish. Yet that vision has sometimes been stymied by a more complicated reality: The raucous hordes of revelers and daily parade of party vehicles might be a sign of one way that downtown is thriving. But they are also a source of exasperation for people who live and work in the city.
Second Avenue, they hope, could be a solution.
“Something that is more family-friendly, more Nashvillian-friendly,” said Ron Gobbell, the project manager for the revitalization effort, describing plans for a gathering place for people looking to dine or socialize in a setting that is “a little less intense.”
The rebuilt Second Avenue, according to plans rolled out in recent weeks, will be friendlier to pedestrians, with a lush canopy of trees, sidewalk dining and a spacious walkway that opens the avenue up to the Cumberland River a block away.
Nashville is grappling with challenges familiar to cities that have been remolded by growth: Economic disparities widen. The limits of infrastructure are tested. The character at the root of its appeal becomes strained by the demands of development, a tension evident in persisting worries over the condition of Nashville’s soul.
“I think every city that is growing at the pace that we are has to struggle with making sure it keeps its identity,” said Bert Mathews, a developer who once owned a building on Second Avenue he sold years before the blast. “We are really struggling to hold on to what is critical and what’s important.”