Creating Places: A Citizen Observer's Look at Nashville's Built Environment


Writer's Note: William Williams' interest in the manmade environment dates to 1970, at which point the then-young Williams started a collection of postcards of city skylines. The collection now numbers 1,000-plus cards. Among the writer's specific interests are exterior building design, city district planning, demographics, signage, mixed-use development, mass transit and green/sustainable construction and living. Williams began his Creating Places column with The City Paper in February 2005. The column in its original form was discontinued in September 2008 and reinvented via this blog in November 2008. Creating Places can be found on the home page of the website of The City Paper, at which Williams has worked in various capacities since October 2000.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Creating Places: Random tidbits

With the night winding down and The Who playing "Who Are You" on the 12-12-12 concert to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy, here are a few quick hits:

* Chattanooga-based Vision Hospitality is hoping to provide on Thursday a rendering of its planned Fairfield Inn on Division Street in the Gulch. I'll post and provide some commentary.

* The under-construction Hyatt hotel in SoBro is now pushing 75 feet tall and assuming some nice definition.

* I have very high hopes for Hillsboro Row, the three-story apartment building Evergreen is developing  at Wedgewood and 17th. I like the height and shape, and I'm optimistic the materials and colors will also be attractive.

* I'm hearing XMi is planning (or at least helping coordinate) a development at the northwest corner of the West End and 19th avenues intersection in Midtown. Already, the hideous building last home to a Church's Chicken and, before that, a Mrs Winner's has been demolished. I don't get the impression this will be a large-scale project, but you could put a construction trailer on the site and let it sit for five years and that would be better than a nasty eyesore housing a fast food chicken joint.

* Nearby, the Division Street building home to the soon-to-open Soulshine Pizza joint is looking nice. A quality rehab job.



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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 13, 2012 at 1:29 PM

    1) I believe Soulshine is now open.
    2) The NCP drawing of the new Gulch inn makes it appear quite drab: all grays. Is that accurate? Hopefully not!

    Lee Martin

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 13, 2012 at 8:22 PM

    I agree. The renderings of the Gulch hotel look bad.

    ReplyDelete
  3. William WilliamsDecember 15, 2012 at 4:07 PM

    I like the grays and silvers. Will have an overview of the Fairfield Inn this weekend.

    Interesting to know about Soulshine, LM.

    WW

    ReplyDelete

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