Creating Places: PBR Mural

If the Hotel Indigo on West End Avenue was not already Midtown's most bold building based on color scheme, it surely is now.

On the upper corner of the east wall of HI's blue parking garage is now a massive Pabst Blue Ribbon mural. Standing about 15-20-feet tall, the colorful, cool and eye-catching artwork (I spotted it for the first time today and thing the artist is Jim Comey) renders the almost-cobalt-blue car-storage facility all the more funky and edgy. I have to say it looks killer.

Kudos to officials with both PBR (which began in 2007 its branding efforts in Nashville in Columbus, Ohio — targeting young hipsters and bohemians) and Hotel Indigo for this move. With excessive "dead space" and junk (in the form of surface parking lots, windows-lacking buildings, non-descript free-standing buildings, etc.), parts of urban Nashville are crying for murals on private buildings, public art, trees, water fountains, streetlight banners — anything to minimize the harshness of our often crappy built landscape. The Pabst-Hotel Indigo mural is a step in the right direction. I'll toast a 16-ounce PBR to that.

Creating Places: Stick Figure Madness

I sometimes have to wonder what people are thinking when it comes to signage. Or if they are thinking period.

This past week, the Metro Council passed an ordinance authorizing businesses operating within some commercially zoned districts (specifically, major streets) to erect inflatable “stick people” for advertising purposes.

These balloon-like abominations — which mimic some drunk buffoon pretending he's a marionette — are most commonly associated with used-car lots, along with sunglasses-wearing elephants, hand-painted signage and various other eyesores incorporated to grab speeding motorists' attention — as we simply, as a society, can't allow those desperately wanting to buy a crappy used car to miss that chance because lack of attention and/or excessive speeding caused them to overlook a used-car lot.

For years, the use of the somewhat Gumby-like inflatable stick people all but violated a Metro zoning code that prohibited signs susceptible to wind pressure — the thinking, presumably, that such gyration from the air-filled nastiness could cause a safety hazard for easily distracted motorists. Or that the stick man could break from his tether and cause a serious traffic accident. It was wise governing that drove the code. Still, some business owners violated the spirit of the code, claiming their stick people were well secured — or knowing full well that Metro Codes likely placed the enforcement of balloon figurine usage far down its priority list.

Now our wise Metro Council has passed, by a 25-15 margin, an ordinance modifying the code so as to allow this visual clutter on some roads. Metro Councilman Darren Jernigan, whose district represents Old Hickory and parts of Hermitage, proposed the ordinance to eliminate the code restriction after one of his constituents was — oh, isn't this so unfortunate — required to remove her inflatable stick person.

“With the economy right now, small businesses are doing everything they can to get people in the doors,” City Paper stellar reporter Joey Garrison quoted Jernigan as saying. “I don’t see any harm with that type of signage.”

We must presume Jernigan also sees nothing wrong with the billboard-like signage accompanying the Men's Warehouse in Green Hills. Or the 25-foot-tall signs towering over fast food joints cluttering West End Avenue. Or the hand-painted signs (no more attractive than the work of a 3-year-old with magic markers and some battered wood) that pockmark Gallatin Road and Buchanan Street. The man clearly doesn't get it. Advertising your business is one thing. Doing so in a way that trivializes — or even cartoon-izes your community — is another.

With the new ordinance, the inflatable advertising figures are to not exceed 20 feet in height (not sure I've ever seen a stick person taller than 10 feet, so this is scary), must be placed at least 1,000 feet from residences and must be taken indoors during night hours (we wouldn't want a stick man assaulted in the still of darkness). In addition, only one inflatable stick person per business property is allowed. Darn. Would have been cool to have seen — and we know it would have happened — an army of stick people at some used car dealership.

Of note, some areas and streets (including the Green Hills commercial district and Gallatin Road in East Nashville) have overlays in place to prevent this garbage.

Councilman Phil Claiborne, showing some commendable judgement, crafted a last-minute amendment preventing the inflatable advertising figures to be used on Lebanon Road, and Donelson, Elm Hill and McGavock pikes.

Even with those street protected from the goofiness, look for the dancing balloons marring, among others, Jefferson Street, Murfreesboro Road, Dickerson Pike, Charlotte Avenue, Nolensville Road and Eighth Avenue. And look for a few more used cars, than otherwise, to be sold.

Creating Places: Citizen at Public Square

Two pieces. Tall, contemporary, lots of metal. Thoughts?

Creating Places: T-Truck To the Gulch

The Gulch is poised for a major coup, as the Turnip Truck is slated to open by October.

Earlier this week, the announcement hit and those of us who both relish natural foods and thrill to watching urban districts evolve just toasted some organic vanilla soy milk.

No doubt, this is big coup for the Gulch and all of dowtown. Hey, I dig Trader Joe's but to support a mom-and-pop... Stellar.

The lovely and vivacious Michele Trueba, one of Nashville's main proponents of urban living, told me this when I informed her of the news:

“12^th Avenue South from Terrazzo to Whiskey Kitchen is like an traditional main street for the Gulch, and the Turnip Truck will help anchor and revitalize the mid-section of that street,” said Trueba, a Lipman Group/Sotheby’s realtor who deftly handles multiple Gulch properties. “The Turnip Truck is not like a Kroger or a Publix. It’s tactile. You’ve got organics, children’s art on the walls and great soup.”

Great soup, indeed.

Turnip Truck Urban Fare (the actual name, so we'll call it TTUF) will join the established Casablanca Coffee, Yazoo Brewing Co. and BB&T to give the Gulch a grocery, a café, a pub and a bank — four key elements many place-making experts contend are critical to the long-term stability of clearly defined urban pockets.

Kudos to Gulch master developer MarketStreet Enterprises for convincing T-Truck founder John Dyke to open another grocery (his original locale in East Nashville's Five Points just celebrated nine years of operation).

For a story for The City Paper, I talked to Brian Vanneman, principal with Portland, Ore.-based Leland Consulting Group and an expert on urban retail. Vanneman told me grocery stores often serve as the “anchor tenants” of mixed-use neighborhoods.

Vanneman knows his stuff. He co-wrote an article with Mark Hinshaw, a Seattle-based architect influential in that city’s office of the American Institute of Architects, titled “The Supermarket as a Neighborhood Building Block.” The piece ran in the March 2010 AIA Planning magazine.

“Retail creates ‘urban theater,’” Vanneman said during the interview.

TTUF will be located at 311 12th Ave. S. in a 1960s-built structure most recently used for industrial purposes (I seem to recall the biz was Tennessee Air-Gas). The grocery will occupy about 9,200 square feet (by comparison, the East Nashville Turnip Truck covers about 4,500 square feet), with Powell Design Studio handling the architectural retrofit. Once finished, the mixed-use building will contain about 5,500 square feet of additional space for up to three other retail businesses. The rendering (see above) suggests an attractive design.

The Gulch has long needed a grocery store. And the Truck will roll through with an organic purpose.

Creating Places: Gulch Lands Grocery

The Gulch will soon have a Turnip Truck grocery store. The addition, expected to be finalized by October, will impact future growth on the district. Within the next day, I will offer a blog post regarding this matter.

Creating Places: Nance Place

Construction of Nance Place, the "workforce housing" multi-unit rental building on Rolling Mill Hill, is now fully underway. N-Place should be an attractive building, as Nashville-based DA|AD and the local office of Moody Nolan are teaming to handle design work. Of note, MDHA is serving as developer, with the agency having been a key part of the development of three nearby residential buildings (originally meant to have been condos) on the site and that continue to sit empty and in receivership. Not to fully criticize MDHA, as the development of the aforementioned trio of buildings hit all types of snags and difficulties beyond the agency's control. But MDHA has no successful track record in developing housing other than significantly subsidized structures geared toward, put bluntly, folks living on Section 8 vouchers, unemployment checks and minimum wage. A facility similar to Nance Place —— Laurel House in the Gulch —— was developed by The Housing Fund Inc. (which is not directly related to MDHA). In short, N-Place will be MDHA's first solely developed multi-unit housing development targeting prospective residents who make $2o,000 a year or more. It's a major undertaking and one, given MDHA's limited experience in such efforts, that carries no guarantee of success.

Creating Places: A Quick Drive

With yesterday's weather as stellar as the latest Them Crooked Vultures album, I took a drive with my good buddy and fellow "built fabric geek" John Mathieson through downtown Nashville and Germantown.

A few thoughts:

1. The new Goodwill building on 10th Avenue North in Hope Gardens is looking strong, with work almost finished. The building's brick color and detailing are very masculine and attractive. I might have preferred an additional brick color, however, to create variation. Still, Hastings Architecture Associates has delivered another very eye-catchingly designed structure to the city's core.

2. Nearby the Goodwill site, the Glanton Building is nearing construction completion on Jefferson Street. A good bit of metal gives the structure a very 21st century vibe. Of note, the second floor cantilevers over ground space between Jefferson and the GB. Very cool.

3. The old American Trust building now sports along its cap Hotel Indigo signage. I like the design and proportionality of the sign, but the all-white color scheme is too understated. On the Hotel Indigo theme, I recently "toured" the facility and was quite impressed. HI represents downtown's first "edgy and boutique" hotel -- and a is product the central city has long needed.