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.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Creating Places: Random tidbits

There is much to report and, as such, I will soon provide a detailed overview and update of various projects.

Until then, here are a few things that have caught my attention the past week or so:

* The updating of the building that will be home to Metropolitan Bank is progressing nicely. The stucco building, which addresses both West End Avenue and Broadway and which will sit in the shadow of West End Summit, has been given a two-toned exterior color update (dark and medium gray) that looks strong. In addition, new signage has been added.

* The Omni Nashville Hotel street-level space along Korean Veterans Boulevard is very eye catching. In fact, and notwithstanding the painfully blank Fourth Avenue side of the building, the Omni exterior is far more attractive than I anticipated. The recent progress (the addition of vertical blue lights at the building's crown is a particular highlight) has rendered a quality design.

* I am curious to get the opinions of those readers who have seen the exterior design of The Pub, located in Pine Street Flats in The Gulch. Some folks might contend The Pub's traditional colors, materials and forms (which mimic an historic English tavern entrance) jarringly contrast with the otherwise contemporary Pine Street Flats exterior. However, I find the street-level space very inviting and classy. It will be interesting to see how the exterior for fellow PSFlats restaurant Burger Republic ends up looking.

* Work on the Hill Realty building located at the Broadway and Division split in Midtown continues, with the building showing outstanding potential to be very distinctive once finished. The shape has been modified in such a way to present an almost flat iron-esque form. I'm liking it more and more.

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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2013 at 9:37 AM

    The new Omni Hotel looks great! Love the lighting. It should do extremely well and provide a lot of street traffic between the Music City Center and Hall of Fame.

    One of your posts mentioned a new bank building being in the shadow of the West End Summit. Do we think the West End Summit will ever start construction. With delays and more delays, there is no way it could be completed by 2015 as advertised. How could a huge project that has approved received tax incentives and leases from HCA not start to rise? What about the hotel? There seems to be no information at all from Alex Palmer & Co. on this project. What's going on?

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