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.

Creating Places: A Question

Sometimes I wonder what percentage of Nashvillians would list the manmade environment (that is, issues related to planning, design, construction, development, etc.) among their 10 main interests. Could it be 10 percent? I doubt it. I would think 5 percent at best.

Creating Places: The Little Things

With minimal major construction slated for Nashville's urban core in 2010, I will be closely watching the additions and modifications of "less significant built fabric elements." A fine example is the retaining wall accompany the soon-to-open Pinnacle Financial Center building in Berry Hill. In a classy and visually attractive manner, the wall, which anchors the northwest corner of Bransford Avenue and Thompson Lane, reads "Welcome to Berry Hill." Sometimes it's the little touches to our manmade environment that can make a underrated difference.

Creating Places: 1700 Midtown

A recent tour of cutting-edge apartment building 1700 Midtown spurred me to ponder the following: Is there a similar rental building within Nashville's urban core? 1700 is unusual in that if features multiple elements found at the city's post-2000-completed urban condo buildings, including a secured parking garage, a very sleek club room, a fitness room and even a "green room" devoted to recycling. Each unit offers a washer/dryer, which is unusual. Of note, 1700 lacks a pool but beyond that, the building offers big-city apartment living on a different level compared to Nashville's other cool apartment houses.