The Captol District
Walking Tour of the neighborhood
North Nashville is commonly recognized as the heart of Nashville’s African American community. The new ballpark site will be built at Sulphur Dell, and connects to what once was known the Black Business District, and the Market District. Prior to the new development, the site was almost completely filled with industrial businesses.
To make the new First Tennessee Park a reality, the city conducted a landswap with the state of Tennessee. The city will own the $65-million ballpark and the Sounds owners agreed to invest $50 million to build a mixed-use development ajacent to the stadium, and Texas-based Embrey Development Corp. will builda $37-million multi-gamily apartment on the site.
Leaders of the Capitol District hope the ballpark will bring attention to the area and spur more development. Requests for zoning changes have already increased since the announcement of the new Sounds stadium at Sulphur Dell.
Baseball Stadium Master Plan
While studies were completed in search of the perfect baseball stadium site, the latest comprehensive plan for the Capitol District was the North Nashville Community Development Corporation (CDC) Plan of 2002. The study included input from the three universities located in North Nashville including Tennessee State University, Fisk University and Meharry Medical College, which received a Historically Black Colleges and Universities grant of $550,000 to expand its revitalization activities in the North Nashville community (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2014).
Developers are focused on their area and assigned projects, but have yet to unite. Sharon Hurt, executive director of Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership (J.U.M.P.), her organization pushes for a Master Plan for North Nashville that gives Jefferson Street the opportunity to reinvent itself.
(see the Nashville Civic Design Center site for the Sounds baseball stadium report)