Sullying the Shed
One of Nashville's most historic landmarks could be in trouble
by Christine Kreyling
The Union Station train shed is once again under siege. A contractor working for shed owner Henry Sender has applied for a demolition permit to take down four trusses of the shed nearest to the Union Station Hotel, a move that Metro Historical Commission director Ann Roberts warns would remove 20 percent of the National Historic Landmark. “Even if it’s partial demolition, it’s pretty serious surgery,” Roberts says.
Engineers studying the structure for the possibility of adding two parking decks within the shed skeleton “waved the red flag,” Sender says. “That section is very dangerous, ready to collapse because of past fire and tornado damage.”
Since then Sender says he’s consulted with architect Henry Bledsoe, architect-engineer Pat Gingles, and contractors. “All of them have advised me that there is imminent danger.” When asked about the possibility of repairing the structure, Sender says that “the problem is the age of the trusses and the nature of the design. There are not many people who can even tell us what it would take” in terms of cost.
Because the shed is within the Metro Development and Housing Agency’s (MDHA) Arts Center Redevelopment District, the wrecker ball is not likely to swing immediately. MDHA director Gerald Nicely explains that there’s a 90-day minimum waiting period for the demolition of historic structures. Within that period, MDHA will collect independent estimates on what a rehab would cost and hold a public hearing. “We’re working closely with the Metro Historical Commission on this,” Nicely says. “The value of the shed’s being in a redevelopment district is that it gives us a chance to slow things down and assess the impact on surrounding properties.”
Developer Bill Barkley, one of the masterminds behind the plan to build an urban neighborhood in the Gulch, where the train shed is currently the architectural anchor, is saddened by the news of the train shed’s precarious state. “The shed is part of the history and fabric of the Gulch, it says what the Gulch is. We’ve already done enough obliteration of the past in Nashville,” Barkley says. “And when you’re building a whole new neighborhood, like we’re trying to do, you want to weave the new into the historic context. That’s what makes a neighborhood feel real.”
The train shed is the longest single-span, gable-roofed structure in the country, which is why it’s one of Nashville’s six National Historic Landmarks. It’s the city’s most visible reminder of the Industrial Revolution—an honest and straightforward expression of a culture that values commerce over class, and engineering over aesthetics. “Politicians, old buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough,” the John Huston character says in the movie Chinatown. For the Union Station train shed, long enough may turn out to be too long.
