The Bridgestone Tower
Watermark, the pioneering upscale restaurant that opened in 2005 in the Gulch, will not be taking space in the Bridgestone Tower in SoBro as previously planned.
Watermark officials had said in October 2016 that they would move the restaurant from the Gulch to the skyscraper, with the hope to open in late 2017. That effort has now been scrapped.
Highwoods Properties, which co-developed the site with Giarratana Development and owns the tower, confirmed that Watermark will not be a tenant.
“We’re actively marketing the space to identify the best possible operator and restaurant concept to fill the space,” Brian Reames, senior vice president of Highwoods’ Nashville office, told the Scene’s sister paper the Nashville Post. “We’re optimistic that we will soon be back underway with work on the space.”
Watermark was one of the first anchor businesses in the Gulch — owner Jerry Brown told the Post Wednesday that he is not currently looking for an alternative space for the restaurant, which billed itself as offering "contemporary Southern-style food made with a French flair."
The Bridgestone Tower, home to the headquarters of Bridgestone Americas, offers one potential retail/restaurant component — the 8,000-square-foot space that Watermark was to have taken at the skyscraper’s northeast corner, at Demonbreun and Almond streets.
In August 2017, a permit valued at $3 million was issued to allow for the interior build-out for Watermark. Some work was undertaken before being stopped in January 2018. Brown told the Post in March 2018 that he had self-funded the construction and would soon finalize funding from a private equity group to allow work to resume via general contractor Brasfield & Gorrie. Since then, the space has sat unchanged.
