Rock Block Flats rendering
Even as they've changed slowly over the years, Exit/In and The End — the two venues that give the strip of Elliston Place near Louise Avenue the nickname the Rock Block — have maintained important roles in the city's music ecosystem. Both venues have joined the recently formed National Independent Venue Alliance, which is lobbying for federal aid to keep independent venues and promoters afloat during the COVID-19 crisis. Following the announcement in 2019 of plans to build a hotel on nearby property, the whole area was placed at the top of Historic Nashville Inc.'s Nashville Nine list of endangered historic properties. Information about a possible new development in the area has been made public today.
William Williams over at our sister publication Nashville Post has details about and images of a proposed residential building called Rock Block Flats. The seven-story building would feature 30 apartments and a parking garage. It would sit on a parcel of land that's currently divided into 2201, 2205 and 2209 Elliston Place (see it here on Google Maps), behind the row of old-school commercial buildings that houses vintage clothing store Smack and restaurant Samurai Sushi.
Though part of the street-facing strip that formerly included beloved dive bar The Gold Rush would have to be modified as part of the construction, the rest of the building — and The End, which is very close by and on a separate property — would not be affected. Developer Tony Giarratana, who's leading the project, tells Williams that as he sees it, the development would actually help in preventing the original buildings from being redeveloped. “Because the value of the underlying real estate exceeds the value of the improvements,” Giarratana says, “our strategy is to preserve the historic buildings by building higher-density buildings behind them.” In other words, his belief is that construction of the new building wouldn't raise the property value, which wouldn't raise taxes for nearby property owners, who then wouldn't have to raise rents on current tenants to make up the difference.
Exit/In owner Chris Cobb, who helped launch the Save the Rock Block grassroots organization that's advocating for preserving the area, hopes to see the proposal work out the way it's been planned.
“Look, they named a condo building after us!” Cobb says in an email to the Scene. “I suppose that's some kind of honor here in Nashville. Tony has worked hard to create a plan that saves the buildings, which is great. My message to him all along has been about saving what is most important, which is the culture. Longtime Elliston Place businesses must not be displaced, and the grit cant be washed away. We can't continue the cycle: artists make neighborhood cool, greedy landowners cash in, developers make neighborhood uncool. I'm cautiously optimistic that Tony understands this — we're watching."
