If you've driven by or popped into Grimey's or The Basement in the past couple days, perhaps you noticed a "For Sale" sign outside 1604 Eighth Ave. S. Indeed, the three-story, 106-year-old red brick building housing both Nashville's flagship record shop and its downstairs rock club (along with offices for soon-to-launch community radio station WXNA-FM) is on the market. According to an online listing, the asking price is $3.1 million. But don't go all New Nashville doom-and-gloom forecasting gentrification at culture's expense just yet — Grimey's and The Basement are both safe ... for now.
Grimey's co-owner Doyle Davis says the store renewed its agreement with the building's current owner, Steve West, extending its lease for the next four years and keeping the store at its current location, its home for nearly 12 years, through May of 2020.
“I've been assured that any new owner would have to honor this lease we just signed,” Davis tells the Scene. “[After] May of 2020, then we would be vulnerable in renegotiating with the new owners, which could potentially [lead to] a big increase [in rent].”
Davis says the store would find another location and carry on if they're priced out or if the lease isn't renewed down the road. “We're committed to keeping Grimey's,” he promises. “If for some reason we lose that location, we'll find another one.”
Grimey's namesake Mike Grimes, who co-owns both Grimey's and The Basement, says the club is essentially in the same boat as the store.
“Steve West is going to put an addendum on the lease that we signed last year, to be commensurate with Grimey's lease, so our leases will be up at the same time,” he explains. “If four years from now [somebody] has bought the building and they don't want us as tenants anymore, then we'll figure out where to go. It's nothing we're worried about.”
Grimes goes on to explain that the 1604 Eighth Ave. S. building has essentially been for sale since Grimey's moved there from its original Diagon Alley-like location in 2004: “They would have sold it 10 years ago to somebody if they had found somebody who would've paid an exorbitant amount of money and could buy us out of our lease. … Now it's more actively for sale.”
As a selling point, the listing online highlights how the "historic" building is home to Grimey's and The Basement.
“Luckily, [West] found tenants that have been there for 11 years and helped build the profile of the building in a similar way that the Slow Bar helped build East Nashville," Grimes says. "I have been in this tenuous position of kind of helping build wealth for other people property-wise, but haven't found a way to buy property of this kind of value myself.”
He's talking about the Five Points rock club (located where the 3 Crow Bar sits today) which played host to early shows from the likes of Kings of Leon and The Black Keys, much in the same way that The Basement is where a lucky, sweaty handful saw one of Alabama Shakes' first road gigs in 2011, or an even-more-packed secret show from Metallica in 2008.
Last year, Grimes returned to the East Side when he and club co-owner Dave Brown opened The Basement East, a 400-capacity East Nashville haunt that's currently the largest Music City rock club east of the Cumberland. In 2013, he and Davis opened Grimey's Too, an expanded sister store in a separate building down the block that, in addition to selling used records, has an independent bookstore — Howlin' Books — and a Frothy Monkey coffee bar. Davis notes that any potential sale of the 1604 Building would not affect Grimey's Too. That building, he says, is owned by a different owner who's expressed no plans to sell.
“[Grimey's Too] is in no danger whatsoever,” he explains. “I've got a landlord [there] that's not trying to cash out and sell to an investor or a developer. In fact, she's turned down every developer offer for this property that she's gotten.”
WXNA-FM, the community radio station set to take local airwaves later this year, is also a tenant at the 1604 Building. Calls to a station representative for comment have not been answered at press time.
