The company behind the redevelopment of RiverGate Mall spent a good deal of time and money studying what new name would suit the site best.
In the end, the answer was clear: Just keep it “RiverGate.”
“We’re giving it a different vision, but the name itself will remain the same, and the project is called RiverGate,” says Patrick Poole, senior vice president and Nashville market leader at Merus, which is developing the site. “It took us a while to get there, but I think we landed in the right space.”
The $450 million project will spread across 57 acres on the former site of the Goodlettsville mall, which opened in 1971 and officially closed earlier this year. Cincinnati-based development company Merus plans 710 apartments, 127 townhomes, 80 affordable senior living units, a 120-room hotel and 120,000 square feet of commercial space once completed. (RiverGate Mall covered around 500,000 square feet by the time it closed.)
For Old Hickory native Christy Butler, nostalgia runs deep when it comes to RiverGate.
“Seeing it go, it took a little piece of my heart with it,” she tells the Scene. “It’s been a big part of my life until here recently.”
Butler’s favorite stores at the mall included Sport Seasons and candy shop Mr. Bulky. She remembers scoping out a ’90s leather jacket at Wilsons Leather. Fifty-seven of the mall’s storefronts have closed during the past five years.
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Butler recalls “going to see Santa Claus, doing all of our Christmas shopping there. I mean, it was so packed you couldn’t even hardly get in and out of the place. Then as I got older, got to be a teenager, we used to cruise the mall.”
In June of last year, thousands circled the decaying mall during one last “cruise.”
Keeping the name is relevant to many area businesses that borrow it, including Hooter’s Rivergate — that’s been the restaurant’s title since it opened in 1994. Butler, who’s general manager of the restaurant, says she has seen a drop in business especially around the Christmas rush, but she’s grateful for an uptick in business from construction workers.
For Merus — which has developed everything from Aspire apartments in Midtown and the Rock Nashville campus to outpatient centers for Vanderbilt University Medical Center — RiverGate is a unique challenge, logistically and emotionally.
Rendering of RiverGate development
“It’s one of the rare opportunities where we have the ability to revitalize a whole market, a whole neighborhood,” Poole says. “We’ve gotten probably more community input and feedback than we ever had on any of our projects, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad, but in this case, pretty meaningful.”
District 10 Councilmember Jennifer Frensley Webb, a Goodlettsville native, says she’s gotten one question more than any other: Is there any way the mall could have been saved?
“Unfortunately, with Nashville growing, we’re getting rid of so much of the old nostalgia of Nashville, and I hate that,” Webb says. “It was bittersweet, but the only way we could put this together was for the mall to be totally [turned] into something else.”
RiverGate Mall was listed for sale in March 2024, and Merus bought the site for $33 million in February of this year — after plans to begin construction in fall 2025 stalled. Metro reported in May 2025 that it had lost more than $10 million in property tax revenue because of the site’s decrease in popularity in recent years.
Locals will see the site’s first groundbreaking in February or March: 350 units of multifamily housing across three buildings. The retail section and green space will begin soon after, Poole says. Retail offerings will one day include a mix of restaurants, wellness businesses and retail stores, and he says he’d like to see a mix of national and local tenants. By late 2028, the first phase of residential buildings is slated to be completed, with the full project to be completed in phases through 2031.
Most of the site appears demolished today, with Dillard’s to remain standing and Guitar Center to remain on site in an upgraded building. The site will be walkable from each of its buildings, Poole says, and Merus is set to donate a portion of the area to WeGo Public Transit.
There’s nowhere to go but up from here in Webb’s eyes. She says she hopes for some higher-end restaurants in the area. Right now, it’s heavy on fast food and chain restaurants, including a recently opened In-N-Out.
“The city of Goodlettsville has got nothing,” she says. “It’s just been sitting there because everything’s been empty. I think [the redevelopment is] going to really, really be an economic drive for that area for us.”
Bo Lee, manager of RiverGate Wines & Liquors, is hopeful. Housing in the area could mean more customers for his business. The family-owned store is one of a few that have been there as long as the mall was. Nearby, Old Time Pottery is set to close and be converted to a Gabe’s discount store after 15 years in business.
“We’re part of that old RiverGate, and we’ll hopefully be part of the new RiverGate,” Lee says. “We made it when nothing else did. That’s what I’m gambling on.”
