Tony Giarratana
With its string of vacant and abandoned spaces, the block of Ellison Place between Louise Avenue and 22nd Avenue North — long known as the Rock Block — feels a lot different than it did as little as a decade ago.
Tony Giarratana of Giarratana Development has not forgotten, but he did halt work there. Six years after the initial announcement of Rock Block Flats, Giarratana plans to break ground on the project by the end of the year. Giarratana tells the Scene the apartment market is to blame for the delay. Downtown Nashville was among the nation’s leaders in housing production between 2020 and 2025, according to a study from Urban Institute. But those newly built apartments are also experiencing high vacancies.
“Starting a new apartment project was at best irresponsible,” Giarratana says.
In the meantime, he completed downtown towers Alcove and Prime, with the firm’s 60-story Paramount building underway. While downtown high-rise residential buildings have been Giarratana’s modus operandi, he broke form in 2019 when he bought Elliston Place Soda Shop the night it closed — eventually moving it to a larger space next door to its original location.
From there, Giarratana acquired the majority of the block on both sides of Elliston Place, stopping short of longtime music venues The End on the south side and Exit/In on the north. (The latter was acquired by development company AJ Capitol, along with Hurry Back next door, in 2021.) Behind the preserved historic facades that formerly fronted The Gold Rush, Smack, Samurai Sushi and others will sit Rock Block Flats, a six-story apartment building.
After that, Giarratana is planning to complete a 17-story mixed-use building with the working name 22 Elliston in the former Corner Bar space, which he hopes will be anchored by Chicago Italian restaurant Quartino. Behind it will be a parking garage.
Elliston Place, spring 2026
In addition, there will be a “pocket park” covering the side street in front of Ducklo EyeCare, complete with a pedestrian crosswalk and traffic-calming paving connecting it across Elliston.
Giarratana has a certain attachment to the area, despite not being a showgoer. After moving to Nashville in 1984, he would bring out-of-town guests to beloved longtime (and now shuttered) Elliston restaurant Rotier’s for a burger, and was known to enjoy a bean roll at The Gold Rush or a sandwich from Mosko’s — two more Rock Block staples that have since closed. The area is also valuable in its proximity to Centennial Park, a slew of medical centers and Vanderbilt University — and, perhaps one day, a West End connection to The Boring Company’s in-construction Music City Loop, he says. As with any of his projects, Giarratana wants it to be walkable for residents.
“I think this area is a jewel,” he tells the Scene. “I think this is a classic diamond in the rough. That’s how I view this area.”
Giarratana says he hasn’t gotten much pushback on his plans.
“We’ve had no pushback at all, because folks understand that for this street to survive, it just can’t be carried by a little restaurant or two in these buildings,” he says. “There’s no way. You have to have a concentration of residents. That’s the key. You need residents. You need people. You need people living here, walking on the streets, creating a healthy, vibrant environment.”
Two of the businesses listed on the 2020-erected Rock Block historical marker near Exit/In — The Gold Rush and Mosko’s — could even make a comeback. Giarratana has long teased bringing The Gold Rush back as part of Rock Block Flats, and maintains that plan today.
Mosko’s founder Scott Moskowitz is semi-retired now. He tells the Scene he’d love to mentor a young business owner who might want to take on the mantle of his former newsstand, which grew to include sales of greeting cards, beer, cigars and sandwiches in its tenure from the late ’70s to the early 2000s.
If you ask Moskowitz, the new Rock Block should reproduce each of the businesses it had in 1992 — record store Discount Records, leather goods retailer Sundance, Elder’s Bookstore, Obie’s Pizza, Anthony Jewelers, Tony Roma’s and even TGI Friday’s.
“Everything that’s old comes around and gets new again,” Moskowitz tells the Scene. “If you give them an authentic piece of Nashville, you will blow everybody away.”
Perhaps Elliston Place should have a mission, he pitches: helping fledgling entrepreneurs.
“Why don’t we change the story and the narrative of ‘small business can’t make it in Nashville’?” says Moskowitz. “Why don’t we make that the theme of the Rock Block? ‘We’re going to create a place where small businesses can thrive.’”
Even though Beau Gaultier has been in Nashville for only eight years, the nostalgia for the block has reached him. Gaultier opened his bar and cafe Verna last year in the former home of Cafe Coco.
A photo exploration of Elliston Place in spring 2026 by MTSU student Rin Garrett
“I do remember very vividly when I first moved here, walking down this street and seeing somebody just ripping a weed pen in Gold Rush and thinking, ‘This place is awesome,’” he says.
Gaultier says it’s been “brutal” earning the trust of former Cafe Coco regulars.
“This part of town is really precious to people who have been here for so long, but it does feel uniquely resistant to change [because of] people’s nostalgia and their opinions,” he tells the Scene. “It’s a very uphill battle to get that trust.”
Bruce Fitzpatrick, venerable owner and talent booker at The End, does hope to see his old hangouts like Gold Rush or Rotier’s return. But, he says, he’d really like to see the Rock Block host a dance club with DJs every night. He argues that a deli like Mitchell in East Nashville could do “gangbuster business” on the Rock Block too. Chiefly, he hopes the redevelopment happens soon — he was ready for the change several years ago.
“Just hopefully they will put some new businesses down here that people want to come to and hang out, and then that would revitalize the Rock Block again,” Fitzpatrick says.
