Street View is a monthly column in which we take a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
Over the past two years, Lipscomb University has been on a significant property-buying spree. In 2022, Scene sister publication the Nashville Post reported that Lipscomb purchased a property at 4101 Belmont Blvd. for $1.9 million in August, three nearby single-family properties for an additional $1.95 million in September, two properties on Ferndale Avenue for $1.38 million in October, and a home on Morrow Avenue for $949,000 in December. This year, Lipscomb’s buying spree continued: In February, it bought a Glen Echo Road property for $3.26 million, and in August, it bought another home at 1309 Grandview Drive for $909,500.
Notably, Lipscomb bought every one of the above properties from RER Partnership. According to Post reports, Lipscomb has spent about $7 million buying RER properties in the past two years. (In late January, Lipscomb also bought a property on Ferndale Avenue from board of trustees chair David Solomon. Lipscomb officials did not respond to the Scene’s specific questions about their connection to RER.)
As the university continued purchasing properties from RER, it also amended its master plan to expand its campus. In April, Lipscomb petitioned Nashville’s Metro Council to convert two areas of R10 and CN zoning adjacent to the campus to institutional overlay zoning. The R10 zoning currently limits the land’s use to low-density residential buildings — typically one or two homes per lot — whereas institutional overlay zoning would give the university more flexibility to develop properties differently, though the school would still have to go through a planning process with Metro to do so. An amended plan that didn’t include the properties west of Belmont Boulevard passed on third reading and was signed by Mayor John Cooper in July.
Lipscomb spokesperson Kim Chaudoin tells the Scene that the updated institutional overlay is a routine process required by the Metro Planning Commission every 10 years. Lipscomb created its original master plan in 1988; the city adopted it in 2003. Since then, there have been amendments in 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2023.
Lipscomb’s campus is currently about 112 acres — a bit larger than Belmont University’s (92 acres) and about a third the size of Vanderbilt’s (340 acres); Vanderbilt has also expanded significantly in recent years. Lipscomb’s latest proposed master plan includes new areas of institutional overlay zoning south of Grandview Drive and east of Granny White Pike.
4000 Granny White Pike
When the 2023 master plan suggested expanding institutional overlay zoning to three properties west of Belmont Boulevard, local residents spoke in opposition.
Russell Willis is the president of the Avalon Neighborhood Association, a group of neighbors who have worked with Lipscomb since the original master plan’s adoption in 2003. Willis says Avalon opposed the university’s multiple requests to expand the institutional overlay zoning west of Belmont Boulevard.
“The university initially proposed expanding west of Belmont back in 2004 but agreed to withdraw that request when Avalon opposed the request,” Willis says. “The university made a second effort several years ago, which Avalon opposed. That expansion request was denied by Metro.”
This summer, when Lipscomb tried again, Avalon again opposed the expansion. A group of Green Hills residents created an online petition, and Avalon sent a written objection to the university. In a Metro Planning Committee meeting on May 11, residents raised concerns about developing in local floodplains and giving the community enough chance to give input on the IO zoning. (Some of the initial scheduled meetings happened shortly after the Covenant School shooting, which impacted the community response process.)
Willis, who has been involved with the Avalon Neighborhood Association since its inception, says communication with the university has overall been “fairly good,” but that the latest planning process was the first time Lipscomb didn’t contact the group about proposed changes prior to community meetings — something he says “had been the standard practice for the past 15-plus years.” At the planning meeting, some residents said Lipscomb had not notified them about proposed zoning changes, but university spokesperson Brent Culberson says it sent all residents within 1,250 feet of the campus written notifications and also posted about it on Nextdoor.
While Lipscomb is a major landowner in Nashville, the campus’s expansion wouldn’t necessarily affect the city’s housing shortage in direct ways. The university typically buys parcels with single-family homes in R10 zoning or similar: not areas zoned for high-density projects.
Metro’s 2021 Affordable Housing Task Force report estimated that the city would have to produce 5,250 new affordable units every year to keep up with demand; the same study estimated that the city built only 1,344 affordable units per year.
In its own high-density student housing, Lipscomb’s least expensive double dorm rooms are $4,126 per four-month semester, or about $1,000 per month.
4101 Belmont Blvd.
Regardless of the campus’s impact on local housing, Lipscomb’s Green Hills neighbors won’t see any significant changes anytime soon. “The additional properties that were added to the institutional overlay are already owned by the university, and we plan on continuing with their current usage,” Chaudoin says. She also confirms that Lipscomb has removed the properties west of Belmont Boulevard from its institutional overlay application.
At the Metro Planning Commission meeting and elsewhere, neighbors of Lipscomb acknowledged some perks of living close to a university, like proximity to green spaces and other facilities. And community advocates say Lipscomb’s willingness to take on community input has made growing pains easier. “History has shown that engagement with Avalon and interested neighbors has improved every master plan proposed by the university,” says Willis.
As with many universities, Lipscomb’s property acquisition seems far from over. But as the school grows and changes, its track record of community engagement hopefully signals a collaborative future. And for now, a sleepy enclave west of Belmont Boulevard won’t welcome a new dorm — or a parking garage.
Correction: A previous version of this story noted that RER Partnership includes Lipscomb alumnus Bruce Church. Church tells the Scene he is not affiliated with RER.
