Rock Block Leads Nashville Nine's List of Endangered Places

Preservation nonprofit Historic Nashville Inc. announced its annual Nashville Nine list of the city's most endangered places Thursday outside of Exit/In.

It was a fitting location, as Elliston Place's "Rock Block" topped this year's list. Earlier this year, business owners and residents — including Exit/In owner Chris Cobb — helped fight off a proposed rezoning that would have allowed for 15-story structures on nearby properties, essentially opening what has been the hotbed of Nashville's rock 'n' roll scene to hotel development. It was a prospect Cobb and others said would harm their businesses and irrevocably change the nature of the neighborhood.

"Development continues to encroach on The Rock Block, since every block that surrounds it has seen recent construction," said Historic Nashville in a release. "The Rock Block, however, still looks much the same as it did 40 years ago, an eclectic mixture of music venues, restaurants, small shops, and other businesses — the kind of neighborhood that frequently falls victim to Nashville’s growth."

The other eight members of this year's list are:

Historic Homes of Belle Meade: While many of the early- to mid-20th-century homes remain in Davidson County's toniest enclave, HNI says a record number have been demolished in recent years.

Says HNI: "Recent community input has also brought attention to the excessive number of teardowns and speculative designs proposed by builders who often sacrifice quality for profit. To combat these challenges, the City of Belle Meade has begun a process to establish a conservation overlay to protect the historic character of this beautiful area. An overlay would mean all requests for demolitions and new construction within the designated historic zone would be subject to review by a newly-appointed Historic Zoning Commission. The HZC has already begun work on drafting the design guidelines that would be used to review applications for 'certificates of appropriateness' within the proposed overlay. A City Commission vote to establish the conservation overlay is expected to take place later this year."

Mount Olivet Cemetery Vault: The 164-year-old Mount Olivet Cemetery includes four "contributing structures" to its National Register of Historic Places eligibility, but the oldest is the vault, built between 1856 and 1862. It was designed by Adolphus Heiman, who also designed St. Mary of the Seven Sorrows Catholic Church and Belmont Mansion. The vault was built as a "cooling room" where bodies could be kept until a proper burial site could be found. The Sons of Confederate Veterans leased the vault as a museum for years, but now due to safety concerns, the vault is closed. Another contributing structure at the cemetery — the chapel and office — was included on the Nashville Nine in 2009 but was destroyed by fire in January 2015.

Burrus Hall at Fisk University: Built in 1945 and named for brothers James and John Burrus — half of Fisk's first graduating class in 1875 — Burrus Hall has been used as a dorm, music building and faculty apartments. Two arson fires damaged the building in 1978. Its last renovation came in 1992. Many windows have been boarded up for 10 years, there is damage to the entranceway, and the building is beginning to be choked out with vegetation. 

Home for Aged Masons and Masonic School: At one time, the property that is now the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation campus on Hart Lane was an extensive multi-use facility run by the Freemasons. The two remaining historic structures are the Home for Aged Masons, built in 1913, and the school, finished two years later. The state purchased the property for use as a tuberculosis hospital in 1941 but vacated the property in the 1990s. Preservationists and politicians beat back a state plan to demolish the building in 2016, but no restoration efforts have taken place.

Postwar Midcentury and Minimal Traditional Housing: HNI says many of the city's suburban neighborhoods featuring post-World War II housing stock could be eligible for historic designations, but the potential is threatened by developers of tall-and-skinnies (or to use HNI's charming phrase "middle-of-nowhere-USA design"). The group also notes that destruction of the legacy homes deplenishes the city's stock of affordable housing.

Downtown Nashville: HNI notes that because most of the remaining historic structures downtown are between two and six stories, they are prime targets for development. Further, the group found that the Downtown Code, which limits building height and offers some level of protection for historic structures, "has been flexible in its interpretation." 

Morris Memorial Building: The wedding-cake building near the Metro Courthouse was built in the 1920s for the Sunday School Publishing Board of the National Baptist Convention, at the time the country's largest historically African American Christian denomination. It was constructed on what once was the site of the Commercial Hotel, which — during antebellum times — had a slave market within. The Morris Building made the Nashville Nine in 2016 and seemed destined for preservation when the city floated plans to purchase and refurbish it. Those plans have been abandoned.

Federal Reserve Building: Nashville was once the Wall Street of the South, leading the federal government to locate a federal reserve in the city in the 1920s. The bank moved from Third Avenue to Eighth in 1958. The structure's current owner is Bill Miller — owner of the Johnny Cash Museum — and HNI says there is chatter he wants to add height to the building and convert it to a hotel. HNI says this would lead to it losing its designation as a contributing structure to the Nashville Financial District's NHP listing and would compromise the building's historic integrity.