The Nashville Planning Department announced Tuesday morning that it intends to award a major city contract to the Fallon Company, a national real estate developer based in Boston. The company has done extensive waterfront development in Boston and several projects in Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C. Fallon will oversee the city’s push to completely redevelop the East Bank, currently home to Nissan Stadium and the future home of the Titans’ new $2.1 billion domed arena.
Metro procurement officer Scott Ferguson shared the city’s decision with all bidders — eight in total — on Tuesday. The city opened bidding on the project in late February. (Metro’s current list of open government contracts can be found here.) Fallon will be responsible for “an initial development area of approximately 30 acres of City-owned land on the East Bank,” according to the city’s initial posting, and will work with global construction firm Turner and Brentwood-based Polk & Associates to build out the site, termed the “Central Waterfront District” in development materials.
Says Metro spokesperson Richel Albright in a press release: “A procurement panel evaluated eight proposals and, after three rounds of review, selected the winning bidder based on their ability to deliver a project that builds a neighborhood that best serves Nashville, including: green spaces, affordable housing, multimodal infrastructure, and high-quality design."
Largely thanks to a high-scoring “Development and Infrastructure Plan and Approach,” Fallon edged out second-place finisher Marquee Development Services, the Chicago-based firm that stood up Wrigleyville, a favorite comparison for Nashville’s new Titans stadium district. Fallon’s proposal includes hotel and residential towers on both sides of Korean Veterans Boulevard, a landing for boats, multiple plazas and an extension of the downtown pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland.
Outgoing Councilmember Freddie O’Connell, who faces Alice Rolli in Thursday’s runoff election for mayor, acknowledged the city’s decision at a Tuesday morning meeting of the Economic Club of Nashville. O’Connell, who voted against the most recent lease documents that came before the Metro Council, pledged to work with the Titans as a partner and called the East Bank Vision Plan one of the city’s “most important planning documents.”
“If we do some of the things in that document," said O'Connell, "including hitting some of the ambitious affordable housing targets, we can produce on the East Bank a level of housing, a new set of urban neighborhoods with high quality, that increase, again, the number of people that are choosing to live and spend time in downtown that are locals."
Of the proposal’s 1,590 residential units, Fallon labels 1,095 as “affordable” and 495 as “market rate." Fallon estimates that the affordability mix would cost the city $370 million in foregone property taxes and ground lease payments over 30 years when compared to developing all units at market rate. Site renderings don’t include the PSC Metals scrapyard, a key piece of East Bank real estate controlled by billionaire Carl Icahn.
The city hopes to transform the East Bank — currently a sprawling industrial park — alongside a new $2.1 billion domed stadium for the Tennessee Titans. The new project, which will cost more than $1 billion in city money, was a major focal point for outgoing Mayor John Cooper. Cooper will leave office before the project has broken ground.
