Mayor Freddie O’Connell on Friday confirmed multiple active insurance claims related to a destructive fire in a downtown parking garage that has caused the ongoing closure of the adjoining Nashville Public Library.
No one was hurt in the blaze, which started in the early morning of June 10. It caused substantial structural damage to the parking structure at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Commerce Street and extensive smoke damage to the adjoining library.
As patrons await a reopening date for the city’s flagship branch, weeks have stretched to months, following repeated messages of uncertainty from civic leaders. City lawyers previously approved general liability insurance and fire insurance policies in a lease with the Nashville Downtown Partnership renewed in 2023.
City and Nashville Downtown Partnership head toward an insurance nightmare
The NDP, an influential business organization that oversees various quasi-governmental functions in the urban core, previously told the Scene that it had leased a fourth-floor storage room where the blaze originated to a Kentucky-based subcontractor, Block by Block. Photo evidence published by the Scene shows flammable gas containers found in the aftermath of the storage area. The NDP did not immediately respond to the Scene’s request for comment.
The overlapping mix of contracts, liability and insurance policies, as well as an estimated tens of millions of dollars in damage, has the makings of a prolonged legal battle involving Metro, NDP and Block by Block. Metro councilmembers have privately expressed concerns that the city will be on the hook for repair costs.
“ I know that there are a bunch of claims and contracts related to the garage,” Mayor O’Connell told reporters at a Friday press conference. “ We're going to have to figure out how Metro's claims — with people that had parking contracts in the garage and [the Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure] as the owner of the garage — we’re not sure how that's all gonna play out in terms of who pays for what and on what timeline. There’s still some lack of clarity.”
The construction and repair process has moved slowly and frustrated library officials.
“ My sense on the latest updates is there is now a lot of clarity on some of the work that can be done on the garage,” O’Connell explained. “In my conversations with Terry Luke, the director of the library, I don't think there's anyone more frustrated than her about being unable to open the branch as soon as she had hoped to. They have continued to find — and have been told by the people inspecting the facility — that the deeper they have gotten into the facility, the more challenging it is to get things open.”
Last month, NDOT and Metro Legal officials said that the garage’s lower levels may soon reopen but did not provide any exact dates.
