Less than a month after Mayor John Cooper's office announced that Metro would purchase the former Hickory Hollow Mall, the deal is making its way through Metro Council on a pressurized timeline amid murky details.
“I know it’s a lot, and a lot to get through,” director of legislative affairs Mike Jameson told the Budget and Finance Committee Monday night amid questions about the deal’s timeline and details. Jameson typically liaises with council on behalf of the mayor, who was absent Monday. “I feel for you, and the mayor feels for you.”
The deal’s accompanying legislation — two purchase agreements totaling $44 million and a resolution issuing that debt plus contingency — passed the committee late Monday night. It will be discussed at Tuesday's Metro Council meeting. Councilmembers At-Large Bob Mendes and Sharon Hurt peppered Jameson with questions and concerns. Mendes even invoked the ghost of once-Councilmember John Cooper, who built his brand on detracting from Metro land deals — especially half-baked ones — during his time on the Budget and Finance Committee.
Mendes voted against the legislation and Hurt abstained. Seven other committee members voted for the deal. Few asked questions or joined the discussion with the exception of Councilmember At-Large Burkley Allen, who credited Vanderbilt University Medical Center's 100 Oaks location with creating a greater diversity in dining options that now exist around Berry Hill. VUMC had a full bench in the gallery, including government relations executive Matthew Scanlan and Sam Reed, a founding partner at prolific local lobbying shop Jigsaw.
Tuesday is the last meeting before councilmembers see the mayor’s budget, at which time Council Rule 21 — which can be suspended — prohibits discussion on issuing debt.
In the mayor’s best-case scenario, the acquisition would make Metro a landlord with VUMC as its anchor tenant. A letter of intent indicates that VUMC rent would cover debt service on its portion of the property, leaving Metro to figure out the other $1.6 million owed for the rest of the property. There are a lot of potentials and TBDs, but no lease with VUMC or any other potential tenant at this time. The acquisition would be a significant step into the real estate business, with Metro managing leases and filling thousands of square feet of space. Mendes has made many Global Mall documents public on his campaign website, including correspondence in the past 24 hours between the mayor’s office, Metro legal, Metro finance and the council.
The site is at the intersection of Bell Road and I-24, a key hub for Antioch and Southeast Nashville. Until it closed in 2019, the site hosted businesses owned and run by Coptic, Black, Latinx and Arab Nashvillians, but struggled to maintain high occupancy. Theoretically, Vanderbilt would give the Global Mall the 100 Oaks treatment, remaking the site into an outpost for the billion-dollar health care provider.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which formally separated from Vanderbilt University in 2016, generates $5 billion in revenue each year and pays top executives private-sector salaries. Hurt pointed out that VUMC, a rapidly expanding health care giant, doesn’t exist to serve underserved Nashvillians. She contrasted Vanderbilt with Nashville General and aired concerns about VUMC crowding out smaller providers in the area. TriStar has a family practice nearby and a brand-new emergency room a few blocks away.
The Tennessean and NewsChannel 5 have cast the Global Mall as a done deal, repackaging the mayor’s press release from late March. That reporting has helped frame councilmembers, still raising major concerns with the mayor’s plan, as potentially killing a done deal rather than evaluating a potential acquisition. Based on current documentation, the deal is less firm than the mayor’s office press release indicated last month.
The acquisition would also take Metro, typically a provider of services like education, transportation, infrastructure, and (sometimes) trash and recycling pickup, further into the business of real estate. Next week, Cooper will deliver the 59th annual State of Metro address at the Southeast Community Center, a Metro property adjacent to the mall.
