Gated Fences Will Surround Oracle's Nashville Campus

A perimeter fence with specific entrance gates will surround Oracle’s East Bank campus, according to documents filed last week with the Metro Planning Department. The tech company includes extensive details about its proposed “secure boundary,” which will separate public access areas from the private campus. Walking paths will run alongside Oracle’s fences, including the new River North Greenway and separated sidewalks along Cowan Street.

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Oracle has made slow progress on its East Bank campus since inking a jobs-for-incentives deal with the city and state in 2021. Plans, including promised infrastructure, continue to change as the company puts billions into widespread artificial intelligence adoption. Since moving to Nashville, the tech giant has struggled to keep job creation numbers on pace and recently leased new office space while its campus remains under construction.

Its relocation announcement five years ago helped then-Mayor John Cooper kick East Bank development into high gear, selling the campus as a commercial beating heart for the industrial neighborhood. Glossy renderings showed modern Oracle office space surrounded by trees, parkland and walking paths, much of which now appears to be private rather than public. Previous versions of River North maps did not show Oracle separated by walls. A water inlet, entrance gates operated by gatehouses and a barrier building also form the campus’s “secure boundary.”

New maps show the extent to which Oracle’s land will be part of, but separate from, the broader East Bank. Walls around and within the complex divide the Oracle campus into several designated regions laid out in last week’s filing. Acreage is split between private development, public areas and “Privately Owned Public Spaces” (POPS) operated by Oracle but accessible to the public. These POPS include a small retail plaza, the new greenway along the Cumberland River, a forthcoming pedestrian bridge and a tree-lined path along Cowan Street around Oracle’s secure boundary. 

“Metro Planning and [the East Bank Development Authority] were aware of Oracle’s plans for their campus security, including the fencing and gate dimensions that were shown in the documents that were filed last week,” Kerry Hayes, a spokesperson for the East Bank Development Authority, tells the Scene. “Oracle is a private workplace whose employees and visitors deserve a reasonable level of privacy and security, not unlike other places of business throughout our city.”

Oracle did not directly respond to the Scene’s request for comment about who can access its campus and any additional security measures, like private guards or video cameras. 

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The River North Urban Design Overlay — official planning guidelines designed specifically for the campus site — restrict fence height to between 6 and 10 feet. They also prohibit razor-wire and chain-link fencing. District 19 Councilmember Jacob Kupin has amended these guidelines multiple times in the past two years to accommodate Oracle development. When asked about the perimeter fence and security measures, Kupin redirected the Scene to the nearby pedestrian greenway and proposed bridge connecting Germantown and River North.

“I join my constituents in their excitement for the connectivity of the pedestrian bridge and the Oracle greenway,” Kupin tells the Scene in a statement. “After years of plans and promises we are ready to see this vision become reality.”