The redevelopment of RiverGate Mall, multifamily housing proposals and an intergovernmental agreement regarding the East Bank advanced at a Metro Council meeting Tuesday night.
RiverGate Mall Redevelopment
The council approved a measure to facilitate the redevelopment of RiverGate Mall for mixed-use purposes. The property was listed for sale in 2024, and talks of a mixed-use redevelopment began earlier this year.
Cincinnati-based Merus targets fall start on development to include residential, retail, restaurants
Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office announced on Tuesday that the city had reached an agreement with Cincinnati-based Merus (formerly known as Al. Neyer) to redevelop the 57-acre North Davidson County site.
The development is expected to offer multifamily housing and townhomes, senior housing, retail, restaurants, sport and entertainment facilities, medical and general offices, hotels and infrastructure improvements.
“We can take the lessons we've learned from the Global Mall redevelopment in Antioch and the Bellevue Mall to revitalize another space that is no longer serving the community well,” O’Connell says in a news release. “With a development partner in place, we can reimagine this space to be a community asset that brings neighbors together and enlivens the neighborhood.”
Fifty-seven of the mall’s storefronts have closed during the past five years, and Metro says it has lost more than $10 million in property tax revenue as a result of the site’s decrease in popularity and usage.
Relatedly, Metro also announced its proposal to allocate a portion of property tax revenues to the Industrial Development Board. This will establish about $22.5 million in grants to allow Merus to borrow money to offset the plan’s initial infrastructure costs, setting a limit on the amount of future taxes covered by the company for the initial loan — either $42 million or 25 years, whichever comes first.
North Davidson retail property opened in 1971, offers Target, Dillard’s, J.C. Penney
Merus has said it will reserve land for a multimodal transit facility to be used by WeGo and ensure affordable senior housing units will be available.
The Industrial Development Board will host a public meeting on the matter on May 14, and the Metro Council is expected to consider the plan at its May 20 meeting.
Multifamily Housing
The council passed an ordinance on its second of three readings to allow 20 multifamily residential units at the northwestern corner of Veritas and Saindon streets in South Nashville. The property is located across from other multifamily housing.
An eight-unit multifamily housing proposal for East Nashville passed on its second of three readings despite some neighbor concerns regarding the height of the units and potential of noise and increased traffic.
District 16 Councilmember Ginny Welsch indefinitely deferred a South Nashville zoning proposal due to lack of support from the Metro Planning Commission. The proposal would have applied an urban design overlay to 620 acres of land to increase density in the Glencliff, Radnor and Woodbine areas.
Welsch expressed her frustration with the Planning Commission, which she says is shifting too much of its focus to projects like the East Bank while her district faces a housing crisis.
“Without adequate housing, we are losing the people and places that make our district unique, and our zoning is at fault,” Welsch said.
She said she plans to bring back a form of her housing legislation in the future.
East Bank Agreement
The council approved an intergovernmental agreement between Metro and the recently established East Bank Development Authority. The agreement allows the authority to manage development projects in the East Bank.
Metro will continue to provide operating expenses, human resources, information technology and legal, financial and other administrative services to the authority. Under the agreement, the authority is required to submit an annual audit and report of its business affairs and transactions to Metro.
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
