The city reopened Second Avenue today five years after a local conspiracy theorist bombed the downtown commercial district on Dec. 25, 2020. Mayor Freddie O’Connell presided over the public ceremony alongside key personnel who helped steer the multilateral effort between business interests, city planners, property owners and construction crews. Plywood and barbed wire still protect many of the historic brick facades that line the avenue, which was once known as Market Street and housed the city’s riverside commercial hub.
Five years ago, known conspiracy theorist Anthony Quinn Warner detonated an RV outside an AT&T utility center on Second Ave between Church Street and Commerce Street. In 2019 law enforcement had visited his Antioch home, where Quinn reportedly planned the bombing and kept the RV used in the Christmas Day attack. On Monday, O’Connell made reference to the chaotic year that also included COVID lockdowns, destructive tornadoes.
Since the bombing, the stretch that connects Broadway with the Historic Metro Courthouse has suffered from various states of extended partial and total closures while crews repaired, rebuilt and remade the street.
“We have 47 new granite pavers that tell the story of Second Avenue and the long history of this ground we stand on, and it is all of Nashville's story,” O’Connell said during his ceremonial remarks. “Beautiful and tragic, eventful and noteworthy, dating all the way back to the time when we knew this as Market Street. And if we think back even just to 2020 and how difficult a year it was for the city of Nashville to have a devastating tornado tear through big parts of the city to then, as we had just begun recovery of that, to have to contend with COVID. And then to end the year on this devastating exclamation mark — it’s incredible how much progress we have made over the last five years.”
He nodded to efforts by his chief performance officer Kristin Wilson and former mayor John Cooper while giving tremendous credit to Michelle Scopel of the East Bank Development Authority who helped lead the complex Second Avenue rebuilding process.
The ceremony took place steps from Mel’s Drive-In, a retro-themed diner opened last year by Colton Weiss. Weiss also addressed the crowd as a hopeful investor in the street’s future success.
While fresh asphalt and historic pavers give a newfound facelift to the downtown strip, major sections of the street still bear visible scars from the destruction wrought by the Christmas Day explosion. Several are set to be demolished while others, like the historic Rhea Building, are slowly moving forward with renovations. Scopel explains that insurance disputes and indecision from owners have left several parcels frozen in time.
“I think there are nine individual buildings still vacant in disrepair,” Scopel tells the Scene. “ We were hoping that progress would happen a little faster, but a lot of these owners are still dealing with insurance issues and deciding how to rebuild. Several are now under construction, so they’re in motion, which is great, and I think we'll see more and more opening.”
The city has a few finishing touches planned for the first few months of 2026, including retail kiosks and a mural designed by Phil Ponder to light up the blank gray wall on the side of the AT&T building.
