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James Stephen Turner — founder of Nashville development company Market Street Enterprises and one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists — died Tuesday. He was 77.
Born in 1947 in the Scottsville, Ky., Turner graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1969.
Turner spent 20 years working in the family business, Dollar General Corp., which grew from a small-town retailer into a large publicly traded company. In the process, he became a major shareholder in Dollar General, along with his brother, company CEO Cal Turner Jr.
In the early 1990s, long before any critical mass of residents lived downtown, Turner and late wife Judy Turner moved to Second Avenue North, converting to residential use a building that the H.G. Lipscomb Hardware Co. had constructed in 1892. They transformed an adjacent breezeway into Butler’s Run, named for the family dog.
Starting in 1999, Market Street Enterprises mainly focused on redeveloping the Gulch, a 60-acre former rail yard and industrial area roughly bordered by Broadway, the downtown railroad tracks, Interstate 40 and Division Street.
Market Street Enterprises transformed The Gulch into an urban neighborhood featuring hospitality, retail, office and residential properties.
“Steve gets smiley, giddy almost, when something good happens in Nashville,” then-Mayor Karl Dean said in a 2013 interview, calling Steve and Judy Turner’s involvement in Nashville “extraordinary.”
Turner was a former chairman and longtime member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s governing board. Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young issued a statement regarding the news of Turner’s death:
“Steve Turner’s leadership and vision changed Nashville in many ways. As a longtime board chairman, he saw what our museum should be, what it aspired to be — and made it so. He found new opportunities for us, forged crucial deals, and spearheaded a museum expansion in 2014 that more than doubled our size and multiplied our reach exponentially. He was a businessman with the soul of a creative artist and the heart of a champion. Simply put, he inspired us and made our museum the success it is today.”
Turner was a board member and benefactor of numerous community organizations, including the Nashville Symphony Association, the Frist Art Museum, Cumberland Region Tomorrow and Vanderbilt University. He co-chaired a Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce committee of business leaders supporting Metro schools.
In 2008, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee bestowed its annual Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award on Steve and Cal Turner. In 2011, Easter Seals named Steve Turner its Nashvillian of the Year.
Preceding Turner in death was his wife of 55 years, Judith Payne Turner, and daughter Laura Anne Turner. Survivors include his son Jay Turner, who runs Market Street Enterprises, as well as brother Cal Turner Jr.
A funeral will be held on Saturday at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m., and services will begin at noon.
