Nashville BNA Vision

Airport to add Grand Ole Lobby, hotel, train link to city, and more in ambitious expansion plan

Nashville International Airport today released a $1.2 billion plan to expand the airport to keep up with Nashville’s explosive growth.  BNA Vision, as it’s being called, will expand the airport to attract new flights and connect flyers with better ground transportation options, among other things.  The entire plan is not yet set in stone because “precise details of BNA Vision will evolve as individual projects take shape,” the press release states.

To connect the airport to the city, airport officials are already building a new parking garage with 2,000 spaces.  This new garage, which is part of BNA Vision, is expected to be done in about two years.  They also made a vague mention of expanding multi-modal transit “to link BNA to future Nashville transit system.”  The rendering of the plan appears to show a train exiting the airport and heading south on Donelson Pike, away from downtown.  Some redditors speculated that the train will only link the concourse to buses along Murfreesboro Pike:

BNA Vision also calls for expanding the building’s capacity to handle more flights, especially coveted international ones.  They’re already in the process of expanding Concourse A with an international arrival area.  Concourse B will be extended to add more gates and retail/food options.  And Concourse D, which was disused a number of years ago (it was a ground-level terminal for commuter flights before that), will get a major extension.

Part of the expansion includes building a larger central lobby, which they’re calling Grand Ole Lobby.  It’s supposed to have an airy feel with lots of natural light flowing in.  The Grand Ole Lobby will consolidate ticketing, baggage check in, baggage claim, and security lanes.  They’re also planning to more than double the security lanes to 24.

Two more big changes are in the wings.  To make room for all this expansion (and to improve traffic flow), they’d like to move Donelson Pike a little to the east.  This would require the cooperation of the state, though, since it’s a state highway.  And then there’s hope for a 200- to 300-room hotel, though they don’t yet have any partners in that enterprise.

They even made a video for you:

According to airport chief Rob Wigington,

“By 2035, the population of the Greater Nashville Area is expected to surpass 2.5 million people, and Nashville International Airport’s passenger traffic will grow from 12 million today to more than 20 million. We are experiencing this rapid growth firsthand as we set new air passenger records every week, month and year. The projects comprising our BNA Vision are designed to meet the demands of this growth and address everything from international travel, to improved security wait times to more gates, parking and ease of access– all with passenger safety and convenience in mind. We’re excited to share this vision and provide a glimpse of how BNA will transform over the next several years.”

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Nashville has a new makerspace

Some dedicated Nashvillians have just opened up a new community workshop.  This workshop, or makerspace, is a place where members make physical things.  The building is outfitted with an array of different machines, project lockers, and a few classrooms.  According to Make Nashville’s website,

…after years of planning, fundraising, and the efforts of dozens of volunteers we have opened Nashville’s first all-ages non-profit makerspace!  This over 9,500 square foot facility shared with two nonprofit partners enables us to host workshops, builds, events, and provide members with the space and equipment to create some truly amazing things.  We expect to see inspiring art installations, innovative inventions, incredible feats of science and technology, market-changing entrepreneurial prototypes,  skills-strenthening projects, crazy and fun maker builds, and awesome feats of education in the space.  We hope you will join us.

Tonight, they held a grand opening celebration.  There were a bunch of people there to check it out:

Make Nashville even took us on a Facebook Live video tour of the new space:

The coop-owned space will have tools for a number of different types of projects, including:

  • Electronics benches
  • Metalworking tools
  • Laser cutting and CNC router
  • Sewing and leather working spaces
  • Classroom space
  • Meeting/performance/gathering space
  • Digital dome and projection lab

Even though Make Nashville has been around since 2012, holding annual Mini Maker Faires, this is its first physical location. The makerspace will only be open to dues-paying members (they estimate $50-75 a month) and class participants.  It’s located in East Nashville at 947 Woodland St.

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Police search in East Nashville

Something’s going on, but we’re not quite sure what, in East Nashville.  Just a little while ago, lunapetunia reported what she saw from the corner of Gallatin Rd and Eastland Ave:

What’s going on in East Nashville? from nashville

Mahale and Sydnee concurred:

I just stepped outside to see that there was a helicopter circling over Maxwell Heights and Greenwood, shining a spotlight down on the ground.

Update:

Ariana Maia Sawyer, of The Tennessean, reported that the search is over, though Blair Hickman isn’t so sure:

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The Lorax of Nashville

There’s one citizen who’s made a name for himself preserving Nashville’s urban trees.  He calls himself the Lorax of Nashville, for he speaks for the trees.

Jim Gregory lives in East Nashville and is alarmed at the rate of tree canopy loss in his neighborhood.  “There is a noticeable amount of mature trees being cut down and either not being replaced or being replaced with something that does not have a tree canopy,” he told The Tennessean.  He’s especially concerned about developers who are in it for the money — and who only care about the trees when money is involved, he claims.  In an Instagram post, Gregory wrote, “Developers do not understand neighborly love, but they do understand money and that’s the language we had to speak with them.”

In addition to looking out for the trees of his neighbors and future neighbors, he’s done a little reforestation of on his own property:

Head on over to Jen Todd’s piece in The Tennessean for the whole story.

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Take a look at Nashville’s racial segregation

In 2013, Dustin Cable of the University of Virginia released a map showing the racial makeup of different neighborhoods.  In fact, in this map, one dot represents one person, and their dot is colored according to their race.

This data is based on the 2010 census, which, as a few redditors pointed out, may be a little out-of-date for Nashville:

Just how much of a change there will be in the 2020 census remains to be seen.  While some urban neighborhoods may be gentrifying, a large part of the Nashville area may remain mostly unchanged.

Want to look at it in more detail?  Check out the map for yourself.

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Storms hit West Nashville this evening

In East Nashville, all we got was the rumble of thunder.  Meanwhile, in West Nashville:

Jacques Woodstock heard a raucous in Sylvan Park, likely due to the lightning strike at Sylvan Park Paideia School:

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