Nashville West shopping

Nashville West developers bet big on Charlotte PikeShopping center to house more than 20 stores

By CHAS SISK, The Tennessean

Even their own wives couldn't believe what developers Mark McDonald and William Oldacre were proposing.

An up-market shopping center on the western end of Charlotte Pike? It was too much to believe.


"They said, 'You're out of your minds. No one will go to Charlotte to shop,' " McDonald recalled. "And I said, 'You will go. It's more convenient than Green Hills.' "

McDonald, Oldacre and partner Thomas Newton are betting big that they can reshape the perceptions of people such as their spouses: affluent men and women who live in Nashville's upscale neighborhoods of Belle Meade, Green Hills and Hillwood.

Late last year, the developers' $135 million Nashville West shopping center opened on a 100-acre expanse between Interstate 40 and Charlotte Pike, bringing major national retailers to a street that historically has tended to attract few businesses larger than independent grocery stores, fast-food restaurants and small car lots.

With this project, Newton Oldacre McDonald believes it can turn the western end of Charlotte Pike into a retail center capable of challenging established trading posts in Green Hills and Cool Springs. And to make it possible, they're pouring millions of dollars into road improvements, landscaping and an expanded public park.

The investment signals a trend that is just beginning to take hold in Nashville: Developers are beginning to believe that they can build successful new shopping centers, at least partially, from the remains of old, failing ones.

Others may follow

Nashville West's fate could point the way for others interested in turning around similar outposts among Nashville's aging shopping corridors.

"It's having a great impact, and it's only going to get better as they add stores, the park," said Metro Councilman Billy Walls, whose district includes Nashville West and the surrounding neighborhood.

"It (the site) had no future. No one was even looking at that until these developers came and said, 'We're proposing this.' "

McDonald and Oldacre said they had been eyeing the property since the late 1980s. Then the property was partially occupied by the Hillwood Plaza shopping center, a strip mall anchored by Wal-Mart. That center began to slide in 1998, when Wal-Mart relocated to another shopping center farther west on Charlotte Pike.

But Newton Oldacre McDonald did not decide to take a chance until three years ago, when H.G. Hill Realty readied plans for the $70 million Hill Center at Green Hills, a 48,000-square-foot shopping center on the site of an old grocery store.

That project convinced them that a redevelopment project could work, Oldacre said.

20 stores planned

The first Nashville West store, Costco, opened in November. It has since been followed by a Target, Dick's Sporting Goods and Best Buy, among others.

Plans call for building more than 20 stores with a total of 700,000 square feet of retail space, the equivalent of 16 acres under roof.
Newtown Oldacre McDonald also envisions building six to 10 restaurants, 50,000 square feet of out-parcel space, condos and a renovated Metro park.

According to the firm's research, more than one in five households within a 10-minute drive of Nashville West earn $100,000 a year or more. That's nearly twice the ratio found in Davidson County as a whole.

Newton Oldacre McDonald believes that many of these people shop in either the increasingly crowded retail center along Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills or trek to the area around CoolSprings Galleria in Franklin.

Nashville West is one-fifth of the distance to Cool Springs for Belle Meade residents and gets far less traffic than Green Hills.

"There are no large (undeveloped) tracts of land to develop, so what you can do is take an existing site and market to the demographics," said Brian Forrester, an agent with The Shopping Center Group in Nashville. "You've got to be creative. … This is a creative project."

Landscaping costs $3 M

To lure upscale shoppers to Nashville West, Newton Oldacre McDonald strived to create a shopping experience that exceeds that of the typical shopping center. The firm spent $3 million on landscaping, including restoring and extending a 19th-century stone wall to give the center a unique look.

The firm is spending $2 million on improvements to Metro's H.G. Hill Park. Those plans include building a 4-acre park that will remain under Metro control but will be maintained by the tenants of Nashville West.

Another advantage to the location: It's not as likely to have many competitors. Shopping centers in Nashville's suburbs frequently have to fend off competitors located across the street.

But Nashville West is tucked into a fairly developed area, with the hilly topography reducing the chances that another center will enter the market soon. That means that any competitor would also have to redevelop, likely at a considerable expense.

"We don't believe there's another site like this," McDonald said.
"If there is one, we can't imagine what it is."