THE HONEY COLLECTIVE
RON DESANTIS
JULY 20, 2023 | VOLUME 35 | NUMBER 28
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Belle Meade Plaza site set for project sells for $87M BY WILLIAM WILLIAMS
Campaign signs outside of a Nashville voting precinct.
PHOTO BY MATT MASTERS
Early voting begins for mayor, vice mayor, Metro Council BY ELI MOTYCKA
Early voting began on Friday, July 14, for Nashville’s municipal elections. An open race for mayor tops the ballot, while Vice Mayor Jim Shulman tries to defend his seat against a challenge from Councilmember Angie Henderson. All 40 seats on the Metro Council are up, including five countywide at-large positions. Some voters in East and South Nashville will choose their state representative in special elections for Districts 51 and 52, following Republicans’ expulsion of incumbent Democrat Rep. Justin Jones and the June 4 death of Rep. Bill Beck. In a field of 12 mayoral candidates, polling and fundraising put District 19 Councilmember Freddie O’Connell and former city finance executive Matt Wiltshire in strong positions to make the runoff, while
state Sen. Jeff Yarbro has the most money on hand to spend. No candidate is expected to win outright with more than 50 percent of the vote, setting up a bonus month of campaigning for the race’s top two vote-getters — like Megan Barry and David Fox in 2015, and John Cooper and David Briley in 2019. Wiltshire has already started fundraising for a runoff push, an apparent campaign finance violation reported by the Nashville Banner. The campaign explained it was acting on bad advice from the Davidson County Election Commission and has started returning more than $36,000. A recent poll by Music City Research, commissioned by a private entity not associated with a campaign, shows 26 percent undecided less than a month before Election Day, a massive chunk of voters for candidates
to win over in home-stretch ad buys. The same poll shows O’Connell leading with 20 percent of decided voters. Wiltshire follows with 15 percent, while conservative Alice Rolli comes in third with 13 percent. (The poll was released by MCR-affiliated group Harpeth Strategies, whose president is Metro Councilmember Dave Rosenberg. Rosenberg has endorsed O’Connell.) All early voting locations will be open to Davidson County residents from Friday, July 14, to Saturday, July 29. The Banner also reported that Davidson County has added 63,157 people to voter rolls since the last local elections in 2019. This story was first published by our sister publication Nashville Scene.
The Belle Meade Plaza shopping center eyed for a high-profile mixed-use development has sold for $87 million. According to a Davidson County Register of Deeds document, the new owner is an LLC affiliated with Nashville-based Adventurous Journeys (AJ) Capital Partners. The seller was an LLC affiliated with Nashville’s May family, which seemingly paid $14.5 million for the property in January 1997, according to Metro records. The property also includes the Kroger structure, with the grocery business to eventually relocate to the former Belle Meade Theater building, the space last occupied by a Harris Teeter. Relatedly, and according to a separate document, AJ Capital has landed a $45 million loan from Nationwide Life Insurance Company. The purchase comes after the Metro Council in mid-May voted on third and final reading to approve a specific plan rezoning request related to the project. That vote followed a second reading vote in early May that followed about three hours of debate and citizen feedback, as the proposal drew significant positive and negative opinions. The property includes a retail and office building hugging the White Bridge Road viaduct and recognized as the home of Agave’s Mexican Restaurant and Belle Meade Premium Cigars, among other businesses and the Kroger structure. The main address is 4500 Harding Pike. The property sits within Metro Councilmember Kathleen Murphy’s District 24, with Murphy having previously noted the project proposal offers numerous favorable elements. Murphy sponsored the rezoning bill. AJ Capital officials declined to disclose if brokers were involved in the deal. Nashville’s Robin Realty had represented the Mays for many years in the marketing and leasing of the retail spaces. >> PAGE 2
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