The Mays vs the Nashville Vision for the future Scottsboro/Bells Bend tennessean.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tennessean.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Chance to Preserve Portion of Bells Bend as Public Land Likely Lost Forever Real estate investors Frank and Jack May purchased 682 acres once eyed by Briley for green space Tweet
Tidwell HollowPhoto: Daniel Meigs
Nearly two years ago, in June 2019, then-Mayor David Briley thrilled public lands advocates with his announcement that he wanted Metro to acquire 789 acres of green space on Bells Bend for parks and greenways. There were 107 acres used as a turf farm by Thomas Bros. Grass at the southern tip of the bend, plus 682 acres owned by the Graves family that were originally the farm of David Lipscomb, further north on the bend near Tidwell Hollow. Neither of the tracts is contiguous with the existing Bells Bend Park, but they are close. The turf farm was priced at $1.5 million and the Graves property at $7.8 million. Both were to be purchased using the parks department’s Greenways Acquisition Fund.
Saving Caldwell Nature Park: a community fights to keep Ashland City s only natural area as council discusses sale
Community members are fighting to save an Ashland City park after a recent city council meeting threatened the natural area’s future.
Caldwell Nature Park, on Caldwell Road in Ashland City, has become a topic of debate among councilmembers and area residents, who ve banded together on social media in an effort to save it.
“It’s just beautiful,” said Holly Spann, a local resident and creator of the Save Caldwell Nature Park Facebook page. “Some people like the woods, and they want to get back into the sticks. Some people just like an open green space, and that’s the beauty of Caldwell Nature Park.
The sellers were members of the Graves family.
The Mays are perhaps best known for their long-standing ownership of various downtown Nashville properties and their failed attempt more than a decade ago to build the proposed May Town Center, which would have offered office, retail and residential buildings on Bells Bend (read
Itâs worth noting that neither Metro officials nor many Joelton and Scottsboro residents were particularly receptive to the Maysâ desire to undertake May Town Center, citing traffic concerns among other issues. The massive mixed-use development would have required, the Mays contended, a bridge spanning the Cumberland River and connecting Bells Bend to the city (specifically, Charlotte Park). Metro said it would not provide funding for the bridge.