I have never been a big baseball fan. As a kid, my Dad never kept up with baseball, it was not on our TV, there was no team here in Nashville and I never played organized Little League, although we did play backyard games. I had undeniable natural talent for the game but almost nonexistent opportunities. By the time Nashville got a professional baseball team my fastball was not what it used to be and I reluctantly decided not to try out. My buddies and I did go to some games and I even took my kids from time to time. I always had a good time when we went, but it was not something we did on a regular basis.
Minor league baseball is a uniquely American experience and Herschel Greer Stadium in Nashville was the perfect venue for this, the great American pastime. There were no Jumbo Trons, no cheerleaders, no luxury boxes, no annoying opposing fans and a long concrete troth with running water in the men’s room. It was a decidedly utilitarian stadium, general admission tickets were always cheap and in the early years you sat on wooden bleachers. It was a place to get a reasonably priced beer and a hot dog and watch some high level baseball. The game was the experience.
We always knew that Greer Stadium was in the shadow of Fort Negley, but we never gave the fort much thought. We knew it was a Federal installation, but access was denied and I am not even sure we knew it was a city park. It was just another piece of overgrown and underutilized Nashville ground. People began to recognize and appreciate the historical nature of the fort in the 90’s and in the largest expenditure of money in Metro Parks history the rehabilitation was completed and Fort Negley opened to the public on the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Nashville in December of 2004.
I have visited the fort and it is easy to see why Yankee authorities selected this site for the defense of Nashville during the blue horde occupation. It offers an excellent vantage point from which to watch the southern and western routes into the city. The north and east were protected by the Cumberland River, so any attempt by the Confederates to retake the city was likely to come from the south or west and this proved true when drug addict, General John Bell Hood blundered his already decimated army into Nashville in the winter of 1864. He was soundly defeated and the war would end in the spring of 1865.
The Nashville Sounds baseball team vacated Greer in 2014 and moved to their new home on the old Sulphur Dell site, the original home of baseball in Nashville. The site occupied by Greer is approximately 21 acres and is owned by Nashville and this site along with the fort is designated a park by the city. Located about a mile from downtown, coupled with the explosive growth of the city, makes this property a mouthwatering morsel for developers. An appraisal by Neiman-Ross Associates paid for by the city placed the free-market value of the 21 acres at $31.8 million. This is an important piece of the pie.
The vacated stadium is suffering from vandalism and zero maintenance, so whatever the city might decide to do Greer Stadium is most likely doomed to the scrap heap. In response to multiple community meetings and heavy media coverage, Nashville issued a Request for Quotation (RFQ) intended to solicit developers’ proposals for the site. The RFQ summary statement outlines the minimum qualifications:
“Proposers must be capable of providing for the comprehensive redevelopment Greer Stadium, including substantial open space and affordable housing and demonstrate a successful track record for similar projects”
By using the clear as mud term “substantial open space” the city is acknowledging the community input and desire for this site to remain a park. My yard is less than ¼ acre and every year, I enlarge existing landscape beds, add new landscape beds and other permanent features with a view to reducing or (fingers crossed) someday eliminating the “substantial open space” I have to mow.
The RFQ was issued in January of this year and multiple proposals were submitted. In March the city selected the group calling itself Cloud Hill (the name of the hill) as the winner. The principles of Cloud Hill are music industry legend T Bone Burnett, Nashville developer Bert Matthews and investment banker Tom Middleton.
Cloud Hill’s proposal includes 294 units of housing with around 80 being “set aside” as affordable, 8 acres of park space and a “neighborhood scale” market and retail area. The projected cost is around $100 million and the developers would lease the 21 acres for 99 years with a $100,000 dollar per year guarantee for ten years totaling one million into the coffers of Nashville. Revenue is to be split with the developers keeping 70% and Nashville reaping 30%. I could find no projections on estimated revenue over the life of the 99-year lease.
This is where this gets more than a little messy. Why would the city of Nashville lease one of the most desirable tracts of land in the county for a paltry $100,000 per year with no assurance of that amount exceeding one million? It’s a puzzler, but this is not an original thought on my part, this has caught the attention of many Nashvillians. Before I forget, the developers did agree to provide $7 million in infrastructure work, but again I could find no evidence that $7 million would provide the entire needed infrastructure or not. If not, would they expect the good people of Nashville to provide the rest? I’m jus saying…
The Cloud Hill proposal is slick, professionally done and I have no idea if it is the highest and best use of this particular piece of ground or not. But this smells funny to me.
Mayor Megan Barry was elected in 2015 in a costly and crowded campaign. I am still too emotional and biased to make a fair judgment about her performance as mayor but the city needs her to succeed and I sincerely hope she does.
Public records show that she took out a personal loan of $200,000 against her house in order to finance her campaign. I believe this to be a strong signal of her dedication to the city and outward expression of her sincere desire to serve. But this is where it gets sticky.
During the runoff for Mayor in 2015, Bert Matthews helped raise $300,000 for Barry in the last three weeks of the campaign. In November of 2015 a fundraiser was held to help the newly elected mayor pay off that $200,000 personal loan. The fundraiser was held at the Belle Meade home of Walker Matthews. (Bert’s brother)
Is this what they call a co-inky-dink?
To folks that might have a different idea about uses for this site, it is small leap indeed to consider this whole mess a quid pro quo. It is a small leap because on its surface that is exactly what it looks like. It especially looks like that to those of us that aren’t politically connected by our purses to the decision makers in Nashville. The intrigue doesn’t stop with the awarding of the contract.
The proposal needs to be approved by the city council, so Cloud Hill’s next step was to hire a public relations firm to sell the idea and garner public support, thereby applying pressure on the council for passage. They selected the well-known and politically connected firm McNeely, Pigott & Fox to get the word out. It just so happens that at time of their selection, one of their employees was Mr. Colby Sledge whose second job is to represent the Greer Stadium area on the city council.
There are many in the city that wondered if this snug arrangement might be a conflict of interest for Mr. Sledge, despite his insistence that he was not involved in the Cloud Hill project in his professional capacity with McNeely, Pigott & Fox. Two weeks after his employer was selected as the lead PR firm for the project, Mr. Sledge resigned to start his own public relations firm, Sledge Strategies.
With more and more questions being raised about this process, the mayor issued a statement through her spokesperson to reassure the nervous public. Press Secretary Sean Braisted said:
“The mayor was fortunate to have support from a wide variety of donors and the majority of voters in Nashville, none of which had anything to do with the selection of the winning offer, which was awarded without the involvement or knowledge of the mayor.”
For this old Tennessee boy that statement goes just a tad too far. It stretches creditability, I think beyond the breaking point, to say the mayor had no knowledge of the involvement of one of her major benefactors. I’m jus sayin…
Cloud Hill continues to press ahead, hiring the public relations firm Calvert Street Group to solicit neighborhood support and public relations firm MEPR Agency to garner support within the area’s African-American community. Just to put one more point on all this, Mr. T Bone has hired the former treasurer of the Barry campaign lawyer Leigh Walton to advise him on the project. (See no involvement above!) I’m jus saying….
Mr. Sledge also continues his quest to have the Cloud Hill proposal approved. As recently as September 8, he wrote an editorial published in the Tennessean in which he graciously acknowledged his missteps but insisted that the Cloud Hill proposal was the right choice for Nashville. Wonder if young Mr. Sledge is thinking ole Bert may be able to help him become mayor one day? I’m jus saying….
This whole thing smells worse than a road kill skunk on Highway 70. There may in fact be nothing nefarious going on here but it reeks of old timey good old boys politics. The type of politics that may been common in Nashville’s past but have no place in her future. Now that Nashville is rapidly becoming a major American city with all the problems and issues attendant to that growth, this type of political patronage will no longer serve the best interests of our city.
The Mayor and her wealthy benefactors have some explaining to do on this one and so far what has been said and done has been less than convincing. The people of Nashville deserve better and they must now demand better form their leaders. The only way to stop these types of sweetheart deals in the future is for the people to send the message that business as usual is what needs to die. And won’t that be a sweet smell when it happens?
Love To All!
Well stated Tom.