Getahn Ward

gward@tennessean.com

For the second year in a row, the Music Row neighborhood made the Nashville Nine list.

Now in its eighth year, the Nashville Nine list is generated based on nominations from the public.

Since 2009, more than 60 individual properties have been listed among city's most endangered historic places. .

Historic Nashville promotes and advocates for recognition of historic places and the impact they have on the culture, commerce and creativity of the city.

A lifelong resident of East Nashville’s Cleveland Park neighborhood, Sam McCullough has in recent years watched newer, more costly homes going up on lots where working-class black families once lived.

"Now there's an elitist crowd living here," said the president emeritus of the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Association, who's involved with an effort to document that area's history. "We're losing our character out here so rapidly that it's not funny. There's such a fear that this area will be gentrified, that our history will be gone after a few years."

Reflecting concerns about tear-downs of historic homes to make way for luxury dwellings amid rapid redevelopment and rising property values, Cleveland Park made Historic Nashville Inc.'s 2016 Nashville Nine list of the city’s most endangered historic places.

The list, which will be formally unveiled Sunday at downtown's historic Union Station hotel, also includes a trio of bowling alley properties in Donelson, Inglewood and Madison. Fort Negley Park in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood south of downtown also made the list.

Robbie Jones, a board member of Historic Nashville Inc., said this year's list reflects Nashville's diversity as a city and its historical resources. "We've got two African-American historical sites, we've got music industry-related sites, a Metro public park, bowling alleys and a predominantly African-American neighborhood," he said.

Award-winning recording artist and songwriter Butch Walker was expected to join preservationist group Historic Nashville in unveiling the annual list, which also includes the Music Row neighborhood and, in particular, two properties in that community — an area at the forefront of the local tug of war between preservation and growth.

"It's just as much about preservation of the Nashville music community as it is about the properties," said Sharon Corbitt-House, an artist manager whose clients include Ben Folds. She is the chairwoman for this year's Nashville Nine. "Music is about stories and places and events. We're talking about preserving places that hold stories that we hope will be shared with the rest of the world through music."

Historic Nashville, which promotes and advocates for recognition of historic places and the impact they have on the culture, commerce and creativity of the city, lists Ryman Auditorium, Union Station and the Hermitage Hotel among landmarks it successfully helped to preserve even before creating the Nashville Nine.

Now in its eighth year, the Nashville Nine list is generated based on nominations from the public. Since 2009, more than 60 individual properties have been listed.

Bound by Dickerson Pike to the west, Cleveland Street to the south, Ellington Parkway to the east and Douglas Street to the north, Cleveland Park has seen its share of changes as Nashville grows. The 1840-built McGavock House, 1930s-built Highland Heights School and the 1910-built Montgomery House are among individual buildings in the once urban streetcar neighborhood included on previous Nashville Nine lists.

Here are the other properties on the 2016 Nashville Nine list of the city’s most endangered historic places:

Bowling alleys, 3501 Baxter St., Inglewood; 517 Gallatin Pike, Madison; 117 Donelson Pike, Donelson. Built in the 1950s by Crescent Amusement Co., the bowling alleys feature midcentury, modern-style architectural elements on their facades. The Donelson and Madison buildings retain their original distinctive neon signs. Only the Donelson bowling alley remains in operation and owned by Crescent. The other two are closed. Community members are concerned that the landmarks will be demolished as part of commercial redevelopment projects, according to Historic Nashville.

Fort Negley Park, 1100 Fort Negley Blvd., Wedgewood/Houston. With Metro considering redevelopment proposals for the Greer Stadium portion of Fort Negley Park, Historic Nashville wants the city to avoid adversely impacting the remnants of the Works Progress Administration-funded recreational ballfields and historic archaeological sites within the park. Metro Parks and Recreation owns and operates Fort Negley Park, which contains the Civil War fortification, Greer Stadium and Adventure Science Center.

Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers/Warner Brothers Records, 1815 Division St.: The Metro Historical Commission delayed by 90 days a demolition permit pulled by the owner of the Music Row area building, which was deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Music Row documentation project. Built around 1929 to house the private medical practice and residence of Vanderbilt professor Dr. Richard Alexander Barr (1872-1956) and the Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers, the building also has housed offices for Sound Stage Associates, Warner Bros. Records and the WNSR radio broadcasting studio. Historic Nashville said it is urging the owner to reconsider plans to redevelop the property with a high-rise residential tower — and instead consider rehabilitating the building for housing, offices or commercial businesses that support the local music industry.

Hubbard House, 1109 First Ave. S., Chestnut Hill: The last remnant of the original Meharry campus before that medical school moved to North Nashville in the 1930s, Hubbard House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Built in 1921 with donations from Meharry Medical College alumni and trustees, the retirement home of founder Dr. George W. Hubbard also has served as the parsonage of the Seay-Hubbard United Methodist Church. It is vacant and in poor condition, and with plans for restoration stalled, there's concern about its future in the fast-redeveloping Chestnut Hill neighborhood.

Morris Memorial Building, 330 Charlotte Ave., downtown. The only building still standing that is originally associated with African-American businesses in the downtown core was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Built from 1924 to 1926, the Morris Memorial Building housed the National Baptist Convention and African-American businesses such as the architectural studios of McKissack & McKissack. Amid a developer's proposal to extensively renovate and enlarge the building with an eight- to 10-story addition to the roof, preservationists fear that would adversely affect the building’s integrity as an important African-American landmark and result in it being removed from the National Register of Historic Places.

Music Row neighborhood, between 16th and 20th avenues from Division and Demonbreun streets to Belmont University: For the second year in a row, Music Row was included among the Nashville Nine because of intensive and relentless redevelopment pressure. Last year, the heart of Nashville's music industry was designated a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which recently completed comprehensive documentation of the neighborhood’s historic resources, a National Register of Historic Places nomination and a preservation incentives plan. Those efforts came as recording studios, record labels, publishing houses, supporting industries, private homes and other music-related businesses were being replaced with high-rise condos, apartments, luxury hotels and office buildings at a fast pace.

Sammy B’s/Figilo’s on the Row, 26 Music Square East, Music Row: Warner Bros. Records owns the 110-year-old building, which has been deemed eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Amid the building's rapid deterioration, members of the Music Row community are concerned that the structure that over the years has housed music industry businesses, bars and restaurants could be demolished as part of a redevelopment project.

Starday-King Sound Studios, 3557 Dickerson Pike, Madison: Once one of Nashville's busiest music recording studios, the 1960-built building has stood vacant since 2000 and is starting to deteriorate. Historic Nashville Inc. cited significant community support to restore the building, where stars such as Dottie West, Minnie Pearl and Jim Reeves recorded and Jimi Hendrix played guitar from 1962 to 1965.

Unlike Madison, where development interest has just begun to pick up, East Nashville's Cleveland Park had already been in the spotlight in part because of its closer proximity to downtown.

Longtime Cleveland Park resident McCullough recalls being inundated with offers from developers, investors and others wanting to buy his home until he made a strong stand about his plans to preserve the house in which he grew up.

“Our family home is not for sale,” McCullough said. “My parents bought it in 1960, and I intend to stay there until I’m dead. We're losing our character as a city — from an architectural and cultural standpoint of Nashville being Nashville."

Reach Getahn Ward at 615-726-5968 and on Twitter @getahn.