Getahn Ward

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

Developers are snapping up land and pursuing projects along the emerging Dickerson Pike corridor.

Proximity to, and good views of, downtown along with East Nashville becoming pricey has boosted interest.

Dickerson Pike is identified for a bus rapid transit line under the Nashville region's $6 billion regional transit plan.

There's concern about gentrification making it difficult for longtime residents and businesses to remain in the area.

Matt and Martie Burnett remember naysayers calling them nuts and raising safety concerns when the couple began pursuing the nine-unit 1st North development at the northeast corner of Dickerson Pike and Evanston Avenue.

"We explained to them that just under a hundred people a day are moving into the Greater Nashville area," she said. "They don't know the difference between Belle Meade Boulevard and Dickerson Pike and they really don't care. They're looking for affordability and quality in vicinity to downtown."

After selling all nine 1st North townhomes for around $300,000 each, Goodlettsville-based Burnett Real Estate Group is gearing up to start construction on the nine-unit The Vue townhomes across the street.

The Burnetts aren't alone in snapping up land and pursuing projects along the emerging Dickerson Pike corridor, especially the area from just outside of downtown Nashville to TriStar Skyline Medical Center near Briley Parkway. "They're on the western fringe of the gentrifying neighborhoods of East Nashville, so prices and investment interest are pushing further west towards Dickerson Pike," said Randall Gross, a Nashville-based economic and development consultant.

The new residential projects are adding rooftops and increasing opportunities for commercial revitalization along a Dickerson Pike corridor that's largely dotted by mobile home parks, motels, discount retail stores, pawn shops and abandoned buildings. Gross, however, said that the market base for commercial remains constrained by the lack of density in neighborhoods located to the north and west of Dickerson Pike.

In addition to relatively less costly land prices, developers buying sites on Dickerson Pike cite proximity to, with great views of, downtown among the area's appeals. Dickerson Pike is also identified as a transit corridor in the city's 25-year NashvilleNext growth plan and for a bus rapid transit line under the Nashville area's $6 billion regional transit system plan.

More developments coming

Developer Myron Dowell, who is pursuing projects around Dickerson Pike, sees the portion between downtown and TriStar Skyline hospital becoming more of a dense, mixed-use corridor with shops with residential units. Overall, he sees the area accommodating 3,000 to 5,000 residential units in coming years.

"The goal is to revitalize and change the current landscape on Dickerson and that ties in with the transportation plan for the area," Dowell said. "The value proposition is that you can come over here and get high-end stuff at a much cheaper price than in other parts of the urban core. And it's time to get in now before the price appreciation that's going on in that area, including in adjacent neighborhoods."

Dowell and his partners own three acres in the 800 and 900 blocks of Dickerson Pike. This spring, they plan to break ground on a 53-unit project that will include 22 townhomes, 31 flats and 1,600 square feet of commercial space in the first phase. Additionally, 12 townhomes and 18 flats are planned in the second phase.

That project will be built by Jason Lenard of Superior Development LLC, who on behalf of separate investors will also handle building of up to 300 residential units and 12,000 square feet of commercial space on 23 acres behind Charlie Bob's restaurant. Lenard's company also has three lots in the 1300 block of Dickerson Pike under contract with plans to build up to 70 townhomes and flats and 10,000 square feet of retail space.

Lenard sees an opportunity to modernize Dickerson Pike with new amenities while retaining some of the area's longtime businesses in new retail space that's being added as part of mixed-use development projects.

"It's not about displacing anyone," he said. "It's about giving a new appeal."

Sam McCullough, a longtime resident of the Cleveland Park area off Dickerson Pike, however, is concerned about gentrification that's already making it difficult for longtime residents and businesses to remain in the area.

"Now that the demographics have changed, now it's a hot ticket," McCullough said about Dickerson Pike. "That corridor needs developing, but in the process they don't need to chase out the older businesses that have stayed here and sacrificed for this neighborhood. It doesn't need to be all new developments with all new people, it needs to be a mix of the old and the new working together."

Metro Councilman Scott Davis said, beyond wanting to see more commercial businesses, area residents are open to allowing more density on Dickerson Pike.

"You need density on the major corridors to bring transit and affordability," he said.

Davis is excited about plans to connect the massive River North mixed-use development that's proposed for the East Bank with Dickerson Pike by reworking the streets to include tunnels including underneath Interstate 24. The tunnels would increase connectivity, which fits with the general direction of NashvilleNext.

"We want the neighbors of Mcferrin and Cleveland parks to be connected to the riverfront development and to Germantown with those bridges — the walking bridge and the driving bridge — giving my constituents access to Topgolf and everything in Germantown," Davis said.

Davis cites recent change in the land use policy in the Highland Heights, Mcferrin Park and Greenwood areas from maintenance to evolving as one way to allow residents with large tracts to benefit from the area's growth. For example, a zoning change isn't required for residents to subdivide their properties.

Multi-decade effort

Talk about revitalizing Dickerson Pike is nothing new. In 2007, an effort in the Metro Council to rename the portion of the street between Spring Street and East Trinity Lane "Skyline Boulevard" to improve an image that, at the time, was associated with drugs and prostitution was withdrawn after being deferred.

Two years later, public money funded nearly $2 million in streetscape improvements along Dickerson between Grace Street and Douglas Avenue. That work included installing several buffalo sculptures on the southern end at the North First Street split to commemorate history of the road as a former buffalo trail. The rest of the money funded new sidewalks, crosswalk signs, landscaping, lighting and irrigation.

Under NashvilleNext, Dickerson Pike would remain a major street with areas of population/business “centers” around the southern end near downtown. Roughly 13,000 cars a day travel along the corridor within the five travel lanes, which makes it eligible for a road reconfiguration, the NashvilleNext plan read. It cited wide sidewalks, transit shelters, bicycle racks, multi-use path connections, crosswalks, curb extensions, street trees, landscaped medians and improved traffic signals among potential improvements for Dickerson Pike.

Charlie Bob's restaurant owner Michael Douglas has fond memories of years gone by when businesses on Dickerson Pike included Minnie Pearl's Chicken and Hank Williams Sr. was among guests who stayed at area motels including the Key Motel. The southern end of Dickerson Pike took hits from relocation of the Grand Ole Opry from downtown to the Opryland area and later closure of the Opryland USA theme park, he said.

After two decades, Douglas said area merchants have now made strides in cleaning up a negative image that was shaped in part by working girls walking down Dickerson Pike from near downtown to the former PECO Truck Stop.

"We're trying to bring in new retail, new home ownership," he said, citing office and pet supplies and clothing stores, florists and restaurants among the area's needs. "We don't have many services here, simply as a quality grocery store."

The Burnetts consider the "drugs and prostitution" image of Dickerson Pike an outdated stigma, citing how their first residential project there attracted buyers from empty nesters and vacation-home buyers to young professionals.

"It's the secret little hotspot that people have not paid attention to," said Martie Burnett, an agent with Keller Williams Realty-Burnett Real Estate Group. "If we get a little more retail development here, the area can be conveniently walkable."

Reach Getahn Ward at gward@tennessean.com or 615-726-5968 and on Twitter @getahn.