Can Madison become Nashville's next Green Hills?

Plans are in the works for a redevelopment of Madison Square Shopping Center, which investor Tom Corcoran and a business partner bought out of foreclosure 25 years ago.

The owners are seeking a rezoning to allow for a mix of retail, mid-rise office, restaurant, entertainment and multifamily housing uses on the 33-acre shopping center site at 721-970 Gallatin Pike S., between East Webster Street and Neelys Bend Road in Madison.

The multi-phased, multi-year redevelopment plan is part of a burst of activity in Madison, which for years lagged growth compared to other parts of Nashville. Now investors are snapping up prime properties and developers planning projects including for the location of one of the city's first suburban shopping centers that in the '50s was known for high-end retailers such as Levy’s and McClures and as the home of the state's first Shoney's restaurant.

"It has some good bones and it's so well located that it could be a destination for office, shopping, retail and housing," economic and development consultant Randall Gross said about Madison, which he studied for a strategic plan set to be released on Dec. 11.

By the time Corcoran was joined by his business partner Jim Maddox in buying Madison Square Shopping Center in 1992, most of the high-end retailers had closed. Corcoran cites availability of development sites among appeals of Madison, whose location further away from downtown Nashville in part explains the lag in growth versus other hot spots.

"Madison used to be quite similar to Green Hills," he said. "You had many professional people there — doctors, lawyers, a great religious foundation. I'm speculating that it will come back — it will return. Some people would say that's crazy, but 10 years ago those people wouldn’t have thought that Germantown would have million-dollar homes today."

From Madison Square to Madison Town Center

Under The Corcoran-Maddox Cos.' plans, Madison Square Shopping Center would become Madison Town Center after the proposed rezoning to mixed-use general.

Metro Councilwoman Nancy VanReece expects the project to improve public spaces, support transit, provide walkable areas, offer new housing choices, sustain economic activity and guarantee continued growth in Madison for the next 25 years. The project would be designed for the driverless car era with parking structures built in a way that they could be converted to residential and other uses when demand for spaces drop.

"We do want to develop a very strong public realm that provides places for dining, for gathering, for recreating — to become the living room for Madison," said Kim Hawkins, principal in landscape architecture firm Hawkins Partners. "It's kind of to accommodate many of the community's needs there. This area is a prime area for future development."

Among other improvements coming nearby, Metro plans to invest $6 million to build Station Boulevard, a new street off of Gallatin Pike opposite Neelys Bend Road. That boulevard will run between the Bojangles and Hardee's with a roundabout in front of the Fifty Forward senior citizens center and will then continue up to Old Hickory Boulevard.

VanReece said she's started conversation with Metro Development & Housing Agency Executive Director Jim Harbison about Madison Square becoming the city's next transit-oriented development district after redevelopment gets underway at Donelson Station.

Under Mayor Megan Barry's proposed $5.4 billion transit plan, the Gallatin Pike light-rail route currently stops at Briley Parkway near the cemetery. Community activist Sasha Mullins Lassiter would like to see it extended to Madison Square and downtown Madison, which has one of the highest Metro Transit Authority bus riderships. "It's proven that we use it and want it," she said. "We're the working-class creators up here. We need to get to work and find it convenient to take public transportation downtown."

VanReece, however, raised possibility of that extension being part of a future phase of the light-rail system, adding the referendum planned for May is what's critical right now.

Other large anchor properties

In addition to Madison Square, the recently purchased former Madison Bowling location and the former Kmart site near Briley Parkway are among potential adaptive reuse and redevelopment sites Gross considers anchor properties for the revitalization of Madison.

Frank May, who earlier this month paid $2 million for the 3.48-acre former bowling alley property at 517 Gallatin Pike N., reports much interest as he looks to recruit a new tenant for that site once considered among the city's most endangered historic places.

Anchor Investments LLC, meanwhile, has long-term redevelopment plans for the former Kmart-anchored retail center at 1508 Gallatin Pike. In Gross' Madison market analysis, that location is considered the "Madison Gateway" with potential for a transit-oriented development with market-rate and workforce housing plus various retail businesses.

A mixed-use and transit-oriented development on the Madison Square site is consistent with findings and recommendations from the Gross-led strategic planning effort, which was funded by a grant from Hendersonville-based The Memorial Foundation. Overall, Gross envisions a civic plaza and public space in downtown Madison, affordable space for artisans, other maker businesses and small tech companies and suggests marketing the former Nashville Memorial Hospital site as a tech campus or an administrative hub.

Track record of finding value

Corcoran and Maddox hope to recruit other developers to help bring their vision for Madison Town Center to reality. The duo, who have targeted distressed and under-priced properties, is no stranger to taking a bet on downtrodden parts of Nashville.

In recent years, Corcoran's Crestview Funds purchased the former Sears and Macy's anchor store properties at what used to be Hickory Hollow Mall in Antioch. Tiremaker Bridgestone Americas now leases a chunk of the Sears site under a long-term lease.

Among past dealings, they purchased and later sold in pieces the Nashboro Village apartments, golf course and commercial complex in south Nashville near Antioch.

In 1992, the duo paid $4.4 million for the 250,000 square-foot Madison Square that's 80 percent leased with Dollar General and Rent-A-Center among tenants. Among appeals, Corcoran cites the location being along major arterial road that carries almost 30,000 cars per day and its proximity to one of the major transit centers in Mayor Barry's plan.

He said a revitalization of Madison makes sense given favorable demographics. "If the Nashville market grows at half the pace that it is now over the next 20 years, that's more than a million people," Corcoran said. "And Madison is going to enjoy the same growth, probably better growth than East Nashville and Germantown. It just makes sense."

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

Madison by the numbers:

16,800 housing units, up by 12 percent since 2000

15,000 households (55 percent rental)

Area to add 2,700 households (5.5 percent more) by 2022

9.5 percent growth in retail expenditure potential by 2022

7,241 office workers in area (increasing by 1 percent)

12,000 jobs in Madison (down 30 percent since 2002)

SOURCE: Randall Gross

If you go:

On Jan. 6, at 10 a.m. in the community room at Fifty Forward Madison Station for Corcoran-Maddox and Hawkins Partners to get feedback from neighbors on the effort rezoning effort before it goes before the Planning Commission on Jan. 12.

On Dec. 11, at 5:30 p.m. economic and development consultant Randall Gross will present the Madison Strategic Plan and Market Analysis for the community's review at Due West Towers (former Nashville Memorial complex) at 612 W. Due West Ave. in Madison.