Two developments have reshaped North Nashville more than anything else in the past decade: the March 2020 tornado that destroyed significant portions of the neighborhood, and the Buchanan Street corridor’s emergence as an arts and entertainment district. They are connected. The tornado accelerated redevelopment timelines and made gentrification pressures significantly more acute.
The 2020 tornado
On March 3, 2020, a tornado traveled through North Nashville, devastating blocks that had already been under development pressure. The destruction created vacant lots and insurance-settlement liquidity that developers moved into quickly. The rebuilding that followed was rarely consistent with the neighborhood’s existing character. Tall-skinny townhomes in the $450,000 to $500,000 range appeared on blocks where affordable housing had stood. Long-term residents who received insurance settlements found those payments insufficient to rebuild in a neighborhood where land values had already risen.
The tornado did not cause gentrification in North Nashville, that process was well underway. But it compressed the timeline and removed the friction that slows displacement in intact neighborhoods.
The Buchanan Street Arts District
The Buchanan Street corridor became North Nashville’s most visible example of community-driven revitalization, Black business owners, artists, and musicians building something on a street that had been neglected for decades. Robert Higgins opened Minerva Avenue nightclub on Buchanan Street nine years ago, when the block had crime and no investment. Other studios, galleries, and bars followed.
In early 2025, Councilmember Brandon Taylor proposed the Buchanan Street Commercial Compatibility Overlay, a zoning tool that would restrict future nightclub spacing, limit nightlife hours, and prohibit certain business categories along the corridor. The proposed ordinance triggered one of the most emotionally charged planning commission hearings Nashville has seen in years: hundreds of residents, business owners, and artists packed the room for hours. Business owners argued the restrictions would specifically harm late-night entertainment businesses that rely on weekend revenue, that no comparable restrictions exist on Broadway or in East Nashville, and that the overlay would prevent Minerva Avenue from being rebuilt, Higgins’s club burned down last year, and under the new zoning, he could not reopen at the same location.
The debate remains unresolved. What it reveals is that North Nashville’s redevelopment has reached the stage where the community that built the Buchanan Street identity and the political apparatus managing the neighborhood’s growth are in direct conflict.
The infill housing boom
The post-tornado and post-2018 construction boom brought significant new housing stock to North Nashville, primarily in the form of narrow new-construction townhomes. These homes, priced in the $450,000 to $500,000 range, replaced housing that had historically been affordable by Nashville standards. The population that can buy those townhomes is not the population that previously occupied the lots. This is the operational definition of how gentrification functions in practice, regardless of what the broader economic arguments may be.
Sources
- Felix Homes, Up and Coming Neighborhoods in Nashville 2025
- FOX 17 Nashville, Buchanan Street rezoning plan divides North Nashville, January 2026
- Tennessee Tribune, Gentrification in North Nashville
- Belmont University, Exit 207: The Soul of Nashville documentary, 2023
- Nashville Now Next, Buchanan Street site redevelopment plans