North Nashville in early 2026 is a neighborhood at a genuine inflection point. The Buchanan Street corridor has become the city’s most contested piece of real estate politically, and the conversation happening there reflects a larger argument about what Nashville owes its historically Black communities.
The Buchanan Street zoning fight
The most active story in North Nashville right now is the proposed Commercial Compatibility Overlay for Buchanan Street. District 21 Councilmember Brandon Taylor proposed zoning changes that would restrict future nightclub and bar development along the corridor, limiting spacing between alcohol-related businesses, prohibiting outdoor patio music between 9 p.m. and 10 a.m., and banning alternative financial services and payday lenders.
Supporters argue the overlay protects existing residents from noise and the secondary effects of a dense late-night scene. Opponents, including many of the Black business owners who built Buchanan Street’s arts identity from nothing, argue the restrictions would make it impossible to run profitable late-night entertainment businesses, that no comparable restrictions apply to Broadway or East Nashville, and that the overlay would prevent venues like Minerva Avenue from rebuilding after its building burned down.
Robert Higgins, who spent nine years building Minerva Avenue into one of the Buchanan corridor’s signature venues, told the planning commission in January 2026 that he found out his building had burned through Instagram, received no call from city leadership, and under the proposed zoning cannot rebuild. The hearing drew hundreds of people to a packed Metro Planning Commission room.
New development
The Buchanan Arts District continues to attract new mixed-use development. A ground-floor retail and residential building at 910 Buchanan Street added loft condos and commercial space. New restaurants and bars have opened along the corridor. The investment is real; the question is who captures the value it creates.
The HBCU corridor
Fisk University, Tennessee State University, and Meharry Medical College are all operating in North Nashville. TSU has been expanding its physical footprint. Meharry is one of the country’s preeminent historically Black medical schools. These institutions provide employment, student population, and a permanent institutional anchor that no amount of gentrification fully dislodges.
The displacement reality
A 2025 National Community Reinvestment Coalition report identified Nashville as the most intensely gentrifying city in America between 2010 and 2020. North Nashville is the primary location for that finding. The long-term Black residents who built this community are continuing to be displaced to outer suburbs while new buyers purchase at prices the neighborhood’s existing population cannot match.
Sources
- FOX 17 Nashville, Buchanan Street rezoning divides North Nashville, January 2026
- Save Our Nashville Neighborhoods, 2025 NCRC gentrification report
- Nashville Now Next, Buchanan Street redevelopment plans
- NewsChannel 5, New development on Buchanan Street, 2019
- Tennessee Tribune, Gentrification in North Nashville