Nolensville, like all of the rest of Williamson County, is growing, growing, growing. The future is coming- but hopefully not at the expense of the past, and the small, historic town’s identity.
Brentwood and Franklin are just about chock full of people, and Nolensville is the next place to fill out, according to population trends highlighted by the Nashville Business Journal.
With its location, near Brentwood, Franklin and the Davidson County line- it is the next logical municipality for developers to look to.
“We are in the process of preserving and enhancing the past as we embrace the future with all those who call Nolensville home,” said Nolensville Mayor Jimmy Alexander.
“You’re not any different than Brentwood was 25 years ago,” Brentwood’s former City Manager Mike Walker said in a 2014 study of Nolensville.
The latest evidence of this is a new development scheduled to break ground in June called the Shoppes at Burkitt, a 22-acre area being developed at 7022 Nolensville Pike.
As pointed out by many developers at Outlook Williamson a couple weeks ago mixed use developments are the future. With the average commute time pushing up towards 30 minutes one-way, the idea of working, living and playing all within walking distance is becoming more and more attractive.
The 200 residential units and 36,000 square feet of retail space that will come with the Shoppes fit right in line with the developing future of the county.
According to the Nashville Business Journal, local developers are teaming up with out-of-towners from Atlanta on the project that will cost almost $60 million. That is, $48 million on the residential side and $9 million on the retail space.
The residential part will be mostly townhomes with a couple dozen condos. The condos will be in Davidson County and the retail in Williamson. This dualism help define Nolensville, and the two counties bracket the small, historic towns future.
Nolensville’s population grew by a quarter since 2010, and is expected to double, from 7,500 to 15,000 in the coming decade.
Nolensville is defined, in large part, by its past. The one-time outlying exurb has become a place full of potential and growth It has a tight-knit, tightly held history- as evidenced by its historic school museum.
The key is letting the right amount of commercial develoopment in- in order to extract enough taxes to provide adequate services for its growing residential base, because as a rule of thumb in the area, a lion’s share of a town’s budget comes from businesses not residents. Brentwood, for instance and according to the Business Journal, gets 60 percent of its revenue from the 4 percent of its land that is commercial.
As people move into Nolensville, the town must also let in business in order to pay for the services that the new residents require. But not at the expense of the small-town, long-held history of Nolensville. Tall order if not exactly a extremely complicated one at its basic level.
Alexander seems to understand this clearly.
“I can tell you that we are going to strive to keep the small town feel,” he said. “Our residential development is moving forward at a steady pace, and we anticipate even more. We would ideally like to have a bit more commercial development to pay the bills.”
In the town’s new land use plan, they have made sure to keep any large box-style commercial complexes on the outskirts of town.
“We are striving to have more commercial development but we want to keep it on the scale that would not have our town become overwhelmed. We want to keep that small town feel that I think everyone enjoys,” added Alexander.
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