Every day as I drove by the empty lot where North State Chevrolet once stood, I wondered when some steel was going to start rising. Now I know the answer: No time soon. If ever. Developers that can’t be reached for comment and a locked sales office aren’t good signs.
Considering I live three blocks from the proposed Bellmeade Village, I want it to succeed as much as anyone. But as I looked at the plans published in the N&R, I wondered how the Jones brothers could possibly deliver everything they were promising. Turns out they can’t.
I realize that’s a valuable piece of property and if the Joneses don’t develop it, someone hopefully will. But sometimes projects just never materialize. I was driving down Lee Street the other day and noticed a For Sale sign on the site of the former Canada Dry plant. I remember when plans for that proposed mixed-use project were splashed across the front page of the N&R. Now it sits, waiting for another buyer to see potential in coliseum-area land in a city where the focus is now on downtown. That’s an even tougher bid.
If nothing else, we can at least say the free market is speaking loud and clear.
