One of East Nashville’s most stubborn industrial holdouts is officially back in play. The hulking former Nashville Pottery & Pipe Works site has hit the market, reviving a long‑rumored redevelopment that neighbors have watched stall out for years. The property, cut off from the rest of the neighborhood by rail tracks and Ellington Parkway, first surfaced in planning documents in 2020, but those big plans never made it to construction. Now brokers are openly shopping the site to investors, and the guessing game over what replaces the old factory is starting all over again.
The current owners have put the Foster Street property up for sale, according to the Nashville Post. Commercial listing materials tied to Stream Realty peg the address at 515 Foster Street and name local brokers Robby Davis, Rob Lowe, Ben Dotye and Ross Smith as the team handling the offering, per LoopNet.
What’s been proposed for the site
A special plan filed with Metro Planning in 2020 laid out a phased mixed‑use project that would preserve and adapt the historic warehouse while layering on roughly 623,200 square feet of new construction, including up to 490 multifamily units, according to Metro Planning. Those same filings envision a seven‑story, 125‑key boutique hotel and a new pedestrian bridge spanning the CSX tracks. Real‑estate pipeline reports continue to list the Foster Street site as a prospective 490‑unit development, signaling the scale earlier planners had in mind, per Berkadia.
Numbers and ownership
Public records show the property was purchased in August 2019 by an LLC tied to developer Bill Barkley and Emerald Asset Management for roughly $6 million, according to the Nashville Post. Commercial listings and parcel data list the warehouse at about 131,485 square feet and date the structure to 1923. Those records put the core parcel at roughly 7.12 acres, though some planning materials and earlier coverage describe the assembled site as closer to 9.5 acres, depending on which surrounding parcels get counted, per LoopNet.
What comes next
Any sale would effectively restart the clock on zoning scrutiny and neighborhood input. A redevelopment that includes a new bridge across active CSX rail lines would have to thread a regulatory needle, coordinating with CSX, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and Metro Planning. The Metro docket already shows prior votes and resubmittals tied to the Foster Street SP, including ordinance actions from 2020 that remain part of the official record, per Metro Legistar and the planning packet. For now, the listing reopens a long‑paused neighborhood debate: does the old warehouse get a second life as creative office and retail, or does it give way to dense housing and a hotel complex?
