A sleepy corner of the CoolSprings Galleria parking lot is about to get a serious glow-up. Greystar is set to build a 361-unit apartment community on a 5.35-acre slice of the Franklin, Tenn. mall campus, trading an underused northeast parking area for housing stacked over roughly 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The project is expected to bring hundreds of new residents into the Cool Springs corridor, with construction scheduled to kick off later this month and run for about two years. It is the latest example of suburban malls turning empty asphalt into mixed-use density.
According to a press release from CBL Properties, the company has closed on the sale of the 5.35-acre parcel to Greystar. The plan calls for 361 apartments and approximately 15,000 square feet of retail and service space, with a construction timeline of roughly two years once work begins later this month. CBL framed the deal as part of a broader push to unlock value from non-income-producing land by layering residential uses onto the mall site.
Where the project fits in Cool Springs
The site is tucked inside a larger Cool Springs redevelopment that has steadily shifted from pure retail to a fuller mix of uses. In 2025, the City of Franklin approved rezoning that opened the door to more housing and hotel projects in the area, according to Multi-Housing News. That outlet also reports the Nashville metro delivered record levels of multifamily housing in 2024 and stayed busy in 2025, leaving Franklin with about 1,000 apartments actively under construction.
Just down the road, the Aureum master-planned community is helping fill that pipeline. Embrey says it recently closed on six acres for phases II and III of Aureum, a move that will add hundreds more units to the submarket and further cement Cool Springs as a regional growth node rather than a simple shopping destination.
What developers say
CBL is not shy about what it is trying to accomplish with deals like this. "We are successfully identifying opportunities to realize the embedded value available across our portfolio," CBL CEO Stephen D. Lebovitz said in the company release. In the same statement to CBL Properties, Greystar's Matt Evans described the plan as "turning an underutilized parking lot into upscale housing with curated ground-floor retail."
Both firms pitch the project as a way to keep the mall alive from morning coffee runs to late-night takeout, rather than just a weekend shopping stop, arguing that new residents will help support existing stores and make future retail more viable.
What it means for local housing
Developers and planners see projects like this as doing double duty: they bulk up retail corridors while adding rentals to a region that has been churning out new apartments at an unusually fast clip, according to Multi-Housing News. Yardi Matrix data cited in that coverage show multifamily deliveries spiked in 2024 and stayed elevated in 2025.
For nearby residents, the most immediate change will be the two-year construction scene along the mall's edge, followed by more neighbors and new ground-floor shops once the project opens. Longer term, the Cool Springs pipeline is likely to keep reshaping traffic patterns, retail options, and who can actually find an apartment in the southern suburbs of Nashville.
