When Woodland Street Partners realized that potential home buyers were being priced out of some of East Nashville’s most desirable neighborhoods, the home building company came up with its own solution. It built a new neighborhood.
“It’s (for) the next wave of people who want to be in Lockeland Springs but can’t afford what they want,” said Brett Diaz, a partner in the company.
The result is Nouvell, a 15-home subdivision in East Nashville’s rapidly redeveloping Rosebank neighborhood. Woodland Street recently completed the first two houses after years of planning that included consultations with city planners in Portland, Ore., on environmentally sustainable features.
In addition to affordable prices, Nouvell offers green features including rain gardens that capture runoff from roofs and the street, permeable concrete driveways that allow water to soak into the ground instead of flowing into storm drains, upgraded insulation, conditioned crawl spaces that reduce heating and cooling energy use and cost, tankless water heaters and Energy Star 3.0 certification.
Prices are more within reach than in neighborhoods such as Lockeland Springs, where Village Real Estate agent Matty Hodges said new homes are selling for about $170 per square foot. Prices in Nouvell are lower.
Nouvell’s homes range from just over 1,900 square feet to more than 2,100. Homes have three or four bedrooms and two or three bathrooms. Prices range from $277,900 to $299,900, Diaz said.
Demand for new houses is strong throughout the area around Nouvell, which is on Greenside Place north of Eastland Avenue and east of Riverside Drive.
“We never had a recession in East Nashville as far as real estate is concerned,” said Hodges, who works with developers to find lots where new infill houses can be built in existing neighborhoods. Many are purchased before they are listed for sale on the multiple listing service (MLS).
“Developers have 20 houses coming out of the ground in the next few weeks,” Hodges said at the close of 2012. “Most won’t make it to the MLS. They’ll be sold while being built or while we’re planning.”
James and Sarah Darby are moving to Nouvell from 12South, where they own a smaller, older home. With a child on the way, they needed more space but found that prices in that neighborhood were high. The opportunity to own an affordable new home with environmentally sustainable features was appealing.
“After living in a house built in the ’30s, we wanted something new, with a warranty and not all the quirks,” James said.
He expects the area around Nouvell to continue to attract more shops and locally owned restaurants.
“In the next five or 10 years, it’ll have the same feel as 12South,” James said.
If they ever decide to sell, owning a house in a subdivision of 15 new homes should help them get a good price, he said.
Unlike cottage court developments that are popular in Nashville’s urban core, which have common courtyards, each of Nouvell’s homes has an individual yard.
“We’re a neighborhood. It’s a traditional subdivision in the heart of the city,” said Newell Anderson, a Realtor with Village Real Estate Services.
Nouvell’s home buyers will enjoy lower prices while having access to nearby restaurants, bars, shopping and other amenities at Riverside Village, Five Points and the Eastland Avenue-Porter Road area. They also will be near Shelby Park and the new greenway addition at the former Cornelia Fort Airpark, he said.
Being so close to parks and green spaces sets the neighborhood apart, Anderson said.
“People come from out of town and ask, ‘where are the parks?’ If they come from a city where they had those things, that’s what they’re looking for. 12South doesn’t have that,” Anderson said.
Nouvell’s environmentally sustainable features are the result of extensive research, said Michael Garrigan, a civil engineer with Dale & Associates, a Nashville planning firm.
Officials in Metro’s Public Works Department put him in touch with their counterparts in Portland, Ore.
“They’ve tried many different things out there,” Garrigan said. “Nouvell offers low-impact features that are new to Middle Tennessee. We’re being used as a test to see how this works out.”
Article written by:
Bill Lewis
For The Tennessean
