The Nations

Welcome to The Nations. Zip Code: 37209.

If you drive around The Nations neighborhood enough, you’ll eventually but pass by the iconic ‘Est. 1913 The Nations’ retro sign off 51st Avenue. This sign is the remnants of a long closed business and as far as anyone knows, the only namesake of this modernizing community. For years this mixed residential / industrial area along the western rail lines, was referred to simply as West Nashville.

There are many theories about the origins of the “The Nations” naming but most of them peter-out if they are propped up next to the facts. In the end, all you need to know is that The Nations is now known as such and is the most up-and-coming neighborhood in Nashville, just west of the city and north of Sylvan Park. 

Working from the ruins of immense industrial lots, developers are having a hay-day raising stretches of modern homes and planting rows of budding shade trees. New businesses like Fat Bottom Brewery take their pick of abandoned rail yard, factory buildings and make use of the high-ceilings and industrial aesthetic. Indeed, this neighborhood is a project in the works and looking for neighbors with a vision of how to turn this sweeping stretch of land into a broader, well-connected community. 

Along Charlotte Pike is the heart of a community that developed amidst the booming industrial period of West Nashville and is now the legs by which The Nations currently stands. This corridor into the city is the dividing line of The Nations and its southern neighbor Sylvan Park; lined with retail shops, family and leisure business and several well attended restaurants such as Coco’s Italian Market & Ristorante (with its bocce ball court), Wendell Smith’s, Betty’s Bar and Grill, M.L. Rose (with their Trivia Happy Hour Mondays), Cool Stuff Weird Things Antiques Market, Southern Thrift Store, and Blues Dance Nashville in the Global Education Center.

51st Avenue jets north from Charlotte Pike straight through The Nations neighborhood until it is cut off by the railroad tracks at Centennial Boulevard and Louisiana Avenue creating a three-street intersection. It is here at this triangled commercial block where developers hope one day will be just as prosperous as 12th Avenue South or the 5 Points district of East Nashville. Prospective businesses have a readymade junction of potential pedestrian-friendly locality at their disposal and several well established businesses like Project 615’s corporate offices, Modman Guitar’s, and Nicky’s Coal Fired Pizza are already thriving and eager to develop this area into a retail and leisure district.  

 
Plots of vacant land from closed down industrial lots stand alongside rows of newly built communities. Filling in the space has become the playground for developers and investors. If you are struggling to find that perfect home within your budget, consider being a part of the movement to link up this community in West Nashville’s The Nations neighborhood. 
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” -Elenore Rosevelt