Planners seek federal funds for square

Metro and East Nashvillians may seek federal funding to build a civic square that would divide Gallatin Road around an oval-shaped, football-field-sized lawn and plaza near where the road becomes Main Street when approaching downtown.

An $11 million price tag has been tacked to the project, which would serve as an entranceway and civic gathering space for East Nashville. The idea for the civic square arose in 1998 when architects, city planners, and residents gathered to map a future for East Nashville after the area was devastated by a tornado.

Acknowledging the price is high, Randy Morgan, co-chair of the project for Metro government, said he is nevertheless optimistic that federal funding will be available because the project "encompasses several different realms of grant opportunities.

"It's an economic development project, it's a neighborhood revitalization project, it's a traffic calming project - so there are several possibilities of pursuing federal money for this."

According to the civic square plan, Gallatin Road would split as it approaches the oval, with two lanes heading in each direction, so that vehicles wouldn't be able to cut in front of each other when trying to pull into or out of a parking lot or when turning into or out of an intersecting street on the other side of the road.

From a traffic standpoint, the oval lawn and plaza in the middle of the civic square would serve essentially as "a huge, pretty median," according to Fred Schwartz, director of the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, a regional transportation planning agency. So federal transportation money may be available for the project from the federal highway legislation passed by Congress Friday. Currently, the way "18th and a couple other streets intersect in a skew and the [way] traffic signals are awkwardly placed between the library and the high school [make] it real confusing as to who has the right-of-way to turn left in front of traffic.