NES files condemnation suit to acquire land for convention center

In another step toward relocating the downtown Nashville Electric Service substation, Metro government is seeking the condemnation of property that sits blocks away from Music City Center’s footprint.

In a suit filed Thursday [1] in Davidson County Circuit Court, Metro, on behalf of NES, is relying on the use of eminent domain to acquire a .77-acre parcel on the east side of Fourth Avenue that is owned by Tennessee Golf & Travel. The sum offered for the tract is $390,000.

The existing NES substation is at Sixth Avenue and Demonbreun Street, an area where a portion of the new $585 million convention center [2] is slated to be built. According to Metro Finance Director Richard Riebeling, relocating the substation should cost an estimated $18 million to $20 million.

But the land Metro is hoping to acquire in its latest suit is near the south Interstate loop, several blocks away from Sixth, Franklin and Peabody streets — the current home of the youth center Rocketown — where Metro hopes to move the NES substation.

The suit contends that the Fourth Avenue property is necessary for NES to convert downtown’s existing overhead transmission to underground lines. With the new substation, power lines and a tunnel would have to travel under Lafayette and Sixth avenues, the suit reads, meaning the south Interstate loop is needed for:

“(1) Facilities to connect the underground transmission lines running under Sixth Avenue South and Lafayette Street to overhead transmission lines adjacent to the south loop of the interstate.

And, “(2) a future substation.”