Clay Street Commons was conceptualized to introduce a neighborhood central node, or gathering point, for a walkable community. This common urban planning technique provides points of interest and services distributed around and throughout a community to provide a variety of places and spaces within a walkable area.
These nodes best serve the community at key commercial intersections within an established neighborhood. Additionally, the project will help aid the ongoing demand for housing in an urban-fill, smart-growth approach that repurposes under-utilized commercially zoned land for a more dense, mixed-use neighborhood-based development.
Located in North Nashville, Clay Street Commons consists of 63 apartment units and 4,500 square feet of retail space. The Bradley Projects has been active in helping protect the historical context of this neighborhood by working with the community on redevelopment projects essential for stronger neighborhoods. The site of Clay Street Commons was chosen specifically to further these goals—the site provides an opportunity to demonstrate to the neighborhood and larger community the benefits of more dense, progressive, urban infill smart growth, as opposed to the more antiquated version of suburban development in the heart of Nashville’s rapidly expanding city neighborhoods. Just two blocks from Buchanan Street, the two buildings sit at the corner of Ninth Ave. N. and Clay Street. The development will support the local community’s growing needs with elevated architectural design and added public infrastructure.
Architecturally, Clay Street Commons consists of various indoor and outdoor qualities. Rather than corridors and hallways placed on top of each other and merely creating a stack-of-boxes scenario, The Bradley Projects began by shifting the floor plates back and forth to create the vibrancy of circulation and a sense of uniqueness in the building. This creates spatial diversity and volumetric vibrancy not often found in smaller mixed-use multifamily development. Large glass windows and high ceilings provide transparency throughout, making smaller spaces much more open and usable.
