Aerial view of a dense urban redevelopment featuring large multi-story residential and commercial buildings, modern infrastructure, and structured parking within a surrounding historic neighborhood fabric. View of a contemporary glass and brick building with a sweeping roofline, fronted by a dramatic abstract metal sculpture and a manicured public lawn space at twilight. Nighttime view of an industrial-style brick and glass building with a rounded roof and large warehouse windows, framed by a dramatic overhead steel catwalk. Modern two-story glass and steel building with minimalist design, outdoor balcony seating, and evening lighting, part of an urban infill development. Outdoor concrete stairway with built-in seating areas, adjacent to a building with metal siding and a large retro-style Werthan sign painted on a mural wall. View of a modern mid-rise apartment building with a central landscaped courtyard, featuring a mix of red brick and metal siding, private balconies, outdoor seating areas, and young trees under a partly cloudy sky. Outdoor patio with orange bench seating, modern tables and chairs, and people socializing in front of a backdrop of red brick apartment buildings and sculptural landscaping. The Hamilton residential courtyard at dusk, showing a landscaped pedestrian path with native grasses, a central circular planter, and a mix of modern and traditional architectural finishes.

Taylor Place

Smith Gee Studio led the master planning, architecture, and interior design for the transformation of a 14-acre, 150-year-old industrial site in the heart of historic Germantown, Nashville. Once home to a sprawling manufacturing plant, the site has been reimagined as a vibrant mixed-use destination with new street connections, public plazas, wide sidewalks, pedestrian-friendly stoops, courtyards, and a signature sculpture anchoring the central plaza.

Taylor Place’s dramatic urban landscape results from a vision to unite two neighborhoods through rich, intentional, and enduring design. Shaped by a passion for both restoration and modern urbanism, the result resurrects and amplifies a long-neglected community asset, enriches the site and its surroundings, and enhances the lives of its inhabitants and those of the adjacent Germantown and Salemtown neighborhoods.

The site that once divided Germantown and Salemtown now stitches them together through a nexus of highly curated open spaces, a web of paths, passageways, and streetscapes, a mix of uses in refurbished and modern structures, and the generous use of public art and repurposed industrial relics.

Honoring the past, uniting neighborhoods, cultivating community, investing in public spaces and art, and an unbridled attention to detailed landscape and architectural design all account for the overwhelming local support that Taylor Place has garnered.

Over 12 years, through 3 phases of development, Smith Gee Studio served as the architect for each building within the project, including 5th & Taylor, 602 Taylor Place, Flats at Taylor Place, The Hamilton, Hume House, The Back Corner, and Werthan Warehouse. Home to Smith Gee Studio’s office, Taylor Place showcases many of SGS’s areas of expertise, including office, multifamily residential, and restaurant uses, as well as the design of both ground-up and adaptive reuse projects.

“As Mayor, former Councilmember, and a neighbor to Taylor Place, I have watched the redevelopment transform and unite the community. For over a century, the massive Werthan Bag Co. property has divided the Germantown and Salemtown neighborhoods. Taylor Place tells the story of the past, and yet breaks down historic barriers with pedestrian passageways, public spaces, and tree-lined streets. Today, my neighbors flow seamlessly through the site with their dogs, stroller, and bikes...a game changer for our North Nashville community!"

—The Honorable Mayor Freddie O'Connell, Mayor of Nashville

YEAR:

2014 - 2023

LOCATION:

Nashville, TN

CLIENT:

META Real Estate Partners

SERVICES:

Master Planning, Architecture, Interior Design

AWARDS:

  • Taylor Place Phase I: ULI Nashville, Excellence in Development Award, 2016 (Phase I)