The proposal detailed Thursday calls for replacing the swath of asphalt parking lots with trees and grass to retain rain and help drainage, a wind farm to take advantage of the hilly location, solar panels and bike paths and walking trails for neighbors. Charging stations for electric cars also are on tap with sound barrier walls to dampen track noise to keep neighbors happier.
Guffaw. This would be the proposal by Sterling Marlin and Chad Chaffin. It sounds just peachy. Why heck, just add a Starbucks, Volvo dealership and a wine store selling the best chardonnays and those snooty liberal elites who want to rip the “historic” slab of concrete out will be right on board. Why I’m sure the neighborhood will completely withdraw all opposition now that “sweeteners” like solar panels and EV charging stations are in play.
Again: guffaw. Y’all don’t seem to know much about the neighborhood do you? I'd say the only thing on that list anyone gives a damn about are the sound barrier walls.
Oh, and:
Darden Copeland said the group has serious investors ready, though no estimate is available yet for the cost for all those renovations. They want at least a 15-year lease from the city.
Right. By the way, Mr. Copeland, you wouldn’t happen to have a bridge in New York to sell folks too, would you? Just wondering.
I’m sure this will go the way of the Music City Center’s green roof, which they keep hacking away at to save money as the project’s budget balloons.
Look, as I said in the beginning, I really don’t care one way or the other about saving the fairgrounds or getting rid of it. Seems like the space could be put to better use, but if someone can prove me wrong then have at it. But as I said last week, money is what talks in this town: not saving history, not green roofs, not EV charging stations or solar panels or wind farms. Show us the money.
The fact that they’re already talking about closing the 10-year-old built-for-NASCAR superspeedway in Lebanon is rather ominous. These events either make money or they don’t. Saving something simply because Richard Petty once raced there ain’t gonna cut it. That’s what historic markers are for.
Solar panels and wind farms aren’t going to change that.
