BELLE MEADE BOULEVARD BEAUTIFICATION AND PEDESTRIAN PLAN
Click to view Boulevard Project Overview
Slides (January 2025)
Click Here for more information on the schedule for design and project planning
(Letter dated March 17, 2025)
Click to see Community Feedback Survey results (June 2022)
The project is currently postponed and pending review by a special advisory committee of Belle Meade residents who will review and advise Commissioners on what, if any, next steps will be taken to design pedestrian safety improvements on Belle Meade Boulevard.
No design nor construction plans have been approved by the City’s Board of Commissioners. Only preliminary survey work necessary to understand the feasibility of various options for discussion has been completed to-date. Consultants gathered survey data that shows what utility lines (water, gas, irrigation, etc.) would potentially need to be moved or avoided as a part of the design considerations. Geological samples of the soil were taken from the medians to better understand whether the medians could be improved to better retain stormwater to improve the stormwater drainage along the Boulevard.
Description: The City of Belle Meade and a citizen advisory committee will discuss options for possible safety improvements for vehicles and pedestrians to Belle Meade Boulevard from Harding Place to Page Road.
Beautification Plan for the Medians: Belle Meade Boulevard has a series of 38 medians from it’s northern end at Harding Pike to its southern end at Page Road. When any improvement project is considered for Belle Meade Boulevard, the City desires to have any such project be complimentary to a holistic and city-wide vision for landscaping and hardscape elements that preserves the historical and cultural assets and character of Belle Meade. The design vision would be developed with the City’s Beautification Committee (Society of Ceres).
Click to view the Beautification Concepts for Boulevard Medians – Beautification Concepts for Belle Meade Blvd 04 19 2023
Cost Estimate: No money has been budgeted for this project’s construction. To-date, project funding has been budgeted and obligated only for preliminary engineering design services with KCI Technologies, Inc. A preliminary estimate has been prepared for planning and budgeting purposes (prior to survey and preliminary engineering design) is approximately $3.5 – $3.8 million based upon several assumptions and without decisions yet being made on final materials and quantities needed. This planning level cost estimate provides a conditional estimate that is helpful for all stakeholders and decision-makers to have as they discuss the feasibility of the project and consider whether to proceed with any next step in the project. In a typical design review process, the consultant’s estimate would continue to be refined and updated with each step in the design review process.
Sources of Funding: 100% City/local funding is available to support the project’s current, approved obligations for engineering design services; Commissioners would need to consider funding options prior to final approval of any design or construction plans and one option available for consideration would be a one-time use of General Fund reserves. The City of Belle Meade currently has no debt obligations of any kind.
Project Timeline: In earnest, since 2019, the City of Belle Meade has been engaging with the community around how to improve safety for all users of Belle Meade Boulevard, including reducing speeding and the potential for conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians. Much of the community’s vision and feedback has been documented in the Belle Meade Together Plan, which was developed over two years of study, and over 750 individual comments were received in response to a pedestrian path, in the median of Belle Meade Blvd, demonstration project that was conducted on Belle Meade Boulevard with the assistance of the Nashville’s Civic Design Center in 2022. In brief, the outcome of the demonstration project was that a pedestrian path in the median itself was not supported by the majority of the community. Although widespread support for a better, safer pedestrian path was still desired and needed by many residents.
In March 2024, an engineering design team with KCI Engineering was engaged to produce a conceptual design options with the goal of making a safer walking path in the same location where pedestrians are walking today, along the outside edge of the median, while also looking at providing traffic calming and taking a fresh look at the location and number of crosswalks along Belle Meade Boulevard. Additionally, the City’s beautification committee (the Ceres Society) was engaged to make recommendations for beautification improvements within the median from its start at Harding Place to its terminus at Page Road and the entrance of Warner Park. This work was delivered in an advertised and open public meeting held on May 7, 2024 at City Hall. During the meeting, Commissioners asked for several revisions and for one final concept incorporating all revisions to be drafted. The final concept was delivered in an advertised and open public meeting held June 10, 2024 at City Hall. With delivery of the final concept and an engineer’s opinion of probable cost for the construction, the Board of Commissioners requested the City Manager work with the engineering team to develop a new engineering services proposal that would include full design, bidding and construction services.
At the Board’s regular meeting on August 21, 2024, the Board unanimously approved an engineering proposal for services, totaling $330,470, to carry the project to the next step in its design. Consulting engineers have been contracted to perform survey and preliminary engineering work needed to better understand how electric and stormwater utility infrastructure in the median may or may not alter the proposed design and its anticipated costs and timeline for construction. Survey and geotechnical work necessary to understand the feasibility of various aspects of the proposed design concept were completed in January and February 2025.
In March 2025, in response to concerns raised by a resident petition and public comments expressing opposition to the proposed pedestrian safety concepts under consideration, the Board of Commissioners voted to create an all-resident special committee to review the project and act in an advisory capacity over the project. Any next step or action to be taken on this project is postponed and has been referred to the Advisory Committee.
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