The owners of Déjà Vu Showgirls Nashville have purchased property on Church Street. It is at the north corner of Church and 15th Avenue, a building that previously housed “Events @ 1418.” The property is just steps away from Tribe and Play.
But a proposed ordinance intends to block the move.
The ordinance would remove any “adult entertainment” businesses from sharing in the zoning district identified as “mixed use intensive.” Mixed Use Intensive zoning districts — called MUI and MUI-A — are unique in that they incorporate a “high intensity” of shared residential, retail and office uses. So whereas in the past that basically meant downtown, it has since grown to incorporate much of midtown.
Adult entertainment businesses, therefore, have participated in the zoning districts mostly because there’s either been an absence or disinterest from residential neighbors. See the Title 17: Zoning section on Adult Entertainment Overlay Districts here.
Sponsored by District 19 Councilman Freddie O’Connell and co-sponsored by At Large Councilman Bob Mendes, the proposed ordinance passed first reading on August 2 and was deferred to October 4, with the intention being that it will allow time for community input.
An online petition in support of the proposed ordinance has received 65 signatures over the past week. It was shared on the Tribe Facebook page for just a couple hours on Friday August 12 before it was removed.
Despite his proposition to basically zone strip clubs out of the city, O’Connell told The Tennessean that he sees this as an opportunity to discuss where exactly adult businesses should operate.
For me, this is really what I hope is the start of a bigger conversation about adult entertainment in Nashville because we now have capacity for residential and family-friendly activities in Midtown and the urban core in a way we didn't have 15 or 16 years ago. People weren't interested in building multifamily residences in Midtown when the overlay was created. If these businesses are going to continue to operate, we can find space for them that isn't in anybody's backyard. And we're adding a lot more backyards in District 19 right now.
District 19 encompasses all of downtown south of the Cumberland River to St. Thomas Hospital and the Vanderbilt campus, east to Spence Lane and west to Fisk University.
See also:
Morals-based opposition to Déjà Vu relocation is the wrong kind
Tribe/Play comment on Déjà Vu relocation