Beaman Park is about to get 300 acres bigger.
On July 24, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office announced an impending deal that will see the city acquire approximately 300 acres of forestland adjoining the existing 2,370-acre park.
It’ll permanently protect more than double the acreage of Centennial Park within Nashville’s Highland Rim Forest, one of the nation’s largest urban forests at 127,000 acres.
“This is an enormous moment for the city,” O’Connell said at a news conference outside the park’s nature center. “This is land we are not going to lose to development in an area of Nashville that is critical to our environment.”
The acquisition was made possible by Virginia-based nonprofit The Conservation Fund, which partnered with the city
to buy the property for an ultimate project cost of $3.6 million.
Zachary Lesch-Huie, Tennessee state director for The Conservation Fund, said the nonprofit has spent more than $275 million protecting roughly 350,000 acres in Tennessee since 1991, including 1,200 acres in Davidson County.
“There’s a state natural area here,” Lesch-Huie said. “Wildlife, rivers and streams, rare plants, a place to bring kids, this healthy, thriving forest. I think the mayor alluded to this: A lot of cities across the country would love to have a park like this. It’s very unique, and Nashville’s got it.”
Nashville pitched in $1 million in matching funds for the purchase, which the Metro Nashville Council greenlit through a resolution approved in October as The Conservation Fund sought a grant from the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust Fund. Private funding to the tune of $1.5 million raised through the Beaman Family Fund, Christi and Richard Speer and the Speer Foundation, and the Andrea Waitt Carlton Family Foundation helped to push the project over the finish line.
The Conservation Fund closed on the purchase July 10. From here, the Metro Parks Board and Metro Nashville Council will both need to sign off on a land transfer, which O’Connell said could be accomplished in September.
A mayor's office spokesperson confirmed that future work on the newly-acquired land will include adding new public access points and trails.
“Thanks to the work of Metro and these partners, generations of Nashvillians will enjoy what so many of us have already gotten to experience — these acres of wild and rugged land that is a part of the 127,000 acre Highland Rim Forest,” O’Connell said. “It’s an extraordinary part of Nashville that goes beyond our borders, but today we will be adding 300 of those acres right to this park.”
The area has seen plenty of development proposals without a focus on conservation, most notably the $4 billion May Town Center project planned for Bells Bend and rejected by the Metro Planning Commission in 2009.
If Nashville wasn’t protecting the land, O’Connell said he guessed plenty of people would be knocking on the door offering to redevelop it instead.
“I mean, you can see on the map how nicely this fits into the existing parkland,” O’Connell said. “We don’t see these opportunities every day.”
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him with questions, tips and story ideas at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville secures 300 acres to expand Beaman Park conservation effort
