The Nashville Department of Transportation has submitted interim plans to reopen 450 parking spots on the lower levels of the downtown library parking garage before the end of the year.
The popular garage has remained closed for well over a year, after a fire broke out on its upper floors in June 2025
. Since then, the library branch has reopened to the public, while the garage has languished. The 2025 fire caused extensive damage to its upper floors.NDOT already outlined in January its plan to reopen the garage, but specifics on the timeline were sparse. Now, those details appear to be crystallizing.
Jon Boghozian, an engineer who manages capital infrastructure for NDOT, told the Nashville Public Library Board Sept. 15 that plans have been submitted
to Nashville’s codes department and Fire Marshal’s Office to reopen a portion of the garage by late this year. Specifically, the department has proposed reopening the northern area of the garage’s first four levels.
An NDOT spokesperson noted that the timeline still isn’t firm, but this marks the most detailed reopening plan yet for the garage.
“This is our understanding of what the impacts are. We don’t know what we’ll uncover when we’re chipping away at some things,” Boghozian said. “My goal is by the end of the year, we’ll have the interim opening. I’m not making a promise on that, though.”
At full capacity, the garage has 1,300 parking spaces, 895 of which are typically open to the public. Interim estimates are that 450 spaces could be available once the lower levels reopen; 310 of them would be open to the public, while 140 would be allocated to other parties who typically reserve spaces in the garage.
After that, Boghozian said, the next goal is determining an ultimate solution for the remainder of the garage. He said that long-term solution is likely years away.
Past plans have called for repairing the structure as-is and reopening the upper levels once that work’s complete, but he said the department’s revisiting the idea of demolishing and reconstructing the upper floors or leaving them and adding “a couple of other floors of something else” on top.
That could include things like housing, mixed-use development or something else that would turn the project into a partnership with the city, Boghozian said.
“The final, final determination is still not made on what the ultimate solution is,” Boghozian said.
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: Popular downtown Nashville parking garage may start to reopen this year
