Sam Brooker knew Kokos Ice Cream's location at OneC1ty near Centennial Park in Nashville's midtown neighborhood wasn't permanent when he and his wife leased a shipping container in the development in 2019.
Seven years later, that doesn't make leaving much easier.
Kokos and three other locally owned neighboring businesses, SandBar Nashville, Aloha Fish Co. and Nosh Desserts, must leave C1tyBlox by Dec. 31. Nosh opened there just two months ago.
The development currently houses apartment buildings, offices, a hotel and a community gathering area with storefronts and a volleyball court. C1tyBlox includes the retail businesses and community space at OneC1ty.
Crescent Communities and Cambridge Holdings announced Sept. 2 that a parcel including the shops
at OneC1ty will be redeveloped into Novel OneC1ty, a 313-unit apartment building slated for completion in 2029.
In the years since Brooker and his wife, Jerusa Van Lith, opened on the edge of the sandy volleyball court, they painted the shipping container pink, built out the dairy-free ice cream shop with their own hands and watched the area develop into an informal gathering place. Their youngest child calls it "Kokos Ice Cream Beach."
"I think the consensus beyond the first shock of it all, as people go through that, is mostly sadness," Brooker said. "You don't find these places in Nashville that have that authentic creator vibe."
C1tyBlox was created 12 years ago as a temporary use for land intended for future OneC1ty development. Brooker said he and Van Lith understood that when they signed their lease. They praised Cambridge for being transparent and supportive of the businesses there.
"It was always just kind of known that it could happen at any moment," Brooker said. "All the times signing leases, you kind of know that, but it doesn't make it any easier."
What developed in the meantime was harder to plan.
The businesses and volleyball court became a place where residents, families, customers and players could spend time together without necessarily spending much money. These are the types of community spaces that are becoming rare in Nashville as the city grows, Brooker said.
"This doesn't cost anything to form your community," he said. "You can actually pull in a parking lot for two hours for free and hang out."
Fresh seafood spot was open less than a year
Aloha Fish Co. co-owner Jennifer Cheung Cline has watched a community develop around her business, too.
Cline and her husband, Jerry Cline, launched Aloha in 2020, initially delivering high-quality, sustainable seafood to Nashville customers and later holding seafood pickups and lunch popups in South Nashville near Geodis Park.
After nearly two years searching for a more accessible permanent location, they opened their OneC1TY seafood market in November. The new space allowed Aloha to host sushi-making classes and other events in addition to selling fresh seafood.
"We love the business. We love the community," Cline said. "Anybody that comes in is so grateful and they're so happy to find us, and that's what hurts me the most."
The Clines invested more than $100,000 in the OneC1TY location, with Cline selling a piece of land she had owned for years to help finance the move.
The Clines now have to find another home less than a year after opening at OneC1ty.
"I feel like I'm afloat in the ocean, just not sure which direction right now," Cline said. "Is it a blessing in disguise, is it like maybe it's something better on the other side?"
Brooker said he sees tension in the role small businesses play in creating the identity of developments like OneC1ty.
He and Van Lith came from creative careers in the music industry and built much of Kokos themselves.
"We painted every stripe, put up every bit of wallpaper, hung every light," Brooker said. "This is a representation of two artists in Nashville that make ice cream and design the space that's beautiful."
Brooker said that creativity helped create the atmosphere that brought people to C1tyBlox.
"That's what draws the investors. That's what draws the money to the city, is the creatives that create an energy," Brooker said. "That's kind of the rub. You know it's going away, but yet you know it's going to be the inspiration for what's next, but you're not a part of the what's next."
'Change is hard'
OneC1ty acknowledged the attachment to C1tyBlox in a statement after the redevelopment announcement.
"C1tyBlox has been a special part of OneC1TY, and we hear you," the statement said. "We understand that change is hard, especially when you've helped build something special."
OneC1ty said permanent gathering spaces including The Yard, Community Table and Stage will remain, with more daily activities planned. The new residential development will include about 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and a public plaza. Developers said they are exploring ways to incorporate sand volleyball into the new project.
For Brooker, the difficulty is less about whether another gathering space can eventually be built than what happens to the community that already exists.
"This chapter is closing," he said. "We're proud to have been a part of creating energy, drawing it in. We hope that the new developers build something special."
Mackensy Lunsford is the senior dining reporter for The Tennessean. Reach her at mlunsford@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: As OneC1ty changes, a Midtown Nashville community says goodbye
