'Lake Palmer' Sold: Languishing Development Gets New Owner

NASHVILLE, TN -- Lake Palmer - Nashville's infamous unintended Midtown body of water - will soon drain and pass into memory.

Huntsville, Ala.- based Propst Development announced Monday it had purchased the planned site of West End Summit near the intersection of 16th Avenue and West End. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For more than a decade, prominent Nashville developer Alex Palmer has tried to - quite literally - get his project out of the ground, blasting an 80-foot hole scores of feet deep into the limestone in 2007.

Palmer originally planned for a pair of 250-foot towers with offices, retail space, condos and a hotel. The project stayed in limbo until 2012, when HCA started planning to build headquarters for its Parallon and Sarah Cannon units. That deal fell through as HCA opted instead for a site on Charlotte and Palmer repeatedly insisted the site was not for sale until January 2019

While everyone was waiting, the giant hole filled up, with water as deep as 60 feet, eventually being recognized as a legitimate body of water on Google Maps. It's only major public function came in the wake of the 2010 flood, when Nashville implemented water restrictions just weeks before the traditional Memorial Day weekend opening for swimming pools and country clubs. Those clubs, reportedly, hired tanker trucks to suck the water from Lake Palmer, forcing it through filters and then using it to get pool-filling started.

In any event, all that seems to be in the past.

“Propst Development is excited to acquire this prominent site on West End Avenue,” said Chris Brown, principal of Propst Development. “Today marks an important turning point for this notable, much sought-after site. Propst’s real estate development expertise and financial capabilities allows us to move quickly and breathe life into a site that will be developed into a transformative Nashville project.”

Plans for a large-scale mixed-use project on the nearly four acre site will be unveiled in the coming weeks, Brown said.

Palmer is no longer associated with the project.

Image via Google Maps