Nashville will use 'eminent domain' to block a $700 million data center threatening iconic zoo

Nashville's Metro Council voted 27 to 5 to authorize acquiring the 23.49-acre site next to the Nashville Zoo by negotiation or condemnation This comes after a local fight escalated into a national campaign with a 500,000-signature petition The vote grants an option rather than a commitment: no negot

<![CDATA[ <article> <ul><li><strong>Nashville's Metro Council voted 27 to 5 to authorize acquiring the 23.49-acre site next to the Nashville Zoo by negotiation or condemnation</strong></li><li><strong>This comes after a local fight escalated into a national campaign with a 500,000-signature petition</strong></li><li><strong>The vote grants an option rather than a commitment: no negotiations have begun, an amendment requires an appraisal and a three-week wait, and it must still prove public need to a court</strong></li></ul><p>Nashville's Metro Council has voted 27 to 5 , to authorize the city to take the land where DC BLOX plans to build a data center next door to the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere.</p><p>It is, to date, the most aggressive move yet by an American city against a data center project, and it arrives after a local zoning fight escalated into a national one, replete with a petition carrying more than half a million signatures and objections from celebrities including Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow and Jack White.</p><p>It is however, strictly speaking for now, not a decision to use eminent domain at all yet.</p><h2 id="a-national-story-as-eminent-domain-runs-the-other-way">A national story as eminent domain runs the other way</h2><p>In a session that ran past midnight, the passed bill (<a href="https://councilwatch.pamphleteer.co/legislation/BL2026-1489" target="_blank">BL2026-1489</a>) authorizes Metro to acquire the 23.49-acre property at 648 Grassmere Park through "negotiation or condemnation." Those are two different things, and the legislation permits either.</p><p>The mayor's office has explicitly said that the vote does not commit Metro to buying the land, only that it gives the city the option, and that negotiations on a purchase price have not begun.</p><p>The bill also has other limitations in play: an amendment from Councilmember Quin Evans Segall added two more brakes: an appraisal must be presented to the council, and Metro must wait a minimum of three weeks from the vote before proceeding. Even after that, condemnation requires Metro to demonstrate to a court that it genuinely needs the property for public use. The stated uses are offices, warehouse space, and employee training.</p><p>The reason this is a national story is that eminent domain generally runs the other way; the standard version of this story is a utility or a developer using the state's condemnation power to clear land for infrastructure, over the objections of whoever happens to live on it. </p><p>Georgia Power <a href="https://www.techradar.com/pro/70-percent-of-americans-dont-want-data-centers-built-nearby-but-the-government-is-seizing-private-property-to-force-construction-to-start" target="_blank">did exactly that recently</a>, acquiring 30 residential properties to connect a substation to a power plant, in a state where data center growth is driving load.</p><p>Rick Schwartz, the zoo's president and CEO, <a href="https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/news/the-nashville-zoo-has-become-an-unlikely-battleground-in-americas-data-center-race/" target="_blank">has made a point</a> that tends to get flattened in coverage. DC BLOX has pledged to limit sound, and Schwartz's response is that decibel levels are not the issue. The concern is tonal noise transmitted as vibration, occurring continuously with no overnight relief, which could disturb animals near the proposed buildout site.</p><p>The clouded leopard exhibit sits closest to the proposed site, which matters because the zoo's breeding program for the species relies on a hand-rearing regimen built over three decades, designed to gradually acclimate cubs to human noise and prevent stress.</p><p>Zoo officials also point to stormwater: the zoo's waterway infrastructure is already classified as impaired for siltation and habitat alteration, and runoff from a hardened industrial site upstream would not help. Schwartz has said the zoo is unwilling to pursue a compromise, citing a lack of transparency from the developer.</p><p>DC BLOX closed on the property on July 17 2026 for $23 million. Davidson County assessed it at around $37 million last year. Under Tennessee law, Metro could owe fair market value, which puts the floor above what the developer paid three weeks before the council voted.</p><p>There are other regulations in play that could, however, completely neuter the situation. In late July, the council passed <a href="https://cleanenergy.org/news/nashville-has-begun-regulating-data-centers-now-the-energy-conversation-must-catch-up/" target="_blank">Nashville's first data center regulations</a>, along with a moratorium on new permit approvals that runs through December 1, preventing construction from starting. Separately, two challenges to the zoning administrator's land-use designation for the property are pending with the Board of Zoning Appeals, filed by the zoo among others, and could put a proverbial spanner in the works.</p><p>Nashville is not an outlier in wanting this fight, only in the tool it has attempted to use to prevent a buildout. There are more than 70 active data center moratoriums nationwide, over 200 communities weighing restrictions, and at least 14 states considering similar measures.</p><p>What makes this case worth watching is not the vote itself, but whether a city can actually afford to follow through, both legislatively and potentially down the line, financially.</p> </article> ]]>