What’s Next for Old Nissan?

The walls and goalposts are coming down, but the green is staying: East Bank officials tease a signature park in place of old Nissan Stadium.

Lead story · By Megan Podsiedlik

CATS, Not The Musical

By Rachel Gladstone

The eleventh installment in Tales from the Westside

It’s day five and Sweetie Pie, the last of my feral cats, hasn’t turned up for supper. I’m fearing the worst. That cat is punctual as a habit and no matter the weather, she’s always at the front gate by 6:00.

My heart sinks as I call her name for the umpteenth time and as I head back inside, resigned to the fact that she could be gone for good, I flash back to the first time I saw her in the alley behind my house. A tiny bundle of orange fur, her emerald, green eyes caught mine. She meowed with everything she had, which wasn’t much, and thinking this was my cue to pick her up, I reached for her. But before I could even get close, she sprinted under a chain link fence and back to the safety of the blue Victorian with the wraparound porch where she and her mother, a large orange tabby, camped out.

By then I’d lived in the Nations for a decade and there had always been a rotating cast of feral cats on my block.  But most of them had died or wandered off and other than a couple of big, scared-up tomcats who came and went, the orange tabby and her adorable kitten were the last of the pack. But that was about to change.

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Back to Our Roots We're sponsoring an event with the Meriwether Academy as they host Justin Shubow to speak about how beauty, civic architecture, and public design shape American culture and identity.

Shubow is president of the National Civic Art Society and a former chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, best known for championing classical and traditional architecture in American public life.

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• 📊 First glance at the latest Beacon Poll.

  Tennessee Republicans hold sizable leads in the 2026 governor and U.S. Senate races, with Marsha Blackburn leading Jerri Green in the gubernatorial race 55 percent to 34 percent and incumbent Senator Bill Hagerty leading Marquita Bradshaw 58 percent to 33 percent. The poll also found President Trump’s approval underwater in Tennessee for the first time in the Beacon Poll, with 48 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval. On policy, 61 percent of Tennesseans oppose tax incentives for data centers, while 54 percent approve of public access to AI tools and 53 percent believe AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates.

  Beacon Center

• 🏙️ Planning Department releases initial report of the design and development strategy for the Urban Core.

  Metro Planning’s new report says Nashville’s urban core has grown faster than the city’s planning and zoning tools, creating less predictable development outcomes. The study covers about 3,000 acres in Downtown, Midtown, Music Row, and the East Bank and recommends exploring updates to zoning, development standards, approval processes, and historic-preservation tools.

  Metro Planning Dep.

• 📹 Knox County to remove all Flock cameras in 30 days: Commissioner, lawyer explain why.

  Knox County’s Commission voted unanimously to remove all 143 Flock license-plate cameras within 30 days, following concerns about privacy, transparency, data storage, and potential police misuse. The county has spent more than $2 million on the cameras, which can capture detailed vehicle information, while officials also questioned the validity of the county’s $800,000 Flock contract.

  WATE

• ⚖️ TN law limits what four patients critically injured in drug mix-up can collect in damages if they sue.

  Four patients suffered severe complications after receiving the wrong medications during surgeries at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown, with at least two reportedly left paralyzed. A Tennessee law passed in 2011 caps pain-and-suffering damages in medical malpractice cases at $750,000, or up to $1 million for patients who are paralyzed, meaning the patients could face a much lower potential award than many would expect.

  NewsChannel 5