Nashville Eye, The Tennessean
May 10, 2002

William W. Wade, Ph. D.
Energy & Water Economics
Columbia TN 38401

Franklin fails to see tourism dollars in battlefield site

Gazing north from Winstead Hill at the commercially ravaged vista to the Carter House in Franklin, one can ponder the foolish loss of a few square miles of exceedingly important historic land to inconsequential retail and commercial. Shops along this strip of the Columbia Pike are no more than marginal, do not contribute high valued property taxes to City and County coffers, and have not been important to Franklin's economic development.

The demise of most of the Franklin Battlefield decades ago came before planning and zoning for the future were in Tennesseans' awareness. While culturally understandable, imagine the educational dividends and the economic returns to Franklin and Williamson County if someone of vision could have foreseen the benefits of preserving the Franklin Battlefield. Think of Chickamauga’s economic importance to Chattanooga in contrast.

In an era of planning, three acres of Franklin’s historic Battle Ground Academy landscape will be converted to a municipal library without even a Master Plan that considers the economic synergies at stake by siting decisions. Municipal development of Battle Ground Academy land will not enhance its economic value to citizens and merchants of Williamson County. The April 30, 2002, decision by the Williamson County Commission to site a library on key acreage of the Franklin Battlefield reflected no more insight into the economic stakes than General Hood brought to his decision November 30, 1864.

Locating the library at the north end of the Battle Ground Academy property will not add a nickel to either retail business or local government revenues. Commissioners' remarks reveal no awareness of the size of tourism dollars that enhancement and promotion of the battlefield would bring to Franklin's anemic retail, hotel and restaurant trade. Historically valuable lands should be preserved and enhanced to nurture the tourism industry and bring money to the county to benefit the hospitality and retail sectors. Culturally less important land—not at the center of Franklin’s historic resource—should have been found for the library. This foolish decision missed an opportunity to develop the existing battlefield resource into an economic driver of huge potential.

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted argued in the 19th century that Central Park would generate more revenue for New York City than the shops and apartments that would otherwise occupy the space. Creating Central Park may have been the single most important land use planning decision made in the history of New York City. Olmsted compared the cost of parkland acquisition and improvement to increased tax revenues. When the park was only half-complete, Central Park generated a net positive return to New York City’s coffers. Abundant research confirms that open space in urban communities is more valuable to residents and tax collections than most other potential uses of the preserved land. Without doubt, the battlefield land is more valuable to the local economy as an historic resource than as a building and parking lot.

Retail and wholesale trade is the single largest economic driver of Williamson County. Nearly one in four jobs in the county occurs in trade. Most of this employment occurs at Cool Springs--to the detriment of downtown Franklin. The retail industry has changed dramatically in the last ten years, becoming concentrated in large chain stores, which look alike from Cool Springs to Dallas to Los Angeles. Shops on Main Street other than Starbucks can only be characterized as lackluster regardless of their appeal. They cannot expect to price compete and require much more foot traffic to prosper with unique products. Franklin's two best restaurants closed last year and have only recently reopened under new management.

The library decision condemned existing shops on Main Street to a dim future. Expansion and development of core battlefield land would bring a rapid and large infusion of new spending to downtown Franklin. Too bad the shop owners didn't beat down the Commissioners' doors to oppose the library location. Too bad the battlefield support groups and local merchants didn't come together to create a voice large enough to offset the Library Board.

Franklin’s land use planning has never enhanced the battlefield or encouraged tourism to the Franklin Battlefield. Properly nurtured, tourists would come by the thousands and spend money by the millions in Franklin’s stores, restaurants, and hotels. Failure to appreciate and enhance the battlefield has cost the local community hundreds of millions of dollars over the last century.

The economic significance of promoting tourism that links Spring Hill and Franklin is huge. Carter House and Rippavilla count visitors in the tens of thousands. Shiloh counts visitors in the hundreds of thousands and Chickamauga counts visitors over a million. An economic study would show that the benefits to Franklin of enhancing historic land vastly overshadows any use that could be made to the 12 acres of the Battle Ground Academy property. This is a “no-brainer.” Franklin Battlefield is a vastly underdeveloped historic resource of great interest to a rapidly growing heritage tourism market. Yet, Williamson County Commissioners made its decision without any obvious expert input beyond architectural renderings.

Willy nilly land use planning is a proven disaster; better to do nothing than to do it wrong from the start. The library siting decision is wrong from the start. Countless hundreds of millions of dollars of spending will be missed because of this single decision. General Hood's legacy of foolish decisionmaking continues to haunt Franklin.