Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee is building a new headquarters on Donelson Pike, just south of the Nashville airport, and the city has issued its building permit. The permit, issued Oct. 22 for 1301 Donelson Pike, carries a reported value of $39.0 million.
Five days later, on Tuesday, the food bank broke ground.
Two years from land deal to shovels
The permit is for a "headquarters building" with staff offices, a food storage and distribution warehouse, a kitchen, and space for volunteers and public community services. It's the first building permit we've seen at the address.
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Second Harvest agreed to pay $7 million for the 23.6-acre site in September 2024, Main Street Media of Tennessee reported. At the time, the food bank put the whole project at almost $100 million including land, on "rough numbers."
This September, Metro approved $65 million in tax-free bonds for the project, WSMV reported. CEO Nancy Keil told the station the bonds let the food bank put about $600,000 toward food instead of construction.
Double the room
The campus will cover 200,000 square feet and cost $89 million, according to The Tennessean, which covered Tuesday's groundbreaking. Construction starts in December, with completion expected in fall 2027 and an opening in early 2028. That would be the food bank's 50th year in Davidson County.
The figures differ by outlet. WSMV put the cost at $90 million in September, and NewsChannel 5 said $95 million on Tuesday. The permit's $39.0 million is a different measure: it's the construction value filed with the city for this building permit, not the full project budget or a contract amount. No source we read breaks the costs down.
The food bank has spent 25 years on a 10-acre property in MetroCenter, The Tennessean reported. Its Martin Distribution Center on Great Circle Road has 98,000 square feet and will be sold once the new campus is done, according to Main Street Media. "This building is bursting at the seams," Keil told WSMV.
The need has grown with the region. Second Harvest provided 51 million pounds of food last year, about 43 million meals, across 46 counties in Middle and West Tennessee, The Tennessean reported. The new campus is expected to more than double its capacity, and NewsChannel 5 reported that cold storage nearly doubles.
More than a warehouse
Besides the warehouse and volunteer space, the plans include a culinary center whose kitchen also serves a community room groups can book, and a community garden, according to The Tennessean.
The biggest change for the public is a neighbor care center. People will be able to shop for groceries there, and more than 20 nonprofit partners will offer other services under the same roof, from legal aid to dental care. For the first time, people will be able to pick out their own food on site, WSMV reported, and a WeGo bus stop is planned on Donelson Pike.
"Everything about this campus is food first, but not food alone," Keil said at the groundbreaking, The Tennessean reported.
The Oct. 22 permit points to a separate master permit for the site. The MetroCenter warehouse is set to close in 2028, once the move to Donelson Pike is done, WSMV reported.
See all of Nashville's latest permit numbers, updated weekly.
Sources
- The Tennessean via Yahoo News, "Second Harvest breaks ground on 200,000-square-foot campus. What it'll include" (Oct. 27, 2026): yahoo.com
- WSMV, "Second Harvest Food Bank building new, larger Nashville facility to meet growing need" (Sept. 10, 2026): wsmv.com
- NewsChannel 5, "Second Harvest breaks ground on new campus near Nashville airport" (Oct. 27, 2026): newschannel5.com
- Main Street Media of Tennessee, "Second Harvest Food Bank plans move to new distribution center site near Nashville airport" (Sept. 10, 2024): mainstreetmediatn.com
- Metro Nashville building permit 2026060250.
- Photo: Cessna86, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: commons.wikimedia.org
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More numbers: Nashville, TN building permit activity, updated weekly.