Nashville, Tennessee issued the main building permit on September 29 for Stevenson Center 6, the research building Vanderbilt University is putting up at the center of its science campus. The permit lists a construction cost of $55.5 million.
Vanderbilt hasn't put a public price on the building. The university has announced a design team, a schedule and a $25 million gift. The permit is the first cost figure we've seen on the record.
What the permit describes
The permit at 1221 Stevenson Center Lane calls it a high-rise research facility "designed to accommodate a diverse range of laboratory environments." It gives the size as about 210,000 gross square feet, with two levels below grade, eight above and a penthouse.
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The size matches the reporting. When anonymous donors gave $25 million toward the project in June, WSMV reported a 210,000-square-foot building with 10 stories of shared lab and research space, opening at the end of 2028. Vanderbilt told the station it will hold about 50 principal investigators.
Three schools will share it: the College of Arts and Science, the School of Engineering and the medical school's basic sciences, according to the university's project page. The page lists the building at more than 200,000 square feet and has occupancy in fall 2028.
A year of permits on one lot
The lot held the old SC6 building, part of the Stevenson Center science complex. Metro issued a $4.57 million permit to demolish it in January. The new-building application followed at the end of March.
In April, DLR Group announced it is the design architect, working with Hopkins Architects. Its release described 10 stories above ground plus two lower levels and expected a summer 2026 groundbreaking. The permit counts the floors differently: eight above grade plus a penthouse. Neither explains the gap.
Ground work started on that schedule. An August permit worth $2.79 million covers under-slab utilities and the below-grade foundations. The building permit followed on September 29, and a plumbing permit two days later.
Permit values are the construction costs filed with the city, not contract amounts.
Meanwhile, the hospitals are renovating
The science tower is the biggest medical or research permit Metro has issued since late September. It isn't the only big one. From September 21 through October 14, Metro issued 14 permits worth $500,000 or more for hospitals, a hospice and medical offices. Together they list nearly $95 million in work.
Nearly all of it is interior renovation, not new buildings:
- TriStar Centennial's women's and children's hospital, 2221 Murphy Ave.: five permits worth $33.8 million. The largest, $20 million, replaces infrastructure equipment on five floors and the roof penthouse. The other four renovate patient floors in phases.
- Ascension Saint Thomas's Midtown campus: $14.7 million to build an ambulatory surgery center with nine operating rooms on the fourth floor, with new air handling and emergency generators on the roof.
- Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, 2200 Children's Way: $10.2 million for an inpatient pediatric rehabilitation unit on part of the eighth floor.
- Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, 2410 Patterson St.: $10.2 million to renovate the first and fourth floors.
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1311 21st Ave. S.: $4.6 million to finish a floor of inpatient beds inside space built earlier as a shell.
Several of these permits say the work changes nothing outside the building. The hospitals are rebuilding from the inside, a floor or a wing at a time.
Next on the Stevenson Center 6 calendar is the finish. The university's page puts completion in summer 2028.
How we count
Permits come from Metro Nashville Codes building permit records: the new building and foundation permits at 1221 Stevenson Center Lane, the demolition permit there, and the healthcare permits issued September 21 through October 14, 2026 with a reported value of $500,000 or more. Values are the construction costs reported on the permits, not contract amounts. Sizes, schedules and the gift come from the sources linked here.
See all of Nashville's latest permit numbers, updated weekly.
Sources
- WSMV, "$25 million 'anonymous' gift to build multipurpose science facility at Vanderbilt University" (June 18, 2026): wsmv.com
- Vanderbilt University Facilities, Stevenson Center 6 project page: vanderbilt.edu
- DLR Group, release on its design of Vanderbilt's research facility (April 23, 2026): dlrgroup.com
- Metro Nashville building permits 2026027287 (new building), 2026027285 (foundation), 2025042074 (demolition) and 2026082080 (plumbing); healthcare permits 2026071667, 2025034020, 2026008006, 2026065278 and 2026070178, among others.
- Photo: Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, by SenatorDF, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More from Morningline Research
More numbers: Nashville, TN building permit activity, updated weekly.