Scrap metal yard’s closure creates Icahn-ic opportunity in East Bank

You say iconic; I say Icahnic.

Either way, count billionaire Carl Icahn as a key player in Nashville’s bid to redevelop a big chunk of its downtown.

The multifaceted, celebrity investor owns 45 acres that will be vacated by a metal recycling company that has been leasing the land in the emerging East Bank district, the Nashville Business Journal reported. Icahn’s holding sits between the $2.1 billion Nissan Stadium that’s taking shape for the Titans franchise of the National Football League and a 30-acre mixed-use development site of The Fallon Company.

Icahn sold a scrap-metal business, at 701 South First Street, but kept the land it occupied on the East Bank site in a 2021 deal with  SA Recycling, which has continued to operate there while also leasing 25 acres in West Nashville. SA Recycling recently exercised an option to buy the land in West Nashville, and it plans to close its East Bank site.

The acreage is on the waterfront of the Cumberland River, not far from the bridge that spans Korean Veterans Boulevard, a major connector in Nashville’s downtown, and about a mile from the Country Music Hall of Fame. The 45-acre chunk of land has drawn plenty of interest in recent years for its redevelopment potential, and the shuttering of the metals recycling operation appears to put some wind in those sails.

It’s not clear whether Icahn has any immediate plans to sell or develop the East Bank site.

Tyler Adams, chief operating officer of Orange, California-based SA Recycling, said his company’s departure from the East Bank site is in line with the outlook for the area’s redevelopment beyond industrial uses.

“I won’t speak to our long-term strategy or big-picture plans in Nashville, but I will say we have long recognized that a shredding operation on the East Bank is not desirable,” he said.

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