Nashville Yards’ newest tenant has room for 250 little ones.
The Goddard School opened its first downtown location at Nashville Yards.
The new child care center is located adjacent to the Pinnacle Tower, at 191 10th Ave N. The 20,000-square-foot facility includes 16 classrooms with room for around 250 children between ages of 6 weeks and 6 years, according to the release.
The Goddard School of Nashville Yards also adds 50 teaching jobs to the community.
“Opening the Goddard School is a major milestone for Nashville Yards, our tenants, residents, and everyone who lives or works downtown and now has access to high-quality child care,” Cary Mack, managing partner of Southwest Value Partners, said at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 9. “The school is beautiful and engaging and secure – an incredible space in a unique setting that helps meet the tremendous need for child care in downtown Nashville.”
The nation’s child care criss is intensifying. Fifty-seven percent of parents say that unreliable child care has negatively impacted their work performance, and 52% are worried they will have to “step back” their job to juggle children, according to KinderCare’s 2025 Parent Confidence Index.
In Davidson County, there are four child care centers for every 1,000 children, according to the 2024 State of the Child in Tennessee.
The Nashville Yards school offers indoor and outdoor play areas, train-themed design elements as a nod to the site’s history, as well as hospital-grade sanitization equipment, according to a release. Nashville-based Bell Construction served as the general contractor for the project.
It’s the sixth location of the school for Leisa Byars and Del McSpadden, who own five other locations in Middle Tennessee. Byars and McSpadden searched for a downtown location for a decade before connecting with Southwest Value Partners.
The Goddard School is the newest tenant to open its doors in the high-profile Nashville Yards development. The child care center helps to serve the thousands of employees that find home on the campus from firms including Pinnacle Financial Partners, Bass Berry & Sims, PwC, Amazon and many more.
“Having my two-year-old’s preschool just downstairs from my office at Bass, Berry & Sims has been such a special experience,” Elaina Al-Nimri, member at Bass Berry & Sims, said at the ceremony. “Not only does it bring me peace of mind, but it has given my colleagues the chance to meet my son and has allowed me to show up more fully as both an attorney and a mom.”
Since opening at the start of the year, the $1 billion Nashville Yards development has continued to draw in high-profile office, retail and restaurant tenants, but Mack previously called the child care center a “critical component” for the project’s success.
“A city thrives on the strength of its community, and with the opening of The Goddard School of Nashville Yards, we see our development partners coming alongside Metro in our effort to help to meet the critical need for high-quality childcare in our urban core,” Mayor Freddie O’Connell said at the event.
Read the full story from Nashville Business Journal here.