Nashville Business Journal
By Drew Hutchinson
AJ Capital’s 2019 recruitment of Soho House to Nashville is one of the top 10 most important events that made the city what it is, said David Ewing, a historian and CEO of Nashville History on Tour.
But the firm’s influence doesn’t end there.
AJ Capital is a driving force transforming one of Nashville's hottest neighborhoods. The company, which owns over 17 acres in the area, has designed much of Wedgewood Houston’s main commercial block in its image, filling the district with the mass timber office building where the Academy of Country Music is headquartered, as well as plans for a live music venue and retail, office, restaurants and apartments surrounding a historic mansion, which will also be preserved and revitalized.
A decade ago, Wedgewood Houston was a tightly knit but sleepy area, with a hodgepodge of old — sometimes blighted — buildings scattered among industrial properties and the occasional dive bar. Neighborhood favorites like Bastion hadn’t opened yet.
One of the neighborhood’s key properties is the May Hosiery Mills complex, the row of historical brick buildings near Dicey’s Tavern. For decades starting in the 1920s, the sock factory was Nashville’s largest employer — and one of the companies that spurred the city’s growth.