A long exposure of The Boring Company’s Music City Loop worksite at night
The future Music City Loop underground tunnel will feature a station servicing the JW Marriott Nashville hotel located in SoBro.
The Elon Musk-owned company noted the agreement in an Aug. 1 blog post, saying the station will provide hotel guests with “direct access” to the Music City Loop, the underground Tesla taxi service.
In the year since The Boring Company announced its initial plans for the Music City Loop airport-to-downtown tunnel project, drilling has been ongoing.
The blog post regarding the JW Marriott Nashville hotel, located at 201 Eighth Ave. S., comes after The Boring Company received approvals from both the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, allowing the company to move forward with tunneling. Meanwhile Nashville’s Metro Council has expressed its opposition to the project, though has little authority to halt operations.
The blog post notes that more than 40 stations “in various stages of planning and design” are in the works. In May, the company announced a private station at local development company Giarratana LLC’s trio of Church Street towers. In addition, the blog post notes that the company has two boring machines actively tunneling in Nashville, with a third machine expected to arrive in September.
The tunnel’s critics have questioned the project’s impact on the environment, specifically noting widespread Tennessee limestone and the possibility for sinkholes.
“Nashville has great rock!” the Boring Company blog post reads, without providing any other materials. “Throughout tunneling, core samples are collected regularly to measure the rock’s compressive strength. Conditions have been excellent, with testing consistently showing compressive strengths of approximately 14,000 psi.”
Other concerns continue to be raised regarding the safety, transparency and accountability of the tunnel system.
“Music City Loop is grateful for the continued hospitality and engagement it has received from the Nashville community,” the post reads. “Through ongoing conversations with residents, business owners, students, and community leaders, the team has shared information about the project while gaining valuable insight into the city’s priorities. … To date, TBC has engaged with more than 250 community, educational, nonprofit, and professional organizations and participated in over 150 volunteer events across Middle Tennessee.”
However, the company has had little to no communication with reporters in the area, and has not responded to any requests for comment from the Scene or our sister publication the Nashville Post.
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
