Davidson County · Middle Tennessee
Living in Music Row
Music Row is the working music district on 16th and 17th Avenues South, running from Division Street and Demonbreun down toward Belmont, with the Musica statue at the roundabout. Most of it is publishing houses, labels and studios in converted early 20th century houses, and its history over the last decade is a demolition fight that is not finished.
- County
- Davidson
- Distance to downtown Nashville
- ~1 mile
- Character
- A working commercial music district, not a residential neighborhood
- Preservation status
- A vision plan, not a zoning overlay. Read the buyer note
What’s actually there
- 16th and 17th Avenues South, known here as Music Square East and Music Square West
- The roundabout at Division Street with the Musica sculpture and Owen Bradley Park
- RCA Studio A at 30 Music Square West, a working studio rather than a tour stop
- RCA Studio B on Roy Acuff Place, operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and toured from the museum downtown
- The performing rights organizations, BMI, ASCAP and SESAC, and Belmont’s Mike Curb College nearby
- New residential and hotel towers arriving at the edges, including a proposed 22-story building at 1522 Demonbreun Street
The housing stock
Be clear about what this is. Music Row is overwhelmingly commercial: offices, publishers and studios in converted houses, with residential arriving as apartment and condo towers on the edges rather than as houses in the middle. A listing aggregator put a Music Row median around $507,500 in August 2026, down about 9 percent year over year, but that figure blends a small and shifting set of attached product and is not a sold-price release. If you are buying here you are almost certainly buying a condo or an investment building, and either one gets priced on its own merits rather than on a district median.
Getting around
About a mile to downtown. Broadway and Bridgestone Arena sit roughly a mile and a quarter northeast, a twenty-five minute walk or a few minutes by car, and the Gulch is about half a mile, ten minutes on foot. Parking is the daily friction here rather than distance.
Things to do in Music Row
Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.
Musica
The bronze sculpture at the Music Row roundabout by Division Street, unveiled in 2003 and the most photographed thing on the Row.
Owen Bradley Park
The park at 1 Music Square East, across the roundabout from Musica, named for the producer who helped build the Nashville Sound.
RCA Studio A
30 Music Square West. Bought in 2014 by Mike Curb, Chuck Elcan and Aubrey Preston to stop its demolition, and still a working studio. Not open for tours.
RCA Studio B
The studio where Elvis, Dolly Parton and Roy Orbison cut records, owned and operated through the Country Music Hall of Fame. Tours leave from the museum at 222 Rep. John Lewis Way South.
Losers Bar and Grill
Live music bar at 1911 Division Street, next door to Winners at 1913. The pair are the Row’s own after-work strip.
Tin Roof
Music bar and restaurant at 1516 Demonbreun Street, at the Music Row end of the Demonbreun hill.
Curb Event Center
Belmont University’s arena and venue at 1900 Belmont Boulevard, a few blocks south.
Checked against each business as of August 17, 2026. Nashville loses restaurants faster than most cities, so if something here has closed since, tell me and I’ll get it corrected.
Buildings in Music Row, and which ones you can actually buy into
Here nobody searches by subdivision, they search by building. So the first thing each of these says is whether the units are individually owned and buyable or whether the whole tower belongs to one company, because several of them are marketed as condominiums and are not. Everything else is durable: what was built, when, and how many.
Rhythm at Music Row
A condominium on Demonbreun, and the main for-sale address on the Row.
- A genuine condominium. Metro’s parcel records show 108 parcels at 1510 Demonbreun Street, owned by individuals and family trusts, with common area held by the owners’ association.
- Platted April 2, 2008.
- Two of the parcels are ground floor retail units at 1506 and 1508 Demonbreun, owned separately from the residences. They are not homes.
- Do not confuse it with Rhythm on Yokley, a detached single family subdivision on Yokley Road with no connection to Music Row.
Ten Ten on the Row
A condominium at 1010 16th Avenue South, and the name is recorded differently from how people search it.
- A genuine condominium. Metro’s parcel records show 30 parcels, owned by individuals and family trusts, with common area held by the owners’ association.
- Parcel records date to October 2007.
- Recorded as Ten Ten on the Row, spelled out, while buyers search for 1010 on the Row. Both spellings point at the same building and only one of them appears in the legal description.
- Thirty units, so this is a small building rather than a tower, and inventory comes up rarely.
The Bristol on Broadway
A condominium at the Broadway gateway, searched under both Music Row and Midtown.
- A genuine condominium. Metro’s parcel records show 172 parcels at 1803 Broadway, owned by individuals and family trusts.
- Parcel records date to May 2005.
- It sits at Broadway and 18th Avenue, the gateway to the Row, which is why it turns up under two neighborhood names in searches.
- At 172 units it is the largest for-sale building anywhere near Music Row.
Albion Music Row
A rental on McGavock, and everything published about its size disagrees.
- A rental. Two parcels on McGavock Street under single ownership, with no individually owned units.
- Platted April 10, 2024. Developed by Albion Residential, designed by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture, built by Clark Construction, on the former Beaman dealership property.
- Built amenities include an outdoor plaza with a performance lawn, a rooftop pool, indoor and outdoor fitness, a podcasting studio, coworking space and ground floor retail.
- I am not publishing a story count or a unit count for this one. Trade press reports range from 28 to 29 stories and from 246 to 458 units, and the reported address does not match Metro’s parcels either. When the numbers do not agree, I would rather give you the name and the status than a figure I cannot stand behind.
Music Row Villas
A condominium of exactly two units, listed because people search the phrase.
- A genuine condominium, and a very small one. Metro’s parcel records show three parcels: unit A, unit B, and a common area held by the owners’ association.
- At 1021 15th Avenue South, with the common area at 1021 C.
- Two units means this regime will never produce meaningful inventory. That is a permanent fact about it, not a market condition.
- Worth naming only so that a search for the phrase lands somewhere accurate rather than on a page implying a building full of listings.
Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Look up an address with the district →
Served by Metro Nashville Public Schools, assigned by address, with the choice and magnet application running separately. Confirm the specific address in the district’s Zone Finder.
I publish district and school zoning as published fact and nothing more. No ratings, no rankings, no comparisons. School zones are set by the district, assigned by address rather than by subdivision or city name, and they change. Confirm any address with the district itself, and evaluate the schools yourself against what matters to your family.
What a buyer needs to know here
The most important thing to understand here is what protects these buildings, because the answer is less than people assume. After RCA Studio A came close to demolition, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Music Row a National Treasure in January 2015, Metro’s planning commission approved a rezoning moratorium in February 2015, the Trust put Music Row on its eleven most endangered list in May 2019, and the Metro Planning Commission approved the Music Row Vision Plan on June 27, 2019. Read the last one carefully. Metro describes the Vision Plan as a guide and a call to action. I could not confirm that a binding Music Row zoning or design overlay was ever adopted from it. So if you are buying here on the assumption that the historic character of the block is protected, verify that assumption at the parcel with Metro Codes before you sign, because a plan is not a restriction. The flip side is the opportunity: the same commercial and mixed-use zoning that leaves buildings exposed is also the zoning where Metro will issue a non-owner-occupied short-term rental permit, which it will not do on a single-family street. That answer is still parcel by parcel and it needs to come from Metro rather than from a seller.
Common questions
Is Music Row protected from demolition?
Less than the headlines suggest, and this is worth getting right. The National Trust named it a National Treasure in 2015, Metro ran a rezoning moratorium that year, the Trust listed it as endangered in 2019, and the Metro Planning Commission approved a Music Row Vision Plan on June 27, 2019. Metro itself describes that plan as a guide rather than a regulation, and I could not confirm a binding overlay was adopted from it. Historic buildings here have been lost during that entire period. Verify protection at the specific parcel with Metro Codes rather than assuming the district carries it.
Can I tour RCA Studio A or Studio B?
Studio B, yes, through the Country Music Hall of Fame, with tours departing from the museum at 222 Rep. John Lewis Way South. Studio A, no. It was bought in 2014 by Mike Curb, Chuck Elcan and Aubrey Preston specifically to keep it from being torn down, and it is a working studio at 30 Music Square West rather than an attraction.
Is anybody actually living on Music Row?
Some, and more coming, but this is a workplace first. The core is publishers, labels and studios in converted houses. The residential product is towers at the edges, including a proposed 22-story, 333-unit building at 1522 Demonbreun Street. If you want a neighborhood with houses and neighbors, look at Midtown, Hillsboro Village or Edgehill instead and I will show you those.
What is around Music Row at night?
Its own strip, which is why people who work in the business stay here rather than going downtown. Losers at 1911 Division and Winners at 1913 sit side by side and have been the industry hangout for years. Tin Roof is at 1516 Demonbreun at the top of the hill. Belmont’s Curb Event Center at 1900 Belmont Boulevard books bigger shows a few blocks south. Broadway is about a mile and a quarter away, twenty-five minutes on foot, and the Gulch is half that. Close enough to all of it to go whenever you want, far enough that it is not happening outside your window.
Can I short-term rent on Music Row?
More likely here than in most of Nashville, and still not automatic. Metro issues non-owner-occupied short-term rental permits in commercial, mixed-use and certain higher-density zones, and much of Music Row carries that kind of zoning. It is still a parcel-level question and it still has to be confirmed with Metro, not with a seller or a listing. If the rental income is the reason for the purchase, we get that answer in writing first.
Thinking about Music Row?
What are some of your must haves to make it a perfect home for you in this neighborhood?