Davidson County · Middle Tennessee
Living in Salemtown
Salemtown sits directly north of Germantown, about a mile and a half from Public Square, and it is the one neighborhood on this list where the zoning overlay is the whole story. It is a Neighborhood Conservation overlay, not a Preservation overlay, and the difference between those two words decides what you can build and what you can simply go do.
- Overlay
- Neighborhood Conservation Zoning Overlay, turn-of-the-century district
- Tax district
- Urban Services District, $2.814 per hundred for 2025
- To downtown
- About 1.4 miles
What’s actually there
- Morgan Park and the Morgan Park Community Center
- Germantown immediately south, which is a stricter Historic Preservation overlay
- The Buchanan Street commercial corridor at the north edge
- Small-scale turn-of-the-century housing stock with substantial infill among it
The housing stock
Metro classifies Salemtown among its turn-of-the-twentieth-century conservation districts, which tells you the original stock: small-scale cottages and similar early 1900s forms. There is substantial new construction and replacement among it. Redfin recorded a median sale price of $1,017,500 in October 2024 at $408 a square foot, and I want to be honest that the month had four sales in it. Four closings is not a stable median. Use it as a direction, not a number, and pull current data before you price anything.
Getting around
About a mile and a half from Public Square, immediately north of Germantown, with Rosa L. Parks Boulevard and Eighth Avenue North as the through routes.
Things to do in Salemtown
Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.
Morgan Park and Community Center
The neighborhood park, with playground equipment and a Metro community center.
Buchanan Street
The nearest commercial street. A Commercial Compatibility Overlay took effect March 27, 2026 across about 15.6 acres between 21st Avenue North and I-65, restricting several categories of new business. Existing businesses were grandfathered.
Basket Case Café and Grocer
1801 5th Avenue North, a café and small grocer in one.
Neighborlily
606 Monroe Street, coffee by day and cocktails at night, on the Germantown line.
Werthan Mills Lofts
1400 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard. The early 1900s textile mill converted to lofts, and the landmark people navigate by.
Checked against each business as of August 16, 2026. Nashville loses restaurants faster than most cities, so if something here has closed since, tell me and I’ll get it corrected.
Subdivisions and named developments in Salemtown
Once you are actually looking, you stop searching by city and start searching by subdivision. These are the names that come up, and what is true about each one that will still be true in three years. No prices, no dues, no days on market, because those change and this page would go stale telling you about them.
There is no plat named Salemtown
The name has no recorded subdivision behind it at all.
- A search of Metro’s complete plat index for Salemtown returns nothing. Not one recorded plat in Davidson County carries the name.
- The nearest match is Salem Gardens, which is a different subdivision somewhere else and should not be used as a substitute.
- The ground under Salemtown is platted as McGavock’s Town North Nashville, book 21 at page 23, and North Nashville Real Estate Company, book 21 at page 105. I confirmed that by pulling the legal descriptions on Garfield Street and Coffee Street, the neighborhood’s two boundary streets.
- So the name is real, the neighborhood is real, and the plat is somebody else’s. That is normal in North Nashville and it surprises buyers every time.
The abbreviation that hides two thirds of the plat
Search the full name and you find a third of it.
- Metro’s legal descriptions record the same plat as NORTH NASH REAL EST and as NORTH NASHVILLE REAL EST.
- The abbreviated spelling returns about 108 parcels. The full spelling returns about 48. Together they are about 156.
- Search the full name only and you have found roughly 31 percent of the plat. The other two thirds are invisible.
- That is a real risk on a comparable-sales pull here, and it is exactly the kind of thing that never announces itself. You get a clean-looking result set that is missing most of the ground.
The conservation overlay, on the record
The exact instrument, since this is the whole story here.
- Ordinance BL2013-370, Metro case 2013NHC-001-002, effective May 16, 2013, covering about 31.89 acres. It is small and it is precise.
- It is a neighborhood conservation overlay, not a preservation overlay. New construction, additions, demolition and relocation are reviewed. Paint, roofing, siding and window replacement are not.
- Salemtown is not on the National Register and never has been. It sits between two districts that are, Germantown to the south and Buena Vista to the southwest, and belongs to neither.
- The case number ends in 002, which suggests an earlier version of the case existed. Whether a 001 was adopted and superseded is not something I could verify, so I am flagging it rather than asserting it.
The developments you can actually buy into
Unusual for North Nashville: these really are individually owned units.
- Salemtown Cottages carries about 25 parcels at 710 Buchanan Street and 1813 7th Avenue North: 24 separately deeded units with 24 different owners of record, plus a recorded common area.
- Salemtown Square Townhomes carries units 1 through 6 at 1706 and 1708 4th Avenue North, most already sold through to individual owners. Salemtown Court carries six parcels and is still selling out, with the builder holding several units.
- Cottages of Salemtown I and II, Salemtown Townhomes and Townhomes of Salemtown are all small two-unit regimes on 3rd and 5th Avenue North, each with its own recorded common area.
- About 50 parcels carry Salemtown in the legal description. Contrast that with 808 Garfield Street on the Germantown seam, which is one parcel carrying 329 units under one LLC. Same walk to the same coffee, completely different thing to buy.
A brand new Urban Design Overlay landed here in 2026
Anything written about development rules here before spring 2026 is out of date.
- River North Subdistrict 3 is an Urban Design Overlay, ordinance BL2026-1312, Metro case 2017UD-005-012, effective April 21, 2026, covering about 177 acres.
- A UDO regulates form: massing, height, setback, how a building meets the street. Planning administers it against an adopted design plan.
- It is not preservation review and it does not replace or override the conservation overlay. The two instruments do different jobs and a property can sit under both.
- It is months old. If you are reading development guidance for this area that predates spring 2026, it does not account for this, and on a development purchase that is the first thing to check rather than the last.
Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Look up an address with the district →
Metro Nashville Public Schools serves Salemtown. Metro assigns by address and runs a separate choice and magnet process alongside zoned assignment, so confirm any specific address with the district 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 overlay catches the addition, not the paint, and buyers get this backwards in both directions. Salemtown is a Neighborhood Conservation overlay. That means the Historic Zoning Commission reviews new construction, additions, demolition and moving a structure. It does not review routine exterior repair, siding, or replacing your windows. Adjacent Germantown is a Historic Preservation overlay, which does review those things, and that is exactly why people get this line wrong. The expensive mistake is the first one. Somebody buys a small cottage at a price that only works if they can add square footage, a rear addition, a second story, a detached unit, or a scrape and rebuild. Every one of those is precisely what the conservation overlay reviews, against design guidelines covering height, scale, setback, spacing, materials, roof shape and the proportion of openings. That is a review timeline and a design cost on top of the purchase, and the permit is not automatic. If your number depends on adding square footage, price the review before you write the offer.
Common questions
Can I replace the windows in a Salemtown house without approval?
In a Neighborhood Conservation overlay, yes. That overlay reviews new construction, additions, demolition and moving a structure, not routine repairs or window replacement. Germantown next door is a Historic Preservation overlay and does review those, which is where the confusion comes from. Confirm your specific parcel, because the boundary matters more than the neighborhood name.
Can I add a second story or build in the back?
Possibly, and that is the thing to price before you buy rather than after. Additions and new construction go to the Historic Zoning Commission against the turn-of-the-century design guidelines. Height, scale, setback and materials all get looked at. If your purchase math depends on the addition, get the design question answered during your inspection period.
Thinking about Salemtown?
What are some of your must haves to make it a perfect home for you in this neighborhood?