Davidson County · Middle Tennessee
Living in Shelby Hills
Shelby Hills is a compact, genuinely hilly pocket on the south side of Shelby Avenue, bounded by Shelby Park to the east, 10th Street to the west, Shelby Avenue to the north and the Cumberland River to the south. Those are the neighborhood association’s own words for its boundaries, and it is one of Nashville’s old streetcar neighborhoods.
- County
- Davidson
- Distance to downtown Nashville
- ~2 miles
- Design review
- None. No historic or conservation overlay reaches south of Shelby Avenue
- Character
- Small streetcar-era pocket between the park and the river
What’s actually there
- Boundaries of Shelby Park east, 10th Street west, Shelby Avenue north and the Cumberland River south
- Sharp elevation change across a few blocks, which is where the name comes from
- Shelby Park forming the entire eastern boundary, 300 acres by Metro Parks’ own count
- Shelby Bottoms Natural Area beyond it, taking the combined green space past 1,200 acres
- A neighborhood association listed among Metro Planning’s affiliated associations
- The Envision Cayce redevelopment immediately west across 10th Street, under construction in phases
- Named in Metro’s East Nashville Community Plan as one of the traditional historic neighborhoods of East Nashville
The housing stock
The association describes its own housing as a mix of older and newer homes on hilly terrain, dating from its origins as a streetcar neighborhood. I have not found a reliable era-by-era breakdown for these blocks and I am not going to invent one. What matters more than the era is this: no historic overlay and no conservation overlay covers Shelby Hills. Metro’s Lockeland Springs and East End Conservation overlay was extended south in 2003, but it stops at Shelby Avenue, which is this neighborhood’s northern boundary rather than a street inside it. So there is no design review here, nothing brakes what gets built next door, and Metro’s 2025 zoning changes allowing detached accessory units and small multifamily housing land on a neighborhood with no overlay to stand in the way.
Getting around
About two miles to downtown, five to eight minutes off-peak, with Shelby Avenue running straight west to the river crossings and Davidson Street running east along the park.
Things to do in Shelby Hills
Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.
Shelby Park
300 acres on the eastern boundary, open dawn to 11pm, with a fenced dog park, Sevier Lake, a community center and two golf courses.
Shelby Golf Course
Municipal 18-hole course at 2021 Fatherland Street, opened 1924 as Nashville’s first municipal course.
VinnyLinks
Nine-hole par-3 course at 2009 Sevier Street, 1,210 yards, open seasonally March through November and programmed by the First Tee of Tennessee.
Shelby Park boat ramp
Cumberland River access at Shelby Avenue and 20th Street, river mile 193, lit, with restrooms.
Shelby Bottoms Nature Center
1900 Davidson Street. Open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday 9 to 4, Wednesday and Friday noon to 4. The greenway itself runs dawn to dusk daily.
Cumberland River pedestrian bridge
Carries the Shelby Bottoms Greenway over the river to Two Rivers Park and the Stones River Greenway.
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.
Subdivisions and named developments in Shelby Hills
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.
The plat named Shelby Hills is not where the neighborhood is
Two different pieces of ground share this name, and it changes which rules apply.
- The recorded plat named Shelby Hills sits on South 10th Street, running roughly from the 200 block to the 500 block, with three parcels on Sevier Street. That ground is mostly north of Shelby Avenue.
- The neighborhood people call Shelby Hills is south of Shelby Avenue, between 10th Street, Shelby Park and the river.
- So the plat and the neighborhood overlap at the edge and are not the same thing. Your deed may say Shelby Hills while your house sits nowhere near the plat, or the reverse.
- The recorded plat is small: about 42 parcels, all in 37206, with a median lot around twenty-three hundredths of an acre.
The plat dates, 1963 and 1964
Mid-century, and a century newer than the historic blocks a few streets north.
- The base Shelby Hills plat was recorded September 9, 1963, with Section 2 on April 21, 1964 and Section 3 on September 18, 1964.
- Metro’s plat books put those three out of order, so the 1963 to 1964 era is solid but the base plat’s exact day is not.
- Zoning across it is RS5, RM20 and RM20-A, so multifamily zoning is present rather than exceptional.
- A related mid-century plat, Shelby Village, recorded March 9, 1951 and carries about 171 parcels. It also gets called Shelby Hills in conversation and is not the same plat.
Part of the recorded plat is inside the conservation overlay
A nuance worth checking on the parcel rather than taking from a map.
- The Lockeland Springs and East End conservation overlay, ordinance BL2003-1369 effective May 24, 2003, runs from South 10th Street to South 14th and from Woodland Street to Shelby Avenue, about 48 acres.
- Testing individual parcels on South 10th Street shows some inside that overlay and some outside it, on the same street.
- The neighborhood south of Shelby Avenue is not covered. The northern end of the recorded plat, on South 10th, partly is.
- I verified a handful of parcels, not all forty-two, so I check the specific address rather than assuming from the block.
South of Shelby Avenue, nothing reviews anything
The situation in the neighborhood proper, and why it matters right now.
- No conservation overlay, no historic overlay and no National Register district covers the blocks south of Shelby Avenue.
- So a teardown next door goes through no design review, and Metro’s recent zoning changes allowing detached accessory units and small multifamily land on ground with no overlay to slow them.
- Envision Cayce is remaking the blocks immediately west on a multi-year schedule, which will change this area more than anything else on this page.
- Note that Edgefield’s National Register boundary uses South 10th Street as its own edge, so a reader looking at a National Register map may think this ground is covered when it is not.
Flood exposure
Between the park and the river, so the number matters here.
- Zip 37206 recorded about 246 parcels with damaged structures in the 2010 flood, out of roughly 12,268, about two percent.
- The neighboring East Bank zip, 37213, recorded about 55 damaged out of roughly 130 parcels, about forty-two percent.
- Davidson County recorded 11,648 in total.
- This neighborhood sits between Shelby Park and the Cumberland, which is the part of 37206 closest to the water, so I would treat the two percent zip figure as the floor and pull the panel on the address.
Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Look up an address with the district →
Served by Metro Nashville Public Schools, assigned by address, with a separate choice and magnet application alongside zoned assignment. 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
Two things decide whether a house here is a good buy, and neither is on the listing. The first is flood. The southern boundary of this neighborhood is the Cumberland River, and Metro’s own guidance is that a property in a special flood hazard area has roughly a 26 percent chance of flooding over a 30-year mortgage, while property outside the mapped area is not guaranteed safe either. The offsetting fact is in the name: elevation changes sharply within a few blocks, so risk here is genuinely parcel-specific. Run the exact address through FEMA’s map service and Metro’s own flood tool at nashvilletn.withforerunner.com, and get an elevation certificate before you go firm. The second is what is being built around you. There is no overlay to review a teardown next door, and Envision Cayce is remaking the blocks immediately west on a multi-year schedule. Neither of those is a reason to stay away. Both are reasons to buy the specific parcel rather than the idea of the neighborhood.
Common questions
Does Shelby Hills flood?
Parts of it are river-adjacent and parts of it sit meaningfully higher, which is why the name matters. Elevation changes sharply within a few blocks, so this is a parcel-by-parcel question rather than a neighborhood one. Metro points people to FEMA’s map service at msc.fema.gov and to its own flood tool at nashvilletn.withforerunner.com, and Development Services will give you the flood zone, the panel number and the base flood elevation for a specific parcel over the phone. Do that and get an elevation certificate before you go firm. I will walk you through what it says.
Are there design restrictions in Shelby Hills?
No. Metro’s conservation overlay for Lockeland Springs and East End was extended south in 2003 and it stops at Shelby Avenue, which is the northern edge of this neighborhood rather than a street inside it. So nothing here is reviewed. That cuts both ways: you have freedom with your own house, and nobody is reviewing what gets built next to it either.
What is Envision Cayce and how close is it?
It is MDHA’s phased redevelopment of the James A. Cayce Homes, immediately west of 10th Street, so a few blocks from most of this neighborhood. The master plan finalized in 2014 calls for 2,390 units with a stated one-for-one replacement commitment, and it has been delivered in pieces since 2017: Barrett Manor, Kirkpatrick Park, Mosley on 6th, Manning Place, Red Oak Flats, Red Oak Townhomes and Cherry Oak, which opened in March 2024. A 107-unit phase at 5th and Summer was scheduled to finish in 2026, and Park Point East, 203 units, is under construction. This is a decade-long project, so if you buy here you are buying next to an active construction schedule for years, and you should look at the current phasing map before you decide how that sits with you.
How close is the new stadium?
Close enough to matter and not close enough to see from most of these blocks. The new Nissan Stadium is on the East Bank, roughly 60,000 seats and fully enclosed, and the Titans expect to open it in February 2027. The East Bank redevelopment around it covers about 550 acres running from River North south to I-24. What I have not found is any published traffic study tying that project specifically to the Shelby Avenue corridor, so I am not going to tell you what game day will do to your street. I will tell you it is the question to ask, and that the honest answer today is that nobody has published one.
What is the property tax rate here?
This is inside Metro Nashville, and for the 2025 tax year the Urban Services District rate is $2.814 per $100 of assessed value against $2.782 in the General Services District. Tennessee assesses residential property at 25 percent of appraised value, so run the math on the assessment rather than the sale price. Confirm which district a specific parcel sits in before you budget, because the difference is small but the assessment behind it is not.
Thinking about Shelby Hills?
What are some of your must haves to make it a perfect home for you in this neighborhood?