Location
Elysian Fields Road at the entrance to Croft Middle School (482 Elysian Fields Rd), in the Crieve Hall/Grassmere neighborhood of South Nashville. The garden sits in a small pocket of open space where the Nashville Zoo’s chain-link fence jogs back ~50 feet, between the fence, the street, and the school entrance. Two Metro utility boxes sit on this corner.
Property Ownership
Three Metro departments converge on this corner — and none claim responsibility for the shutdown:
The garden almost certainly sits on the Zoo’s Grassmere parcel (3777 Nolensville Pike), a ~188-acre property acquired by Metro in 1995. Croft Middle School’s own website states it has been “located on the property of the Nashville Zoo since 2003.”
MWS owns the two metal utility boxes in the garden and has purchased 24 homes on Elysian Fields Rd through the post-2021 flood buyout program. A field crew servicing the utility boxes may have triggered the shutdown.
Metro Nashville Public Schools operates Croft Middle School but the building sits on Metro Parks/Zoo property.
Key Contacts
News Coverage
“Neighbors step up to help save ‘The COVID Park’ community garden”
Precedents & Pathways
Three things working in COVID Park’s favor:
In 2022, Metro Parks signed a 5-year license agreement with The Nashville Food Project for community gardens at Mill Ridge Park in Antioch. This is the exact model COVID Park could follow. Read announcement
Nashville Metro Parks has a formal community garden program where gardeners obtain permits and pay a minimal fee. Metro provides water, pre-tilled plots, free seeds, and compost. Learn more
Metro Parks and Agricultural Extension are actively working to convert flood buyout properties into community gardens. Metro Water Services owns parcels on Elysian Fields Road from the buyout program — a direct pathway if the garden sits on MWS-owned land.
Public Records
Historical Context
The Grassmere property was originally a 300-acre farm owned by the Dunn family since 1810. Margaret and Elise Croft — great-great granddaughters of Michael Dunn — deeded it to the Children’s Museum of Nashville in 1964 as a nature study center. The City of Nashville acquired the property in 1995, and the Nashville Zoo began operating there under a lease agreement approved in October 1996.