On the city's wealthy fringes, developers have started to incorporate some of the same techniques that have made Green Hills popular again.

In the McEwen development, for instance, Southern Land Co. is building a neighborhood on the south end of Cool Springs that will combine offices and shops with 1,000 residential units. Whole Foods has already signed a deal to anchor McEwen's town center when it opens in the fall of 2009.

"Green Hills is a great area that attracts a lot of national and regional tenants," said Paul Neuroth, Southern Land's senior vice president of leasing. "We have not had a cohesive project like that where retailers can go to."

The elaborate McEwen Drive interchange has been open since the fall, standing as a gateway to destinations not yet built.

But plans abound for a slew of retail, restaurant and commercial developments west of the interchange, where Mallory Lane and McEwen Drive intersect. Each of the four corners at this junction will eventually be home to projects that will likely transform the area that until recently was little more than pastoral landscape beyond Cool Springs.

Save for new traffic lights, asphalt and striping, the McEwen Drive extension from Mallory Lane to Cool Springs Boulevard might already be open to Franklin commuters.

In this edition of the NAI Nashville Market Report podcast, I spoke with Timothy Downey the President and CEO of the Southern Land Company about their new mixed-use development in the Cool Springs area called McEwen.

Local builder Bruce Hancock has always been interested in using energy-efficient technology in the homes he builds. When he started drawing up plans for his own home, he met with a heating and cooling engineer who mentioned a word he hadn't heard before: geothermal. When the engineer used the phrase "save over 50 percent in electricity costs," Hancock had heard enough. He was in.

After the premier of “McEwen the Movie” on Thursday, Jan. 31, the McEwen development seems to have taken on a life of its own. Poised to be Franklin’s “hippest” town around, McEwen is drawing office and retail businesses like a magnet.

Known for its innovative marketing concepts —human cannonballs, pyrotechnics, and
exploding golf balls — Southern Land decided the film concept could best show what is proposed to happen on the 93-acre tract on Mallory Lane near the new McEwen Drive interchange by taking to the silver screen with some creative license.

On February 4, Southern Exposure Magazine and Franklinis.com held a banquet for all of the 2007 Sizzle Award finalists. Southern Land Company was voted Best Builder/Developer in Williamson County for the second year in a row. With the amount of growth and development in this county, it is a huge honor to be named the best.

When planning for Westhaven was under way, Southern Land Co. spokesman Jim Cheney was tasked with coming up with unique street names for the community. He drew his inspiration from his personal interest: literature. Soon, streets with names such as Kerouac, Tennyson and Yeats will be home to Westhaven residents.

Nearly 600 people packed into a theater at Thoroughbred Cinemas in Cool Springs Thursday, but it wasn't for a showing of just any winter blockbuster.

City leaders, developers, real estate agents and potential residents gathered for the premiere of McEwen: The Movie, a 15-minute documentary about the making of the Southern Land Co. community off McEwen Drive in Cool Springs.