The Wilder is an affordable, adaptive-reuse, multifamily complex in the heart of Nashville—but it’s not your average apartment building.

In late summer 2021, Clay Adkisson, founder of Nashville-based urban design firm Openworks, was driving down the interstate in Nashville when something caught his attention. To the naked eye, it looked like a run-down, dilapidated Super 8 motel from the 1970s. To Adkisson, it looked like the future of multifamily construction.

“Just picture, ‘blighted, old motel,’” says Allen Buchanan, a principal at Dowdle Construction, the general contractor and construction partner on the project, “because that’s what it was.”

But together, Adkisson and his business partner Austen Helfrich—co-founders of Wilder Ventures—pictured it easily: The Wilder–an affordable, sustainable, compact-yet-functional, 97-studio multifamily apartment complex, developed from that blighted, old Super 8.

“Clay and Austen’s vision was, ‘We’re going to capture all the people that may be down on their luck and need a hand up, not a hand out,” says Buchanan. Thanks to help from an -million loan from local Nashville bank Truxton Trust and Boston-based BlueHub Loan Fund, 40% of the units are deed-restricted to individuals earning at or below 75% of the area median income, equivalent to earning about /hour or less this year in Nashville.

While the Nashville neighborhood where the motel was located is less than affluent, Nashville is overall one of the most expensive major cities in the nation. Average home prices have risen from $250,000 in 2015 up to more than $475,000 as of 2025. The average studio apartment is pushing $2,000/month near the downtown core. As a hub for travel nurses, military and other career first-responders, short-term living is often less than probable in the heart of downtown.

Adkisson and Helfrich are no strangers to community-focused real estate development. “Our businesses are aligned together under one goal: Create high-quality attainable housing for the cities we know and love in the Southeastern U.S.” Not only is their home city of Nashville a chart-topper for price, but it continually tops national charts as one of the hottest development markets in the country–adding approximately one hundred new residents daily for the past several years. “As forward-thinking housing developers,” says Helfrich, “our mission was clear: In a city flooded by new luxury product, can we create some more attainable housing stock–at prices average Nashvillians can afford–in those same desirable neighborhoods in and around the downtown core?”

Wilder Ventures purchased the existing Super 8 building in 2022 and immediately began a six-month construction selection process, eventually landing on Dowdle Construction Group as construction partner “based on their ‘seen it all’ experience with adaptive-reuse buildings,” says Adkisson, “and the professional experience of their project team.”

If Dowdle thought they’d seen it all, then Buchanan was proven wrong with The Wilder. “I don’t know many people that have followed this design-build model in Nashville, if there are any,” he says. The project kicked off with a 13-month timeline and $6.6-million construction budget.

PLEASE, HOLD ON TO THE HANDRAILS

Considering the build would be not only adaptive, but also sustainable, the teams at Wilder Ventures and Dowdle aimed to preserve as much of the original structure as possible and repurpose materials wherever they could–from even the smallest details such as handrails. “Believe it or not,” Buchanan jests, “handrail design 50 years ago is not the same as handrail design now. So coming up with a retrofit design that brought the handrails up to code on a four-story building where the handrails go around every level and there are a ton of stairs, was a lot of back and forth between a steel designer and Clay, and becoming cost efficient with that was a six-figure problem that we all faced together.”

To fully repurpose the existing 95-room motel building, Dowdle would need to perform a full-gut, down-to-the-studs renovation to convert it into 97 300-square-foot studio apartments. This included complete site and building restorations, such as installing new sustainable stormwater, grounds and building features; completely new and modernized utilities and fire protection systems; high-quality finishes; and new resident amenities, like a vinyl listening lounge, coworking area, laundry facility, fitness center, swimming pool and large half-acre dog park.

To secure smooth execution throughout construction, Adkisson led the charge on clear design communication from the start, managing the minutiae of everything from cutting open drywall to inspecting plumbing to moving duct work to repairing elevators and more.

“We had to fix everything up,” says Buchanan. “Someone had let the property fall into the condition it was in, and all those things were swept under the rug. We now were responsible for bringing them up. So, the initial budgeting with Clay and Austen was also like a discovery.”

BUDGET BEWARE

Budgets are tight on any construction project, but for a first-of-its-kind, sustainable, affordable adaptive reuse in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, the financial constraints were even more pronounced. “I think Clay and Austen were really at the forefront of this genre,” says Buchanan, “so staying on budget was critical. We simply couldn’t afford surprises during construction.”

From the outset, Adkisson, Helfrich and Buchanan developed the budget collaboratively, ensuring everyone was aligned before work began to break down and rebuild walls. The team also maintained close coordination with the city throughout the process to prevent unexpected permitting issues from derailing the project. Considering the Super 8 was constructed in the 1970s, pretty much nothing was up to code, but that meant everything was up for innovation.

In the instance of the energy code, Buchanan says: “The old glass windows are definitely not meeting the standards for new glass windows. The amount of insulation in a wall assembly has to be to a certain standard. In this old building, there’s no good way to fix that other than tear the walls out and start over.”

On their timeline and budget, that just wasn’t practical. Adkisson, Helfrich and Buchanan worked closely with the city on some of the more challenging items that appeared during the discovery process, one of which was the game of Tetris that was turning a hotel room into a studio apartment with a bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette, all while maintaining ADA clearances.

“Fitting all of those pieces in was a huge lift for this project,” says Buchanan, “but Clay and Austen felt very strongly that to offer anything less wouldn’t be worth it.”

Thanks to a painstaking preplanning and permitting process, it was essentially normal construction all the way up to the ribbon cutting. “By early March 2024,” says Adkisson, “we were able to welcome our first residents to The Wilder.”

MOVING DAY

Today, The Wilder is at capacity and is changing the vibes of the surrounding area. Buchanan notes that the neighborhood has “calmed down” compared to what it felt like three years ago. “There is so much need for this type of change in these little pockets of the city. Word gets out and people now know that it’s a safe place to live–so I’ve certainly seen it positively impact the community in a huge way.”

According to Adkisson and Helfrich, residents consistently say they appreciate the flexible layouts, thoughtful millwork with plenty of storage and ample daylight each unit lets in. “We are grateful the execution of the project matched the vision,” Helfrich says, “and the building serves those we and our community partners hoped it would: teachers, nurses, music industry workers, hospitality workers and students.”

Now, two years into full operations, The Wilder is gaining international recognition for its inventive approach and community and environmental impact, earning the Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing award from the Urban Land Institute.

“We were encouraged by our local city council members and Nashville-area colleagues to apply for the Jack Kemp Award,” says Adkisson. “Candidly, we didn’t think we had any chance to win such a prestigious award based on the large pool of applicants and notable projects that apply from all over the country each year. Fortunately, ULI, the Award Jury and our peers all believed we had done something remarkable–and replicable–here: developing a path to create high-quality, attainable housing in and near major urban centers, for a fraction of the cost and timeline to delivery. We are grateful for their decision.”

SEE ALSO: PLAN OF STEEL: RALEIGH’S NEWEST ADAPTIVE-REUSE PROJECT