The Williamson Ledger

A twenty-four year mayoralty ended in August. The body that replaced it opened with a nine-figure vote.

Andy Marshall is the new county mayor

Confirmed · August 24, 2026 · Historic Williamson County Courthouse

Marshall took the oath from Governor Bill Lee on August 24. He won the August 6 election 30,471 to 12,707 over B.K. Muvvala, and he takes over from Rogers Anderson after twenty-four years.

Fifteen Republican incumbents held their commission seats, so the body itself has not changed much. The office that runs it has.

The commission approves a letter of intent to sell Williamson Health

Confirmed from the meeting video · Wednesday, September 9

The commission approved a non-binding, exclusive letter of intent to sell the county-owned hospital system to Ascension Saint Thomas. The base purchase price is $700 million. The county would also receive $4 million a year for five years in lieu of property taxes. Exclusivity runs 120 days.

Nothing is final. A definitive agreement needs a second commission vote and a second board vote. The Tennessee Attorney General has to receive the transaction details at least 45 days before closing, and public notice goes out within five days of that filing. Best estimate on closing is 2027 or 2028.

Four outlets covered this meeting and not one of them printed a vote count, so I pulled the roll off the county’s own meeting video. A motion to defer to November failed 8–16. The letter of intent passed 19–5. Twenty-four commissioners voted — twenty-three in the room, Commissioner Barb Sturgeon by phone, none absent.

Total deal value is still being reported anywhere from $900 million to $950 million, and the capital commitment two different ways. Those I am leaving out until the definitive agreement is filed.

The vote nobody reported, and the one that decides where the money goes

Confirmed from the meeting video · Resolution 9-26-2 · Adopted 24–0

Straight after the letter of intent the commission passed a second resolution the same night. Nobody covered it. It is the more consequential of the two.

Under Tennessee law the proceeds of a hospital district sale do not automatically reach the county that owns the facility. Last November this commission asked the state legislature to change that, and the legislature did — it wrote in an exception. Where the sale price, not the net proceeds, exceeds $500 million, the money flows to the county’s taxpayers through their elected commission. The $700 million base price clears the threshold. Resolution 9-26-2 is the county formally taking that exception, and it needed a two-thirds majority to do it. It got 24–0.

The budget that governs this year

Confirmed · Adopted June 18, 2026 · 17–3

The FY 2026-27 budget came in at $921,945,333. The property tax rate held at $1.30 with no increase. Commissioners got there by moving two pennies — the General Fund went from $0.28 to $0.26, and the General Purpose School Fund came down from a proposed $0.80 to $0.77. The school operating budget is $566,790,932. Seventy-seven cents of every $1.30 goes to schools.

The most important number published in this county last month came out of a two-page PDF on the school district's own server.

Enrollment fell by 726 students, or 1.75%

Confirmed · WCS district enrollment figures, prepared September 4, 2026

The district counted 40,648 students for 2026-27. Last year it was 41,374. The five-year attendance projection the district prepared in May 2022 put this year at 48,732. Actual enrollment is running about 8,084 students below the model that has anchored a decade of capacity argument in this county.

Here is the honest part, and it matters. The district's current internal projection for this year was 40,042, and the actual count came in 606 above it. Their present-day model is close. It is the 2022 five-year model — the one that gets quoted at planning commission podiums — that missed by 17%.

Where capacity is still genuinely tight

Confirmed · WCS open-zoned schools list, 2026-27

These schools have zero open-zoned seats: Nolensville Elementary at 100% of capacity, Trinity Elementary at 94%, Arrington Elementary at 91%, Mill Creek Elementary, Page Middle at 97%, Mill Creek Middle at 102%, and Woodland Middle at 101%.

All nine high schools have open seats, between 21 and 157 each. Most elementaries have room.

Every rezoning, annexation and planned development action that moved between August 1 and September 10, and where each one actually landed.

"Outcome unknown" means the item was properly noticed and heard, but the minutes are not published yet. Spring Hill, Thompson's Station and Nolensville run four to eight weeks behind. I do not report anything as passed unless a primary record says it passed.

Two things the ledger tells you

Brentwood is still where entitlement moves fast. Crews Subdivision went from a 10–0 planning recommendation on August 3 to zoned and annexed on August 24. That is 76.72 acres, 25 lots plus a reserve lot, with about 32 acres of common open space, done in three weeks. I would expect a preliminary plat filing next.

Franklin is where it does not. The board deferred Harpeth Village's first reading and public hearing to October 13 on a 6–2 vote. That is an industrial-to-residential conversion at 9.2 units an acre just off Franklin Road. A 6–2 deferral with a date certain is not a scheduling problem. That is resistance with a calendar attached.

Boyle Investment Company revealed its plan for the old Harlin farm this month. The zoning that carries it is the more useful story.

Confirmed from the ordinance · Ord. 2025-06, third and final reading, April 28, 2026

The City of Franklin zoned 311.21 acres at 1247 Hillview Lane — west of Hillview Lane and north of Coleman Road — to PD 0.78/32,000/80 with a Hillside Hillcrest Overlay. At that density cap you get roughly 243 units of approved capacity across the whole tract. Boyle's own site describes more than 200 acres of preserved open space, estate homesites of two to eight acres, a boutique inn and some neighborhood commercial, with construction starting in 2027.

Press coverage puts the site at 375 acres and 249 residences. That is the whole Harlin family holding. The rezoning covers 311.21 acres of it, and PD 0.78 is the cap that governs what can actually be built there. Both numbers are correct — they answer different questions. For anyone underwriting against it, the number that binds is 311.21 acres at 0.78.

WCAR publishes Williamson County's official figures mid-month, so July is the most recent complete release. August's Williamson numbers land in the next issue. Everything below comes from WCAR and Greater Nashville REALTORS, both sourced to Realtracs.

Williamson County, July 2026 against July 2025

Confirmed · Williamson County Association of REALTORS, monthly market stats

Read those together and the picture is clear enough. Prices are up 16 to 17% on closings that are essentially flat, while new listings are down 12%. What is holding this market up is not demand running hot. It is that not much is coming to market, and what does come to market is going under contract six days faster than it did a year ago.

Where those numbers actually live

Confirmed · WCAR, July 2026, single family by city

August, across the nine-county region

Confirmed · Greater Nashville REALTORS, August 2026

Regionally, August closings came in at 2,928 across all property types, down from 3,269 in July. Residential accounted for 2,306 of those at a median of $515,725, against $520,000 in July and $537,000 in June. Residential inventory finished the month at 10,532. Pendings were 2,409, and list to contract ran 55 days.

The line worth pulling out for anyone in my business is the land line. Farm, land and lots produced 168 closings against 2,142 listings in inventory. On that pace that is close to thirteen months of supply, which is my own arithmetic on their published numbers, not a figure they publish. Land does not move the way houses move, and it never has.

Three straight weeks up

Confirmed · Freddie Mac PMMS weekly averages

The 30-year fixed averaged 6.69% on August 6, then 6.67%, then 6.65% on August 20, then 6.66%. Then 6.71% and 6.76% in the first two weeks of September. Rates bottomed on August 20 and have gone up three weeks running. We are about 41 basis points above where we were a year ago.

Two land closings worth knowing about

Recorded transfers · Week of August 17–21, 2026

Land: Kittrell Road, Franklin at $5,475,000, and 7725 Caney Fork Road, Fairview at $3,197,500. Acreage was not disclosed on either filing, so neither one gives us a per-acre number.

Improved, that same week: 7116 Lanceleaf Drive in Troubadour at $7,500,000, 379 Jones Parkway in Annandale at $6,050,000, and 2562 Goose Creek Bypass in Franklin at $6,000,000.

Transfer roundups run about three weeks behind, so the August 24–31 closings will show up in the next issue. On the listing side, Williamson County land is showing a median asking price of $110,848 an acre across 215 listings and 5,155 acres. That is asking, not closed, and it is not a valuation.

Roads and sewer decide what land can become. Four items this month, and one of them quietly raises the cost of every lot in three weeks.

The I-65 corridor study closed its comment record on September 8

Confirmed · TDOT Planning and Environmental Linkages study, project 1249

TDOT held public meetings in Spring Hill on August 13, Nashville on August 17 and Franklin on August 18. The study covers 34 miles of I-65, from SR-155 at Thompson Lane down to SR-99/US-412 at Bear Creek Pike, across Davidson, Williamson and Maury counties. Comments closed September 8.

Real added capacity is a 2028 event

Confirmed · TDOT Region 3 project page

The I-65 widening near June Lake Boulevard adds at least one lane each direction from north of SR-396 at Saturn Parkway up to the I-840 interchange, plus auxiliary lanes and two replacement overpasses.

The schedule is RFQ this quarter, RFP in Q2 2027, design-builder picked in Q3 2027, and construction starting in FY 2028. Underwrite to 2028. Not sooner.

Separately, resurfacing on I-840 from Columbia Pike to east of Arno Road, and on I-65 from I-840 to Liberty Pike, runs at night through December. That is maintenance, no new capacity, but it will affect how you get clients around the county for the rest of the year.

Sewer is still the binding constraint, in three different places

Status needs verifying · Spring Hill, the Harpeth, College Grove

Spring Hill. The city is still operating under a TDEC consent order. Ordinance 25-29, passed January 5, 2026, replaced the blanket suspension with a capacity allocation framework, and every project that receives an allocation has to install flow meters. The original moratorium runs until the treatment plant meets performance standards for twelve consecutive months. A sewer capacity request showed up on the August 17 work session agenda, which tells me the framework is operating. I could not get a 2026-dated confirmation of the current status, so call the city before you rely on it either way.

The Harpeth. TDEC has not ruled on Limestone Water Utility's NPDES permit TN0027278, which would take a plant from 0.25 to 0.45 MGD discharging at river mile 68.8. The Harpeth has been listed as impaired for phosphorus for twenty-one years, and the county passed an ordinance in February blocking new growth behind failing plants. That decision is a direct gate on absorption in that part of the county.

College Grove. TPUC Docket 26-00063, filed July 22, asks to extend Limestone's certificate to serve a proposed Troubadour expansion — 85 more lots on about 157 acres, roughly 172 new wastewater connections, taking permitted capacity from 0.1175 to 0.1753 MGD. That docket is the approval those lots are waiting on.

Your cost per lot goes up on October 1

Confirmed · Milcrofton UD, Mallory Valley UD

Milcrofton's published access fee escalator raised the three-quarter inch tap by $1,000 and the one inch by $2,000 effective October 1, 2025, and there are further increases scheduled for October 2026 and October 2027. Mallory Valley has a fee change effective October 1, 2026.

Neither district posts agendas or minutes online. Their meeting notices run in the Williamson Herald legals, and that is the only reliable way to catch them. If you have lots closing in the fourth quarter, price the tap fees now.

One more to watch. The City of Franklin starts sewer smoke testing on September 14, beginning in Eagles Glen off Liberty Pike and then working the zones between Mack Hatcher Parkway and Mallory Lane. Smoke testing is how a city finds inflow and infiltration, and those findings are what come before capacity restrictions and, eventually, allocation or fee changes.

Short items out of plats, permit trackers and construction dashboards — the things you see on a site visit before you see them in the news.

• Under constructionKroger, 8000 Marketplace, Nolensville. The corridor's biggest retail delivery, and the anchor that reprices every pad around it.
• Under constructionTipsy Cow, 7344 Nolensville Rd, Suite 302. That center has filled in fast. Acapella Nail Salon, Mountain Mike's Pizza and Heartland Dental all took occupancy earlier this year.
• ApprovedHorizon Center Retail, 9020 Overlook Blvd, Brentwood. 18,000 square feet of retail and restaurant, approved 10–0 on August 3, with a new traffic signal among five conditions. Lot 13 was split into two lots the same night. That is a leasing and traffic count event for Maryland Farms.
• FiledBank OZK, 152 Wilson Pike Circle — final plat on Brentwood's planning consent agenda September 8. Nelson Mazda satellite center, 1621 Galleria Blvd — revised site plan the same night.
• Re-cuttingOvation PUD, Revision 3 — four commercial lots on 61.35 acres. The long-stalled Carothers Parkway project is re-cutting its retail and office component for today's market. Back in front of Franklin's planning commission August 27.
• PlattingWesthaven Section 68 — 12 residential lots across 158.54 acres. June Lake Phase 1, Pod A — final plat, 1.53 acres, on Spring Hill's August 10 consent agenda. That is the live pace at the largest master planned community in the county.
• Contested"The Mayberry at Riverview," 151 Franklin Road. A 90-room boutique hotel inside the 1902 Riverview House, from Capital P Ventures. They are down from 120 rooms and have dropped the event venue and the restaurant. At the August 27 joint workshop, city staff said it does not meet the intent of the Rural Reserve design concept, and about 70 residents turned out against it on August 3. This is the test case for whether Rural Reserve on Franklin Road can be broken for hospitality, and a yes would reprice every large historic parcel on that road.
• ClosingBetter Days Diner and Salt Serenity Cave Spa after fourteen years, both in Nolensville. IveyCake is leaving 117 Franklin Road ahead of a relocation. O'Charley's is reportedly winding down its remaining locations, which would put second generation restaurant boxes back on the market regionally.
• ContextVisitor spending in Williamson County hit $1.38 billion in 2025. That is the number underwriting the hospitality piece of every mixed-use pro forma being drawn right now, Asbury's inn included.

County meeting dates below come off the standing meeting pattern. Confirm any date you actually plan to attend.

• Sept 14Williamson County Commission — second Monday, 1320 West Main Street, Franklin. First regular meeting of the new term. Also Brentwood City Commission, and the FSSD board at 6pm.
• Sept 21Spring Hill BOMA — third Monday. Watch for the Ordinance 26-12 outcome if it did not clear in August.
• Sept 22Franklin BOMA — work session 5pm, meeting 7pm. Also Thompson's Station Planning Commission at 6pm.
• Sept 24Franklin BOMA and FMPC joint conceptual workshop at 5pm, then the planning commission at 7pm. Also the Thompson's Station EDIA board.
• Sept 25Mallory Valley Utility District board meeting.
• Sept 30County unemployment release. Williamson was 2.8% in July, down from 3.1% in June.
• Oct 1Milcrofton and Mallory Valley fee changes take effect. Also Nolensville Board of Commissioners at 6:30pm, and Franklin Board of Zoning Appeals at 6pm.
• Oct 2TDOT bid letting. This is the next one after August — there is no September letting.
• Oct 5Brentwood Planning Commission at 7pm, with the agenda review briefing the Thursday before at 8am.
• Oct 8Williamson County Regional Planning Commission — second Thursday, 5:30pm. Written materials are due at noon three days prior.
• Oct 12Williamson County Commission, and Brentwood City Commission.
• Oct 13Franklin BOMA — Harpeth Village first reading and public hearing. The deferred 20.33 acres comes back. Also Thompson's Station BOMA at 6pm.