Fresh Faces: D.J. Wootson

D.J. Wootson looks at his 1821 Jefferson mixed-use project, scheduled to open later this year, as his calling card. The four-story, $4 million building is being backed by prominent names including John Ingram and Bob Bernstein and will be home to 18 market-rate apartments and several retail spaces, including stores for Smoothie King and Bernstein’s Bongo Java concept.

Just steps away and at the corner of Jefferson Street and D.B. Todd Boulevard — what Wootson calls North Nashville’s “Main and Main” — he has under contract the property now home to Paul’s Market. A redevelopment of that site, together with a number of apartment and single-family properties he owns in the area, is part of his vision to begin to fulfill the potential of the section of Jefferson that links Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College and Fisk University.