Nolensville preparing for continued growth

Nolensville residents and community leaders recognize that growth in their town doesn’t just mean more people – it also means more public funding to continue making improvements as that density explodes.

The town incorporated in 1996 with 1,800 residents in three square miles. Now, covering 10 square miles with 16,000 citizens, Nolensville’s exponential growth continues. A special census recently wrapped up to provide the town with the data it needed on its growing number of residents to receive more money from the State Shared Tax, which is based on population.

“This was a revenue issue for the town to add around 3,000 residents,” Mayor Halie Gallik said at the town’s annual address. “The per capita revenue that comes back from the state, that's a lot of money for our small budget.”

Gallik lauded local departments for their ongoing work for the public as the town grows.

Nolensville’s Engineering department has enhanced its GIS (Geographic Information System) capabilities. According to Gallik, this gave the town the capability to track the response to the census in real-time up to 97 percent.

The department is also conducting a survey of the stormwater infrastructure thanks to a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation grant. From March through June, engineering consulting firm Neel-Schaffer will perform an inventory and condition assessment of stormwater assets. In addition to the study, the firm will develop plans for capital improvement projects from the study’s recommendations.

The town’s Public Works department is developing its internal operations by taking on its own fleet maintenance and concrete work, allowing them to complete sidewalk projects rather than bidding out jobs.

That’s not the only infrastructure work going on in Nolensville. The Board of Commissioners has budgeted more than $700,000 in infrastructure repairs, Gallik said. She also highlighted the project dashboard on the town’s website that lays out the timelines and details for plans including Nolensville Road, Rocky Fork Road, and Sunset Road, to name a few.

“None of these projects are quick fixes and require extensive engineering right-of-way plans and surveying, but are clear infrastructure improvements that the Board of Commissioners has supported,” Gallik said. “Sharing transparent information, to me, is one of the key ways that we can communicate that with the public, so that there's reasonable expectations about when change will happen.”

In 2023, the town also purchased a property along Sunset Road with the idea of creating a hub for future town services from parks and recreation to the library to police services. Mayor Gallik also noted recent recognition for Nolensville’s finance department from the state for excellence in fiscal planning and transparency to the public.

“While we continue to work through road and infrastructure projects, our community will have to make tough choices in the coming years,” Gallik said. “Commercial growth is imperative to balance the funding sources that make town services possible.”

One of the largest capital expenditures in the town’s history is the fire station on Haley Industrial Boulevard, which is under construction. The Nolensville Fire & Rescue hired its first employee in December 2020, and 2023 saw two major awards for the new department. Fire Chief David Windrow was named Fire Chief of the Year by the Tennessee Fire Chief’s Association and the department was awarded for strategic planning by the Tennessee Municipal League.

Emergency management service capabilities have also expanded with Williamson Health’s EMS station opening just over a year ago. The average response time for an ambulance in the area is just over six minutes, which is down from the 11 minutes it took before the station opened.

Nolensville’s Police Department received state accreditation from the Tennessee Law Enforcement Accreditation Program. Gallik said while the town does not yet have funding for a new police station, they have taken steps to ensure sewer connections are available on the Sunset Road property for a potential police administrative building on that land in the future.

Williamson County Schools are also planning for the future as the Nolensville student body grows. Nolensville Elementary School is expected to be overcrowded in the next year, Superintendent Jason Golden said. WCS plans to put portable classrooms on that property for now while plans for another school are developing on land owned by the Southern Land Company.

“We're talking to those developers to nail down the actual school site,” Golden said. “Nolensville has helped us with that to make sure that they commit to a new school site.”

That development, to be called Storyvale, is now in its first phase, and grading for the more than 370 acres has just begun. Town Manager Victor Lay noted between the plans for that development with more than 700 homes and others also in the works, such as the first mixed-use town square by the Rochford Group and Land Innovations, Nolensville will see more than 2,500 more residences in the future.