Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell Welcomes the Mayors’ Institute on City Design for its 82nd National Session

The 82nd National Session of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD) took place June 23-25, 2026, hosted by Mayor Freddie O’Connell. The event convened seven mayors from around the country in a collaborative workshop to discuss the most pressing design and development issues in each of their cities. Since 1986, MICD has helped transform communities by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities; this session marked the 1,300th mayor to attend the Institute.

Seven experts in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, arts and culture, transportation, urban planning, real estate development, and economic development joined the mayors for two and a half days of discussions, exchanging ideas and offering pragmatic advice for each project. The participating mayors brought a range of projects to this session, seeking to address a wide array of challenges and opportunities through improvements to the built environment.

Throughout the session, mayors explored frameworks for transforming disconnected waterfronts into vibrant community assets, investing in the public realm to build community and catalyze reinvestment in overlooked corridors, reimagining abandoned places as spaces of cultural and economic vitality, and removing barriers to designing housing for all. Participants left with strengthened aspirations and a new set of tools for leading with design.

Mayors were introduced to the many facets of the design process by the Resource Team, a group of multi-disciplinary experts whose breadth and depth of experience illustrated how design can generate creative solutions to complex problems.

The session began with a tour of Nashville’s recently opened Neuhoff District, showcasing the fine-grained adaptive reuse of a former industrial area along the Cumberland River. Mayor O’Connell, Planning Director Lucy Kempf, and Development Director Chris Koster discussed the long-term vision, community buy-in, and implementation of this master-planned effort, and how its focus on historic preservation and public access resulted in a compelling, distinctive blend of industrial ruins and modern amenities. While in Nashville, the group also toured the Wedgewood-Houston area, where new development provides crucial infill while complementing the character of historic warehouses, and investments in the public realm tie together a variety of uses and cultural assets.

At the opening reception and dinner that followed the Neuhoff District tour, Mayor O’Connell welcomed the group and shared his reflections on the power of bold city leadership to make transformative change. The group was also welcomed by Trinity Simons Wagner, Executive Director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design; Maya Hering, Design and Creative Placemaking Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts; and Judy Sheahan, Assistant Executive Director for the United States Conference of Mayors.