Our 2025 Wish List for SV

The Valleyist Papers 

 

A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF STEPHENS VALLEY 

Author – William Ray 

 

Edition 4. Issue 1. 

Here we are, peering over the hill into a new year for SV. What might 2025 bring us? Well, predicting the future is just too hard, but what we can do is dream of the things we can certainly hope will happen. Come along with me as we put on our optimistic hat, and hope for the things that 2025 should bring us here in our little corner of Williamson County.  

Though we all likely have items for this list, I will start us off with some first-person items I dream of.  There are things on this list that we SV residents can accomplish on our own, but really, the big items on my list will require Rochford Realty and Construction’s diligence and commitment to the SV owners. But first comes a wish we can accomplish on our own. I wish 2025 would bring us a safer version of the pedestrian community we expected SV to be. From my observation point on a front porch along SV Boulevard, it appears that the biggest impediment to pedestrian safety in SV is, frankly, us. Even though we have big, beautiful sidewalks which are often being used by all age groups, about 40% (my unscientific estimate) of vehicles coming and going from homes in SV are driven by people holding a cell phone between their eyes and the windshield of their car. This feat is often accompanied by that same driver operating said vehicle at a rate of speed far beyond what is reasonable for a street bisecting two sidewalks being used by neighbors and their families. We can do better than this. I hope and pray that we will make that wish a reality in 2025. 

There is another thing we can largely do all by ourselves. I might sound like a broken record here (no pun intended) but, we need a regular community music event. A regular monthly jam session on the back porch of the pool house would make this wish a reality. Rochford has done us a big favor by removing the fence that separated the porch from the rear lawn. Now that area is wide open. It is covered by a roof. It has restroom and power outlets. The porch with local musicians and the lawn with local music aficionados would combine to a regular fun evening for us all. Everyone could bring their instruments and ideas about what sort of art they want to share, and everyone else could bring a chair and a cooler. This 2025 enhancement would go a long way toward placating us until we have our downtown ready for us to visit. It is a scientific reality that music heals our wounds. In 2025, let’s get going on providing our own version of SV healing right here in our own yard. 

My other wishes mainly relate to things we need help to realize. I want Downtown Stephens Valley, and I want it soon. The announcement that the Clock Tower is being built is great. We need art and architecture in our neighborhood roundabouts, but we need the downtown too. Seeing the November groundbreaking for the new Nolensville Town Square, where Rochford is commencing construction of a $200M project to provide a residential and retail center, just like the one we have all been promised for SV, naturally makes us feel more that a little bit jilted. In fact, there is likely the makings of a really good country song in the way we discovered that our developer has been galivanting with the Nolensville community while we are sitting here at home with dinner on the table. So, for all you songwriters in SV, get to work on this! 

For the sake of conversation, let’s assume that Rochford Realty and Construction decides to forsake all others in favor of building us a proper Downtown Stephens Valley. Just what do we want that downtown to include? Well, silly, first and foremost it must have a combination coffee shop/bar/conversation pit/dart pub/sandwich shop. Perhaps it would be okay if these needs actually manifested themselves in more than one establishment, but it would be much more efficient if they were all together. After all, many of us who would frequent such an establishment will have already expended a lot of energy walking from our home to the downtown area. We might also have carried heavy darts and other paraphernalia necessary to while away the hours with our SV buddies. Residents who are physically challenged already should not have to wander about from place to place.  

The dart pub aspect of this place might be new to some readers. It is a place where residents, who would otherwise be playing pickleball and harassing each other, can engage in another skill-intensive activity wherein score is kept and losing players can go back home and shop for new gaming tools that will surely turn around their fortunes. There is also the added attraction of drinking beer and the hurling of sharp pointed projectiles toward a board made of horse hair, that makes an exceedingly satisfying thud sound when said projectile hits the board. We need this. We need it in 2025.