Bob Mendes, ’91, grew up in Chicago, went to the University of Illinois, and after graduating from the Law School he practiced law in Chicago for four years. Then, he and his wife decided it was time for an adventurous change. They moved to Nashville, where they knew no one and had no jobs waiting for them.
Today, he is about as enmeshed in Nashville’s legal and civic life as anyone could be. He built a successful law firm and was president of the bar association. In 2015, he won a seat on the 40-person city council (formally, the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County), as one of five at-large candidates, and he was re-elected to a four-year council term in 2019, receiving more votes than any other candidate.
Mendes was expected by many to run for mayor in 2023, since the three previous mayors had all been the top council vote-getters before winning that office. Instead, he supported the man who did become mayor, Freddy O’Connell. O’Connell appointed Mendes to the position of chief development officer, a job that one local newspaper described as placing Mendes “in the crossfire between rival governments, billion-dollar corporations, lucrative contracts, opinionated neighbors, and the shifting concerns of past, present, and future.”
Currently, his most prominent responsibility is for the development of a large riverfront area near the city’s center, which will include a two-billion-dollar-plus stadium for the city’s National Football League team, a new 600-million-dollar home for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, and 22 million square feet of new mixed-use development across four walkable districts. This undertaking, Mendes said, is the biggest municipally owned development project in America, possibly excepting some at former military bases.
He is also charged with redeveloping a defunct mall bought by the previous administration, turning it into another mixed-use property with offices, housing, and retail outlets.
“We intend to create communities that are diverse, affordable, walkable, beautiful, and sustainable,” Mendes said.
His background says that he’s the right person for the job. His legal practice focused on challenging transactions. “In many firms, there’s one person who is the great dealmaker, one who is best at litigation, and one who is best at bankruptcy challenges,” he said. “I loved doing all those things—I liked the odd, hard problems. It was great preparation for government work in general, and this work in particular.”
“I liked the odd, hard problems. It was great preparation for government work in general, and this work in particular.”
On the council, Mendes established himself as a progressive lawmaker. He opposed the amount of tax funds going to the new football stadium, and helped lead reform related to police traffic-stop practices and housing of civil immigration detainees in the local jail, among other things.
He successfully opposed plans to hold this year’s Republican national convention in Nashville, due to it being too expensive and too disruptive. While that opposition was popular in Nashville, he said, it made him “the most hated municipal elected official in the state of Tennessee among state political leadership.”
“I didn’t have to run for office,” Mendes said. “I had built a successful firm and I was doing work I liked. I have a great family. There are lots of things I enjoy doing. So, I figured if I was going to be in office, I was going to be me, and see what happened. The fact that I got more votes than anyone else in our 2019 election suggested that some people liked the way I approached my council work.”
At the Law School, he found his clinical work particularly satisfying, as he was involved from the first intake interviews to arguing before a US District Court a Chicago Housing Authority wrongful-eviction case. “My clinic leader, Catherine Cardwell MacCarthy, deserves a shoutout,” he said. “She was a great teacher and an influential role model for me.”
Mendes declined to speculate on what he might do after his present job. “When the time comes, I’ll find what feels right, what’s best for my family, what will allow me to help others be better off, and I’ll give that a go,” he said. “I’ve had a terrific life without plotting out the future, and I don’t see any reason to change that now.”
Original source can be found here.