Nashville’s First Year of Electronic Plan Review with GeoCivix
For Tennessee communities considering electronic plan review, Nashville and Davidson County’s first year with GeoCivix offers a useful look at both operational results and the value of measuring the review process.
After going live with GeoCivix in September 2025, Nashville and Davidson County reported 1,124 records with a status of “Project Closed” for the reporting period of September 1, 2025, through September 28, 2026. Those records averaged 25.80 approval days and 1.51 review cycles.
A comparison with the jurisdiction’s previous Cityworks report shows a lower reported average completion time, offering an encouraging early indication of progress.
A First Year of Measurable Results
The GeoCivix report captures several measures that help describe the plan review process:
| Metric | GeoCivix results |
| Closed records | 1,124 |
| Average review cycles | 1.51 |
| Average review time | 14.62 days |
| Average approval time | 25.80 days |
Review time and approval time measure different aspects of the process. Tracking both gives the jurisdiction a more detailed picture than a single completion figure.
The average of 1.51 review cycles also provides a benchmark for monitoring how often projects move through review and resubmittal. Over time, these measures can help staff identify where additional guidance, process changes, or workflow adjustments may be useful.
An Encouraging Comparison with Previous Reporting
Before implementing GeoCivix, Nashville and Davidson County used Cityworks to report commercial building permit turnaround times.
The supplied Cityworks summary covered 2,292 issued commercial permits with all review tasks completed during the year before the September 2025 launch. It reported an average turnaround time of 43.63 business days, excluding weekends and holidays.
The GeoCivix report’s average approval time was 25.80 days. The numerical difference between the two reported averages is 17.83 days—approximately 18 days.
That comparison needs context. The Cityworks report measured time from plans received to completion of all pre-issuance tasks for specified commercial permit types. The GeoCivix report includes closed records with a broader mix of case types, and the supplied material does not establish that its approval-day calculation uses the same business-day rules or start and end points.
These results therefore support a promising preliminary comparison. A matched analysis using the same permit types and timing definitions would establish the size of any improvement more precisely.
Making the Review Process Easier to Measure
Beyond the initial comparison, Nashville and Davidson County’s GeoCivix report establishes a baseline for continued evaluation.
The report brings together project status, submission and approval dates, review cycles, review time, resubmittal time, and approval time. Those fields provide a foundation for examining performance by project type and identifying where delays occur.
For other Tennessee jurisdictions, this illustrates a practical benefit of electronic plan review: the ability to build a clearer, measurable picture of how applications move through the process.
What Other Tennessee Communities Can Learn
Nashville and Davidson County’s experience highlights the importance of establishing performance benchmarks when implementing a new system.
Communities evaluating permitting and plan review software can begin by documenting current turnaround times, defining how those times are calculated, and grouping applications by permit type. Maintaining those definitions after implementation makes future comparisons more meaningful.
The first-year GeoCivix report provides concrete operating benchmarks: 1,124 closed records, an average of 1.51 review cycles, and an average approval time of 25.80 days. These results give Nashville and Davidson County a starting point for continued measurement and give other Tennessee communities useful questions to bring to their own modernization efforts.
Explore GeoCivix for Your Community
See how GeoCivix can be configured around your jurisdiction’s permitting, plan review, and inspection workflows—and discuss the reporting measures that matter to your team.
Data sources: Nashville and Davidson County’s supplied Cityworks summary and GeoCivix closed-project report. The preliminary comparison reflects different reporting populations and measures; it does not establish a directly comparable reduction in turnaround time.
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