East Bank projects could take decades to complete vision
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A major new addition is coming to Music City: the future home of the Tennessee Titans, a $2.1 billion stadium approved by Metro Council in April. It’s set to break ground in 2024 and open in 2027.
It comes with the hope of bringing Final Fours, college football playoffs, and WWE Wrestlemania to Nashville. Because it will be enclosed, the possibility of hosting a Super Bowl comes into play.
A roof also means averting the chance of weather calamities, like the one that caused a messy and dangerous hours-long delay of the Taylor Swift concert in May.
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“My daughters were getting increasingly more and more upset with the situation, because they couldn’t breathe. People around us were passing out; medics were trying to get through,” Jennifer Ortiz told News 2 after the concert.
Weather also forced the cancelation of a Garth Brooks concert in July 2021. Brooks wrote a letter to Metro Council last year in support of a new, enclosed stadium, saying, “The amount of revenue lost during that storm on top of what it cost to present the make-up show resulted in heavy losses for not just me, but also for the stadium and the city.” He added, “Domed stadiums are revenue-generating machines, because they can be kept busy 365 days a year.”
The new stadium will be paid for through a combination of funding from the Titans, plus hotel, in-stadium, sales, and ticket taxes, as well as a $500 million commitment from the state of Tennessee.
“Jobs are created and lives are changed when tourists come here, and tourists come to a city that has a significant venue, like a covered, domed stadium,” Gov. Bill Lee said. “It’s a wise investment for the future of our state and for economic development.”
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“Stadiums are not known for generating revenue around them,” said J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University professor who studies the economics of sports. News 2 spoke with him while Metro Council was still debating the stadium deal.
“Every single stadium that has ever been built has had this exact same promise of: you’re going to have huge economic growth; the stadium is going to pay itself from day one,” Bradbury explained. “Then five to 10 years later, numerous media stories talking about how the stadium isn’t covering its obligations.”
“I just think that having to create an entirely new neighborhood, to build that up to a sufficient amount to then garner a tax increment to then reverse back to the stadium as a funding mechanism, I’m skeptical,” said Nashville Vice Mayor Angie Henderson.
Henderson was the council member for District 34 when the deal was up for a vote. She was one of the 12 council members who voted ‘no’ on the stadium deal.
“I just did not feel that it was the best deal for the city,” Henderson said.
Nor did now-Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who campaigned on the assertion he was the only mayoral candidate to vote against the stadium deal.
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But now O’Connell and Henderson lead the city, and the stadium is coming. It’s part of a much larger vision for the East Bank of the Cumberland River. Nearly 340 acres of prime real estate has sat largely undeveloped and underutilized.
“I do think it provides some really interesting opportunities,” Henderson said. “It’s a very unique opportunity for a city of our size and scale to have land really in our immediate adjacent downtown, to envision and develop kind of from a blank slate.”
Henderson created an Ad Hoc East Bank Committee to continue the work of the East Bank Stadium Committee formed during the last Metro Council term. They held their first meeting in November.
This massive project could take years if not decades to complete, but the first order of business is determining what will happen with 30 acres of city-owned land. O’Connell’s office is negotiating with chosen developer, The Fallon Company. His administration plans to present agreement documents to Metro Council for approval in February.
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