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The Music City Convention Center

The Music City Center (MCC) convention center is the result of citywide collaboration between private business, not for profit corporations and the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.

Spanning six city blocks the convention center is 2.1 million square feet and accommodates over 60 meeting rooms. It has a 350,000 square foot exhibit hall and two grand ballrooms. The convention center was developed through the collaborative design of three architectural firms: tvsdesign, Tuck Hinton architects and Moody Nolan, Inc. (Music City Convention Center, n.d.).

The MCC boasts a Silver LEED certification in sustainability with a green vegetative four-acre roof, solar panels, and a rain water collection tank. This helped Nashville to be named one of the top ten cities in the nation for green meetings (Gloudeman, 2014). Along with the Omni Hotel, the MCC earned the 2013 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award.

The soul of Nashville is woven throughout the center and reflects the Music City Brand. The $585 million facility parallels country music authenticity with a rolling roof to represent the rolling hills of Tennessee and a guitar shaped ballroom that includes woods and curves to impersonate mandolins, violins, fiddles, guitars and pianos. The convention center was developed through the collaborative design of three architectural firms: tvsdesign, Tuck Hinton architects and Moody Nolan, Inc. (Music City Convention Center, n.d.).

During construction, the Music City Center employed more than 7,800 workers, including more that 130 Diversity Business Enterprise (DBE) program firms that had received contracts (Riley, November 13, 2013).

The collaboration- if you build it, they will come

The national trend in the convention industry was on a downturn in the late 1990’s (Sanders, 2005). Despite the negative outlook in the industry, Nashville community leaders knew there was a problem in Nashville as convention business was waning from lack of space and modern facilities. Building a new convention center would boost the industry and would be an economic development strategy for the city.

The Music City Center Committee was formed to research and develop a strategy to take to the Mayor of Nashville and sell the idea of a new convention center. The coalition was a carefully designed group of business leaders, tourism experts, civic design strategists and people who care about the city to educate and pursuade members of Metropolitan Nashville Government to adopt the idea of a new convention and take action to make it happen. This coalition included Marty Dickens, Chair of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau Board, Randy Rayburn, Chair of the Nashville Convention Center Commission, Ralph Schulz, Chair of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and Butch Spyridon, Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau (Baker, et al., 2006).

Nashville tourism officials believed that the city had something other cities could not offer, the internationally known brand of being Music City U.S.A. Working with this marketability in mind, the committee put together taskforces from all sectors of the community . The committee capitalized on this brand as a key selling point to the Mayor (R. Schulz, personal communication, March 20, 2014). The committee understood that the communication of the unique Music City Brand across all sectors would enlighten others to what Nashville had to offer, setting it apart from any other convention city (R. Schulz, personal communication, March 20, 2014).

Mayor Bill Purcell approved the project in September 2006 during his last year as Mayor.

The location of a new center would be integral to success. During the inaugural meeting of the steering group, the group went to the rooftop of the Adventure Science Center in south Nashville to view the city for inspiration. A committee member, first pointed to where the MCC sits now and identified it as the perfect spot (R. Schulz, personal communication, March 20, 2014). Even though the location was ideal, the group had the forethought to obtain professional surveys for the most beneficial site. There were three main areas identified in the final recommendation, along with a separate recommendation made by the Nashville Civic Design Center that pinpointed the premier location south of Broadway, known as the “SoBro” District (Baker, et al., 2006).

In addition to future expansion space and hotel building, this spot was beside the Country Music Hall of Fame. This was the pinnacle selling point for the Music City brand.

The challenges

The footprint of the Music City Center produced several challenges for the architecture and design team. The SoBro area had been under revitalization. Renovations and additions of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Encore condominium tower, Hall of Fame Park, a Hilton hotel, and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center added a new face with a hopeful future (Williams, 2009).

The fear of local landowners was that the south side of the new MCC would not draw future development (Williams, 2009). In addition, the south side area housed the Nashville Rescue Mission, The Campus for Human Development and Room at the Inn, nonprofits serving Nashville’s homeless population. Community members shared concerns with city planners that the future development in the area would put their services in jeopardy because the area would become incompatible for mixed use (McGee, 2013).

Despite the concerns, the design team of the MCC were optimistic that the closing off of SoBro would not occur. Members of the MCC design team assured the community that an attractive south facade would be developed (Williams, 2009). The design team would produce a major core street [Korean Veterans Boulevard] in 15 years. New Mayor Karl Dean also assisted in allaying concerns stating that he supported the Nashville Rescue Mission and identified the importance of the service to the city.

Another challenged faced by the new construction of the MCC was the relocation of the Greyhound bus station located on the corner of Eighth Avenue. A temporary location on Charlotte Avenue was secured to address the problem in July 2010 with a final new location at Fifth and Lafayette Street being announced in January 2012 (Garrison, 2010). The new Greyhound Station was a success receiving the 3rd LEED Certified Greyhound Prototype in North America.

The final stage

In 2007, newly elected Mayor Karl Dean took the steering wheel of the new convention center project. Karl Dean publicly supported the project while running for Mayor of Nashville.

Mayor Karl Dean believed the time was ripe for a new convention center. Despite the economic recession, with the Tennessee jobless rate the highest in decades, Dean gambled to build the convention center believing there was no better time to create new jobs, increase convention business, and make a greater impact on the downtown core (Allyn, November 20, 2012).

Opponents to the project believed the financial risk was great and there was the possibility of tourism declining and affecting the city coffers. However, tourism officials opposed that thought believing that the building would pay for itself with the hotel and visitor tax structure set in place to support the project (Allyn, November 20, 2012).

The official groundbreaking for the new Music City Center occurred in March 2010. The project spanned almost eight years from the inception to completion. However, the MCC is a testimony to those who believed in it.

The entire success of the project can be summed up through the partnerships and coalitions developed in Nashville. Nashville works well in collaboration. The MCC is more than just a building; the MCC, along with the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Omni Hotel, is a part of the Nashville authentic showcase (D. Mason, personal communication, March 20, 2014).

Today, the Music City Center is a beacon of prosperity for the city. In January 2014 alone, the center generated a $21.73 million in economic impact for the city (Boyer, February 13, 2014).