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Music City citizens sound off

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Despite endorsements from Mayor Bill Purcell, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Urban League of Middle Tennessee, support for a new Nashville convention center is not universal.

An increase in hotel room taxes is planned to support the $455 million project. Opponents of the project question the need for a new convention center with a 375,000-sq. ft. exhibit hall when the city already has a 600,000-sq. ft. convention center at the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Gaylord executives say they don’t want guests of the resort paying for the construction of a publicly run competitor. And union representatives are concerned that any shortfalls in funding will raise taxpayer dollars.

“The Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau has identified nearly 240 events that were lost to other cities because the events were too large for the Nashville Convention Center and/or the event planners would not consider Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center,” states the Music City Center Report summary, which strongly urges the development of a new convention center. “If we do not invest in a new venue, expect more lost convention business and the hundreds of millions in economic impact that the events generate.”

The report also states that if a convention center is not built downtown (the Opryland resort is 10 to 15 minutes away), Nashville risks falling to the rank of a second- or third-tier convention city. The committee estimates a new convention center will bring in $700 million per year for the next 15 to 20 years.

That figure is disputed by Gaylord Entertainment Co. CEO Colin Reed, who last month told a Exchange Club audience that the overall demand for meeting space hasn’t rebounded from the sharp decrease it suffered in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, and that 75 percent of meeting planners prefer holding conventions where everything is under one roof.

Source: Nashville Business Journal