Features
Music City Center’s Big Reveal
Nashville’s Music City Center threw open its doors to thousands of visitors in an open house event May 19-20 to kick off the $585 million convention center’s grand opening. Music City Center is adjacent to Nashville’s Omni Hotel, the site of Pollstar Live! Feb. 19-21.
City officials estimate more than 15,000 turned out for the festivities, which included the free open house, tours and live music throughout the building. The official ribbon-cutting was May 20, opening with music fromBrad Paisley and topped off by concerts with Sheryl Crow, The Time Jumpers featuring Vince Gill, Phil Vassar, and Ten Out of Tenn, according to the Tennessean.
Photo: AP Photo
A birds-eye view from a balcony overlooking the concourse and exhibition hall at the new Music City Center in Nashville.
The facility, which took three years to build, totals 2.1 million square feet and includes 1.2 million square feet of public space. It sports a 57,500-square-foot grand ballroom for 6,000, a nearly 8-acre exhibit hall and a public art collection.
The ballroom’s design will make guests feel like they are sitting inside an acoustic guitar, according to WTVF-TV in Nashville. The green roof is composed of 14 different types of vegetation over 4 acres and landscaped to resemble the rolling hills of Tennessee.
Besides reducing the energy usage of the building, the roof absorbs rainfall, which will go into a 360,000-gallon rainwater collection tank before being recycled to irrigate the roof and other landscaping.
The building also includes the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, which was also unveiled May 19.
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean told the Tennessean that the new conference center shows off the city’s confidence as well as builds on its assets.
“This is a big investment by the city and it took a lot of confidence in the city to make this investment during the recession. And I think it’s going to pay off for us in a big way,” Dean said.
Dean cut the ribbon and announced that 123 meetings representing more than 1 million room nights have already been booked at the convention center.
“The bookings to date reflect the excitement in the industry around the project,” Dean said. “All it takes is a visit to Music City to see why we are now the nation’s best convention and event destination. We are not just opening the doors of a new downtown convention center, we are opening a new world of opportunity for Nashville’s hospitality and tourism industry.”