How Nashville’s Soccer Stadium Deal Could Result In 10 Acres For Private Developers

Metro Council members spent 90 minutes Monday questioning a deal to finance a pro-soccer stadium on the state fairgrounds. A key sticking point remains 10 acres set aside for the prospective team owners to do with as they please.

Metro’s help building a stadium was meant to make the city competitive for an expansion team.

“How did the mixed-use development come to be needed to be part of this?” asked Council member Burkley Allen. “I have lots of people that are enthusiastic about it, and I’m glad we’re exploring it. I just need to be comfortable with how that became necessary.”       

At-large Councilman Bob Mendes
has described the acreage as a “nonstarter” that “just doesn’t feel right to me.” Currently, the 10-acres have not been publicly identified and could be on several corners of the fairgrounds. The projects have been described as mixed-use, likely meaning retail and restaurants on a ground floor with apartments or condos above. Some council members have said they’d at least like to see those be affordable units.

Chief operating officer, Rich Riebeling, says the team’s owners proposed the concept in exchange for shouldering most of the debt for the $250 million coliseum.

“The acreage was part of the negotiations,” he said. “As with every negotiation, you start at a place and you end up at a place. And we feel like where we ended up was a fair negotiation that is very much in the city’s interest going forward.”

The ownership group includes members of the Turner family who run MarketStreet Enterprises and
led construction of the Gulch. They have not said precisely what they plan to do with the 10 acres, except that it will complement the stadium and that it was ”
a key piece of the overall stadium plan.”

The Metro Council is scheduled to vote on the financing deal Tuesday night, but the measure is expected to be deferred until a public hearing next week.