Mayor Barry Wants Soccer Stadium At Nashville Fairgrounds

Mayor Megan Barry says the Nashville Fairgrounds are the “best and only site” to build a soccer stadium as the city attempts to attract a professional team. An application has to be finalized by the end of the month, and it requires plans for a stadium.

Barry says she fully supports bringing Major League Soccer to town, but no formal stadium deals have been reached with the local organizing group. The men in charge are businessman John Ingram and former Tennessee Economic Development Commissioner Bill Hagerty, who has been nominated to be Ambassador to Japan.

Mayor Barry says a soccer stadium would not have to interfere with existing activities at the Fairgrounds, which include racing, a monthly flea market and annual fair.

The city has already put $12 million into a long-term budget to make improvements to the Fairgrounds and another $3 million to add community soccer fields on the 110-acre site. But she says building a stadium will have to be a public-private partnership, with emphasis on the “private” side.

Team investors are
also talking to Vanderbilt about partnering for a stadium.