Nashville’s Music City Center Only Cost $577M, Not Counting That $15M Lawsuit

The city says the project employed more than twice as many construction workers as originally anticipated. About a quarter of the money went to small contracting firms or those that are owned by women or minorities. Credit: Stephen Jerkins

The official numbers are in: construction of the Music City Center totaled $577 million dollars. It’s the most Nashville has ever spent on a building project, but officials say the final cost is $7.5 million less than they budgeted to build the new downtown convention center.

Those figures come with an asterisk, however. The city was ordered to pay an additional $15 million for land, following a lawsuit with a former landowner. However, there was a large enough surplus in tax revenue that year to cover the extra cost outright. That overage was accounted for separately.