Music City Convention Center Location
This article entitled “Marriott picked for Nashville’s convention center hotel” appeared in the Nashville Business Journal on August the 11th, 2009. The author is Jenny Burns:
“Hotel developers said Tuesday the 40-story hotel that will accompany Nashville’s proposed convention center will be a Marriott Marquis hotel, one of four in the country.
The Metropolitan Development and Housing Authority picked Marriott as the new hotel’s flag.
John Fleming, general manager of the current convention center hotel Renaissance Nashville Hotel, says Marriott Marquis is the premier brand of Marriott slated for convention center hotels.
Nashville’s will be the fourth, following one in New York City, Atlanta and another starting construction in Washington, D.C., Fleming said.
MDHA said it received seven proposals for hotel flags and chose Marriott because of its experience in the convention center hotel industry and its familiarity with the Nashville market. Marriott has more than 2,000 rooms in Greater Nashville.
The 1,000-room hotel is being developed by Phelps Portman Nashville, LLC and will include a 40,000-square-foot grand ballroom, a 25,000-square-foot junior ballroom and meeting rooms.
The Phelps Portman grouphas been involved with the development of 10 hotels with 1,000 or more rooms, including the 1,190-room Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel and the Marriott Marquis Times Square.”
In related news, PR firm McNeely Pigott & Foxhas spent almost half of their $900,000 PR budget before the new convention even has final approval leading many to question the firm’s integrity and intelligence.
When will construction start on the new Music City Convention Center?
Construction of Music City Center is expected to begin in the spring. The facility is scheduled to open in early 2013. In addition, the hotel has already booked more than 207,000 hotel room nights even before the first steel girder was placed. Maybe that only surprises me, but that seems like a very good sign of things to come.
BTW – everyone who doubted the viability of downtown condo living…this convention center will be the catalyst for your change of position.
— — Update August 17, 2009 — —
The council is expected to vote Tuesday on legislation to create a nine-member convention center authority, which would oversee the facility’s staff and issue bonds to pay for construction. The mayor would appoint the authority’s unpaid members.
Mayor Karl Dean and other convention center boosters have always said they plan to use revenue from a series of taxes and fees targeted primarily at tourists to pay for the facility. But critics of the project have pointed to the economic recession and numerous cities’ difficulties drawing visitors to their convention halls.
The convention center also would receive some sales tax revenue from the creation of a nearly three-square-mile “tourism development zone” around the center. The council voted in January to approve a plan that would allow the city to use the difference between existing sales tax revenue in the zone and the amount generated after the center opens to pay off construction debt in order to keep Nashvillians for footing any bills.
