With the mighty Cumberland River flowing through the heart of Nashville, the city and its outlying suburbs were among Tennessee’s hardest-hit areas during the late April rains and ensuing flooding. Many homes were lost, and plenty of businesses sustained damage, but in terms of the meetings and tourism side of the equation, the only real impact was to two facilities: the Grand Ole Opry performance venue and the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center, one of Nashville’s premier meeting venues.
During the flooding, nearly 1,500 guests at Gaylord Opryland were evacuated and spent the night at a local high school before transferring to other hotels. The resort reports that it will need to completely renovate 117 of its 2,881 guest rooms and its ground-floor exhibition center, as well as the ground-floor restaurants, lobby and public space. The resort accounts for about 10 percent of the city’s hotel rooms. At press time, the expected reopening date for the Gaylord Opryland was Nov. 15. The total cost of repair will be between $215 million and $225 million.
The Grand Ole Opry, the historic performance venue also owned by Gaylord Entertainment, is one of the biggest and most important music venues in the world, and has seen regular major performances since its humble beginnings in the mid-1920s. While many of the crucial historic elements of the venue were disassembled and removed before the flood waters began spilling in, the building will require a fair amount of work before reopening. The majority of the scheduled performances will take place as planned at other venues in Nashville. At press time, the Grand Ole Opry was slated to reopen Oct. 1.
Despite these two major closings, as well as scattered small businesses, cafes and restaurants, the bulk of the hotel and meetings infrastructure is completely back on its feet.
"The Nashville community showed great resilience and teamwork by joining together to begin recovery efforts in order to welcome visitors back to "Music City" in short order," says Lindsay Bass, senior manager of marketing and e-commerce for JW, Renaissance and Marriott hotels of New Orleans and Tennessee. "We are happy to report that all of our Marriott-branded hotels in the area are currently open and welcoming guests."
