Years of construction and planning are finally coming to fruition in downtown Nashville.
The May opening of the $623 million Music City Center convention center added 1.2 million square feet of function space and launched the city into a new era.
“It’s created an entirely new destination,” says Tod Roadarmel, director of sales and marketing for the Omni Nashville, which opens in October.
“In total, there was more than a billion dollars spent on the various projects, the city pushed through the rough economic times,” he says.
The renovated Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum also opens this fall, and will be integrated with the Omni on three floors; thelobby space is shared, Omni’s ballrooms are adjacent to the museum’s 800-seat theater, and the hotel pool leads to the museum’s green outdoor terrace on the third level. It will be easy for planners to book the spaces concurrently.
The city has already seen an uptick in interest, media attention and group bookings. Roadarmel reports that through 2024 they have more than 190 meetings scheduled, accounting for more than 300,000 room nights.
“Associations have noticed that Nashville is hot right now,” he says, with more than 27 citywide conferences booked in 2014 alone, which is “more than Nashville has ever seen.”
The contracting firm Brasfield & Gorrie worked on both the Omni and Hall of Fame projects, and witnessed the collaboration firsthand as hordes of contractors, design teams and more than 1,300 people worked on several job sites concentrated in the six-block downtown area. The firm’s vice president Clay Bright agrees that “the convention center has spurred a lot of activity.”
Bright points out that the hotel made a point of integrating regional touches and musical energy into the design, from the guitar-shaped lobby to more subtle design elements.
“The hotel is filled with local color,” Roadarmel says. “From the decor and artwork to the food and music at the Omni, you will know you’re in the South; you’ll know you’re in Nashville.”
New event spaces at the expanded Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will include a 10,000-square-foot event hall and an outdoor terrace with skyline views.
“The new space will provide so much flexibility,” says Jo Ellen Drennon McDowell, the museum’s senior director of events management. “We can continue sharing the country music story with all kinds of groups and won’t have to work around other visitors to set up for special events.”
In addition to new meeting options, the expansion also included new galleries (the museum had been running out of storage space for its artifacts) and an education center funded by a large donation from Taylor Swift.
www.visitmusiccity.com
www.brasfieldgorrie.com
www.omnihotels.com
