By Nashville Stars Baseball Club
A decade in downtown as a mighty engine of Nashville’s record tourism numbers.
That’s the highlight of note as Music City Center, Nashville’s convention center and primary event complex, celebrated its 10-year anniversary of operation on May 20.
The Center’s birthday comes on the heels of the recent announcement that Nashville set a tourism record for 2022. According to the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp., the city welcomed approximately 14.4 million visitors to the city in 2022, a 13% year-over-year growth from 2021, with a single-year record $8.8 billion generated in visitor spending. And with Taylor Swift’s record-setting performances earlier this month at Nissan Stadium, which helped to bring more than 460,000 people into downtown Nashville in a single weekend, another new record is in sight for 2023.
Over the last 10 years, Music City Center has hosted 2,335 events — including 462 local nonprofit events — with a recorded attendance of 4.4 million people, equating to $3.3 billion in direct economic impact for the city. The facility also has generated more food and beverage sales per square foot than any other convention center in the country. Groups are currently contracted through 2033 and proposals have been obtained through 2043. The 2.1 million-square foot facility encompasses 16 acres and sits adjacent to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Bridgestone Arena, two of the most highly attended sites in the city, thanks to their blend of music, sports, and fan experience.
And right on cue, May 20 also marked the start of a conference at Music City Center. This one was organized for the American Academy of Physicians Associates Inc., with more than 8,500 members estimated to have taken part.
“We’ve designed convention centers all over the world, including three of China’s largest convention centers and four of the five most popular U.S. convention centers,” Kevin Gordon, principal with TVS Design, one of the architecture firms that spearheaded the development, said in January 2014, a few months after the complex opened. “There really isn’t anything else like Music City Center in the world.”
In addition to the thousands of square feet of meeting space, the LEED Silver-certified facility also houses a four-acre “green roof” and more than 100 pieces of public artwork.
Karl Dean, the mayor of Nashville from 2007 to 2015, made the decision during the “Great Recession” to invest in his city, and his confidence was rewarded immediately.
By February 2016, just three years after its opening, the city’s “front porch” had seen 1.6 million visitors, amassed $70 million in reserves and generated more than $840,000 per day in economic impact. That growth certainly had plenty to do with the rapidly growing tourism industry, but also to the impact of the new convention center itself. Thanks to a collaboration with the city, more than 7,000 construction jobs were created at a time when such jobs were scarce, and the timing meant that — thanks to the price of steel and other materials being so low — the city saved at least $50 million in construction costs.
“We have surpassed even our own expectations with more groups wanting to book today and into the future than we have space available,” Music City Center President and Chief Executive Officer Charles Starks said.
“We’re excited to see what the next 10 years will bring.”
