A redevelopment project for the southern edge of downtown Nashville is in the works and it’ll bring two new music venues to the city, as well as more hotel rooms and dining and entertainment options.
The new development, called Nashville Yards, will be located on 15 acres of property formerly occupied by LifeWay Christian Resources. A mixture of uses are planned for the site, including entertainment venues, retail and restaurant space, office space, hotels, and residential development.
The project’s entertainment district will be developed by AEG, the sports and entertainment company behind Los Angeles’ L.A. Live and the O2 in London. The entertainment district will be anchored by a live music venue with capacity for 4,000 concert-goers. Plans also include a smaller live entertainment club, with capacity for 600-700 and a luxury Regal Cinemas movie theater.
Location map from Nashville Yards website.
Hospitality amenities in the works include a 240-room boutique hotel as part of the entertainment district project and a 23-story 591-room Hyatt Regency with banquet and conference facilities.
Existing hotels closest to the development site are the Union Station Hotel and the Holiday Inn Express Nashville-Downtown. The Union Station Hotel, a Marriott Autograph Collection property that occupies Nashville’s historic train station, sits directly across Broadway from the Nashville Yards site.
The development is within walking distance of the rest of Nashville’s downtown venues, including Bridgstone Arena, the Ryman, and the waterfront Ascend Amphitheater.
It’s hard to believe that Nashville needs another music venue, but it seems that the new space, with a capacity for 4,000, will fill a void between the mid-size Ryman Auditorium (2,362 capacity) and War Memorial Auditorium (2,044 capacity), and the city’s next larger venues such as Ascend Amphitheater (6,800 capacity) and Municipal Auditorium (9,700 capacity).
