(ams-net.org)Like Evansville now, Nashville had an arena dilemma back in the 1990s. The city was desperate to bring the NHL to town and knew they needed a new arena to make this happen. In 1996, Nashville constructed a brand new 20,000 seat arena now known as Bridgestone Arena. In turn, this move attracted the Nashville Predators as a NHL expansion team.
Once construction of Bridgestone Arena was complete, Nashville had two arenas. Let's take a look at how they handled it.
Meet The Nashville Municipal Auditorium
(cranchedfornow.blogspot.com)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_Municipal_Auditorium
Constructed in 1962, the Auditorium was the first public assembly facility in the Mid-South with air-conditioning.You can view a full list of events hosted at Nashville Municipal Auditorium here...
In 1967, the auditorium accommodated the Country Music Association's first CMA Awards festivities, before the ceremonies moved to the Grand Ole Opry House the following year.
The walls of the upper and lower concourses are decorated with enlarged ticket stubs for events and concerts the auditorium has hosted between the venue's debut in 1962 and 2010.
http://www.google.com/search?q=nashville+municipal+auditorium&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GGLL_en#q=nashville+municipal+auditorium+history&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&prmd=ivns&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=iUAuTsO0Asbj0QH44aHdAQ&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=12&sqi=2&ved=0CH8Q5wIwCw&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=54beadcffa8a1ca5&biw=1280&bih=603
Due to its aging structure, Nashville Municipal Auditorium lacked modern amenities to attract premier concerts, NHL hockey, and NBA basketball. This prompted the city of Nashville to begin construction of Bridgestone Arena instead of renovating the current arena.
Meet The Bridgestone Arena
(stadiumjourney.com)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgestone_Arena
The Bridgestone Arena is owned by the Sports Authority of Nashville and Davidson County and operated by Powers Management Company, a subsidiary of the Nashville Predators National Hockey League franchise, which has been its primary tenant since 1998. The Predators hosted the NHL Entry Draft here in 2003.
In 1997, it was the venue of the United States Figure Skating Association national championships, and in 2004 hosted the U.S. Gymnastics championships. It was the home of the Nashville Kats franchise of the Arena Football League from 1997 until 2001, and hosted the team's revival from 2005 to 2007, when the Kats folded.
The venue has also hosted numerous concerts and religious gatherings, and some major basketball events, including both men's (2001, 2006, 2010) and women's tournaments of the Southeastern Conference and the Ohio Valley Conference. Since 2002, it has also hosted a PBR Built Ford Tough Series bull riding event every year (except in 2005 and 2006) until 2010. The event moved to this venue in 2002 after having previously occupied the Municipal Auditorium from 1994 to 2001; during the venue's first year hosting this event, the Built Ford Tough Series was known as the Bud Light Cup.
The venue hosted numerous WWE events since 1997, including Judgment Day in 2002.In odd-numbered years, the arena was regularly one of eight sites to host the first and second rounds of the men's NCAA Basketball Tournament for the first ten years of its existence, though it was taken out of the rotation for several years (the arena will host the event again in 2012), partly due to the obsolete octagonal mid-1990s-style scoreboard that hung above the arena floor. It was replaced in the summer of 2007 by a new $5 million scoreboard and digital control room.
Currently, Bridgestone Arena serves as Nashville's premier arena. It currently hosts the Nashville Predators and may one day welcome a NBA team to town.
Once Bridgestone Arena took many of Municipal Auditorium's events such as professional bull riding, premier concerts, NCAA tournaments, and other miscellaneous events to go with its figure skating championships and professional hockey, the big question of what to do with Municipal Auditorium loomed large over Nashville. Should it be torn down, renovated, or kept as is?
In my opinion, Nashville made the best decision for their community. After undergoing a small renovation in 1993, Municipal Auditorium was repositioned as a mid-size arena.
From the Nashville Municipal Auditorium article again....
Having served the greater Nashville area with many diverse events for almost 50 years, today the Auditorium is a popular venue in Nashville for major touring family shows, such as Sesame Street Live, The Wiggles, The Doodlebops, Barney, Bob the Builder,Disney Live, Harlem Globetrotters, and the annual Al Menah Temple Shrine Circus.
The venue continues to serve niche concert markets, such as alternative rock, rock'n' roll, heavy metal, pop, R&B, urban, oldies and Hispanic concerts.
Due to the damage incurred to the Grand Ole Opry House during the May 2010 Tennessee floods, the NMA hosted the June 8, 2010 edition of the Grand Ole Opry. NMA also hosted an Opry show in 1973.
The Auditorium is also a popular venue for religious events, having hosted Mt. Zion Baptist Church New Day Conference, Teenmania's Acquire the Fire, Dare 2 Share Ministries, and the Tennessee Baptist Convention Youth Evangelism Conference.
The Music City Stars, then known as the Nashville Broncs, an American Basketball Association expansion team, began its inaugural season at the NMA in November 2008.
It is currently home to the Nashville Roller Girls, a flat track roller derby league, and a member of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.
Sometime in 2012, the auditorium will begin housing the Musician's Hall of Fame and Museum. The museum was forced from its previous building as a result of the construction of the Music City Center. The Hall of Fame will move into the sparsely-used Exhibit Hall on the bottom floor of the Auditorium building, and the official name of the entire building will change to Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum at Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
Having Municipal Auditorium as the new home for the Musician's Hall of Fame and Museum turned out to be a major asset for downtown Nashville...
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/15127264/musicians-hall-of-fame-museum-moving-to-municipal-audituriom
These past few years, Nashville has decided to build a new convention center and a new convention center hotel (sound familiar?) next to Bridgestone Arena without demolishing their current convention center and hotel (which will become a medical trade show building). To accomplish this, Nashville needed the land where the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum sat on.
If Nashville would not have kept their Municipal Auditorium, they would not have had a place to relocate the museum too and most likely would have lost it. Now, an estimated 30,000 tourists will be coming to the museum each year. Although the two arenas don't have a no-compete clause, all of this was accomplished without harming each others business.
We're always being told that we should replicate Corpus Christi and Toledo who demolished their arenas. But why not replicate cities such as Nashville and Canton. The following are lessons I think we can learn from Nashville.
1. Just because you have two arenas doesn't mean that they will compete. Like Canton, Nashville uses their new arena for premier activities and their old arena for mid-size events. Nashville has the market cornered on two different entertainment markets.
2. Evansville will be mixed up in a Cause & Effect model. In an earlier post, I talked about how one of our projects will affect our other projects. This was the case in Nashville. Without Municipal Auditorium, Nashville would not be breaking ground on their new convention center and hotel without sacrificing a museum that attracts 30,000 visitors a year. We too need to make sure all of our buildings and parks are working together so that we can corner the mid-size arena market, the premier arena market, and the softball fields market at the same time.
3. Patience will pay off. If you look at Municipal Auditorium during the 1990s, you will notice it was holding on for dear life. However, team by team, event by event, Municipal Auditorium has filled up the majority of its schedule. We too must be patient with our Roberts Stadium project.
4. A no-compete clause solves nothing. Instead of fearing that our two arenas will compete, why don't we make sure they compliment each other? Nashville does this perfectly. When organizers are considering where to host their event, Nashville uses both arenas as a package deal to attract these organizers to town AND IT WORKS! We need to use our arenas as a package deal as well.
5. Old arenas are an asset not a liability. Nashville has treated their Municipal Auditorium as an asset to their community. As a result, the arena is filled on a daily basis and the area around it is growing while Bridgestone Arena and the area around it is growing as well. Everyone is winning in Nashville.
Lately, our local leaders have looked at Nashville to replicate various projects such as city-county consolidation and our ball fields project. If these same city leaders would look at how Nashville handled their transition from one to two arenas, they would see just how we need to handle our current situation.
Let's make sure our two arenas work together, LET'S SAVE ROBERTS STADIUM!
No comments:
Post a Comment