Titans ownership and local Tennessee elected officials want a new stadium.
A funny thinghappened on the way to the National Football League’s Tennessee Titans ownership’squest for public money for a new stadium. Metro Nashville officials said that adeal to build a stadium that would cost at least $2.2 billion is not complete.Metro Nashville will not provide any details about the stadium proposal in thenear future. What is next? More meetings that might happen in October. TheTennessee Titans ownership has gone from renovating a 23-year-old stadium to awhy should we renovate when we could build a whole new football facilitycomplete with all sorts of revenue generating possibilities. It seems the23-year-old stadium is just a basic facility and according to Titans PresidentBurke Nihill, ‘”this is one of the bottom 20 percent of buildings in the NFLbuilt before 9/11. Security enhancements adopted by the NFL haven’t beenadded.” Titans ownership will not be a part of a planned village that would goup around the stadium. Nashville elected officials see the stadium as the centerpiecefor development.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee was looking for public money streams to build a stadium. Nashville political leaders seemed to support the notion of spending$600 million in fixing up the aging stadium but that plan seemed to turn on a dime and a new stadium plan suddenly appeared. The $600 million figure was too low and the real cost of getting the work done was closer to $1.2 billion. With a number that high, why not spend an extra hundreds of millions of dollars for a spanking new facility that could come with a roof. The stadium project could receive $1.5 billion in public funding, with Titans ownership kicking in some money. The planned Titans stadium would seat less people which means tighter ticket supply and an excuse to raise ticket prices if there is a demand.
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