



When Mayor Megan Barry and the ownership group looking to bring Major League Soccer to Nashville unveiled a $275 million stadium proposal in early October, one piece of the plan caught Metro Council members off guard — 10 acres of land to be given to the ownership group and developed for their own profit.

Earlier this month, MLS2Nashville and MarketStreet Enterprises revealed details about their plans for the site, which include a hotel, housing and retail. The development would require separate council approval for land rezoning.

But now, with a council vote on the stadium proposal looming, the 10-acre giveaway remains a point of contention and will keep some councilmembers from supporting the deal if it remains. Multiple councilmembers tell the Scene they’ll work to remove that item from the proposal.

Councilmember Tanaka Vercher, who chairs the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, calls that part of the deal “unsettling.”

“I can tell you, firmly, if the 10 acres are still on the table, I’ll be a no vote,” she tells the Scene.

Vercher says conversations with the Barry administration are ongoing and that she expects an amended version of the council resolution, which would include new language about guarantees made by the team owners. If the councilmembers’ concerns can’t be assuaged, she says, it could be an “interesting” vote.

At-Large Councilmember John Cooper was an immediate skeptic when the deal was proposed, and he remains one.

“It’s a beautiful game, I’m not sure it’s a beautiful deal,” he says. “So far I’ve not heard any rationale for the gift of the 10 acres that would justify it, other than that it takes risk out of the deal for the team owners.”

He also mentions the expected new language about long-term guarantees from the ownership group.

“To build a special-purpose facility like a stadium, I think, does require the Metro taxpayer to limit their risk, and that means actual guarantees,” says Cooper. “Two of our three stadiums can accommodate soccer. If neither of those stadiums are good enough, if you need a specialty fourth stadium, then you have to bear that risk.”

Barry administration officials have said the ownership group would bear the responsibility for paying off most of the debt on bonds — 90 percent of it, according to the proposal — that Metro would issue to pay for the stadium. But councilmembers have expressed a desire to see those guarantees stated more explicitly in the language of the deal.

At-Large Councilmember Bob Mendes is among them, and he also expresses some uneasiness about the 10-acre gift to the ownership group. Speaking to the Scene 10 days before the vote, he says he’s a no on the deal as it’s currently structured.

Even more openly supportive councilmembers say the land gift is tripping them up. Councilmember Freddie O’Connell says he’s leaning yes on the stadium, framing the deal as a great improvement over other stadium deals in Nashville and in other cities. Still, he says, giving away 10 acres of valuable land is hard to wrap one’s head around. He also says he has questions about what Metro’s possible liability would be in the long term, not only if the team were to leave, but if MLS were to fold altogether.

Councilmember Jeremy Elrod says he supports bringing an MLS team to Nashville, and putting a stadium at the fairgrounds, “but the 10 acres should be taken out of the proposal.”

“Handing over the 10 acres for free isn’t needed to get a team here or to build the stadium,” he says. “The team says they need amenities to make the game day experience work, but why should they receive for free the right to build them on Metro property? If the stadium and the area is going to do as well as everyone thinks, developers will be lining up to build around there.”

From within the fairgrounds-area district that would host the stadium, though, Councilmember Colby Sledge says he feels good about the proposal. There are still ongoing discussions about certain aspects of the plan, he says, but the ownership group has done a good job responding to concerns and questions from councilmembers and the public. As for the 10 acres and proposed development, he says he’s comfortable with that portion of the proposal, because the council and the public would have a chance to weigh in later.

“I very much want to see it pass,” he says of the stadium plan.

If changes are to be made to the proposal, Sledge suggests, they have to be made in the coming days. There’s no slowing down now.

“There’s going to probably be some kind of sidebar conversation come up about deferral. We can’t defer this. We have to vote on this next week because of the MLS’ timeline.”

MLS is set to award two franchises in December and two more in 2018. MLS2Nashville officials have said the city’s best chance for a team is in December, and that requires a stadium plan to be in place before the league makes a decision.