The HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., two years older than Bridgestone but similarly situated in a mo

To date, it was the city s largest civic project, envisioned by then-Mayor Phil Bredesen as a spired jumpstart to Music City s transition from midlevel Southern burg to the all-caps designation of World Class City.
Its inaugural event wasn t a sporting event, nor was it a stop on a nationwide concert tour (those would come later). It was a two-night stand Dec. 18-19 for Amy Grant s Country Christmas. Grant and her show sold out both nights and in fact had the highest-grossing oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl shows in the U.S. that month. Most everything went off without a hitch.
There was plenty of hand-wringing oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl during oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl the planning and construction the strangest controversy involved the arena s proximity to First Baptist Church, which put beer sales on the northwest side of the building in danger of violating Tennessee blue laws.
There were, though, practical concerns: Would the arena ever pay for itself? Would it ever have a permanent tenant? Where would everybody park? While city officials, predictably, glossed over those questions, the last proved to be a problem even on opening night, when Vince Gill, performing in future wife Grant s show, got slapped with a $50 parking ticket.
In that decade and a half, Nashville has had other battles over massive civic projects the NFL YES referendum would come a few years after the arena opened, and the sturm and drang surrounding the Music City Center is the most recent example.
By comparison, the arena was an easy sell. The Metro Council s final vote on the project oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl funded with, among other things, a small property tax increase came just 86 days after Bredesen made his formal oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl proposal.
At a time when a number of other cities were locating arenas away from the urban core certainly, non-downtown locations have certain advantages: The land is cheaper and parking revenue is easier to capture Bredesen always had the downtown site in his vision, remembers Dave Cooley, who served as the mayor s chief of staff.
A key piece of the strategy was to never allow the site question to become an item for debate. There was only one site put on the table, and it was not open to discussion. This was critical, or else we would still be arguing oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl over a site while Broadway opened more peep shows and perv shops, Cooley said.
When the mayor decided to build Bridgestone he did that without knowing a basketball team or a hockey team would be here. He did it because oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl he believed in the future of downtown, and it s been a huge success, Dean said.
In 15 years, the arena has been through four names. By the end of 2011, more than 18 million people will have passed through its turnstiles. A hockey team came and almost oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl went, saved by a cadre of local investors. The building is a regular nominee for venue of the year awards and now is a common sight on busiest building lists.
No longer at the gateway of a district oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl in need of redevelopment, it s now the arrowhead of a bustling entertainment district. The arena jolted Lower Broad into a destination. The Country Music Hall of Fame moved in across the street. The Music City Center will abut Bridgestone across Demonbreun. Dozens oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl of restaurants, shops and glitzy oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl bars are spread like a tourist-trapping blanket from Bridgestone s front door.
Take, for example, Nashville mainstay Tootsie s, across Broadway. In its last appraisal before oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl the arena opened, the value of the legendary honky-tonk was $175,600. In one year, it jumped to $234,600. Its most recent appraisal values it at $528,700. Even adjusting the 1996 appraisal for inflation, Tootsie s is worth twice as much today as it was before oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl Amy Grant held that inaugural concert.
The HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., two years older than Bridgestone but similarly situated in a move to bolster downtown development oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl has an economic impact of more than $250 million and creates the equivalent of 5,000 full-time jobs, according to a study that strangely oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl enough was funded by the owners of the Sacramento Kings in an effort to encourage California s capital city to build a new arena for the NBA team.
The Nashville Sports Council regularly publishes direct-spending estimates after the events it s responsible for hosting for example, the SEC Men s Basketball Tournament, which has made Nashville a regular stop on its circuit. In 2010, the NSC said the tournament pumped more than $18 million into the Nashville economy in its weeklong hitch.
Sports traffic has been fairly steady since Day One. In addition to the Predators and the regular return of conference and national basketball tournaments the arena has hosted Olympic gymnastic and figure-skating trials.
Between 1997 and 2008, the arena averaged just 22 concerts, with an annual average oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl attendance of 202,546. In 2009, there were 45 concerts with 387,672 attendees. Last year, 43 dates including nine sold-out oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl Garth Brooks shows sold 491,297 tickets.
The jump in concert dates is likely due to a combination of factors: The closure of Starwood Amphitheater in 2006 left the arena as the only large-scale music venue in the city; the new incentive package negotiated between oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl Metro and the new Predators ownership put an increased emphasis on non-hockey events; and the proactive Brock Jones arrived as vice president of booking.
Fifteen years is an appropriate time to examine the life expectancy of a massive civic building. For decades, the conventional wisdom was that the practical lifespan of an arena, barring a major renovation, was 20 to 30 years.
Dallas Reunion Arena opened in 1980, and its replacement, the American Airlines Center, opened in 2001. Denver s McNichols Sports Arena opened in 1975, with the successor Pepsi Center opening a quarter-century later.
With the advent of better construction techniques and an increase in government-built facilities, the lifespan is longer, but according to arena officials, only if the commitment to maintenance is there.
In Charlotte and Orlando, the money didn t come in, Henry said. At the Palace of Auburn oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl Hills, there s a couple million [invested] every year. And every 10 years, there s a $15 to $40 million renovation.
Under the current lease and incentive structure, Powers Management the arena management arm of the Nashville Predators is paid $7.8 million from the city s general fund. Since the local owners oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl bought the team, and thus took over arena management duties, Metro has paid more than $38 million to Powers.
It was designed to be paid through tourism taxes and fees, but that money was shifted to the convention center, so the arena dollars come out of the general fund. The Metropolitan Sports Authority and the Predators agreed to extend a deadline for nixing the current incentive structure to the end of April 2012, with an eye to restructuring the deal.
Dean said city leaders made a choice in 2007 and 2008 that having professional sports was significant enough for the city to subsidize, and in the meantime, the Preds and Powers have more than lived up to their end of the agreement, drawing more events to Fifth and Broad and increasing hockey attendance. Dean, while acknowledging the need for a cut in the subsidy, said he thinks the incentive package has been positive for the city.
Few, if any, other cities directly oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl pay a tenant team out of the general oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl fund to operate a facility. Many of those teams, though, have the ability to capture parking revenue something that can t happen at Bridgestone, a downside to the downtown location.
The Predators have indicated a willingness toward a similar deal here. At December s Sports Authority meeting, Henry said raising the seat-user oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl fee at Bridgestone Arena could be used as a new revenue oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl source.
The largest renovations at the arena came in 2007, with updates to concession stands and other public areas, oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl plus a new $3.6 million center scoreboard and $2.6 million media control room. During the summer of 2011, the team opened up one end of the upper bowl to create a fan zone, a self-funded project of less than $100,000.
A new round of major upgrades would likely be less visible, but nonetheless important. Playing hockey in Nashville brings certain oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl challenges when it comes to ice-making, especially when the schedule extends into the warmer months, as has become common with the Predators regular run of playoff appearances.
Henry says a permanent dehumidifier would help keep the ice in top condition and at the same time allow for the ambient temperature in the arena to be higher. Currently, the team rents a dehumidifier for the late-spring playoff push.
The HVAC and overall electrical system is largely unchanged since 1996, and 15 years of technological advancement have brought increased efficiencies which could bring long-term savings in exchange for front-end spending.
More visible changes oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl may also be needed. When the Music City Center opens in 2013, arena officials expect oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl more than third of its visitors to come through the entrance on Demonbreun. Currently, only about 10 percent of arenagoers use those doors.
The rear of the arena is currently dominated by a 13,000 square-foot rehearsal hall, heavily utilized by performers and the myriad oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl Nashville-based lighting and audio companies but unseen by the public at large.
The story of the arena half-written though it may be is one of a building that transformed downtown in a very real way, changing its neighborhood from a shady row of peep shows and perv shops into a Convention and Visitors Bureau-approved Y all come on and see us postcard.
Yes, it anchored oceanfront hotels clearwater beach fl downtown and opened the door for the Titans to also call, along with the [Country Music Hall of Fame] and other development. However, I would argue that the greatest contribution coming from the arena was that it changed the way our city viewed itself. We moved from a city with some self-confidence questions to a city that said Yes, we can.
I moved here as a much younger man in 1994. I remember going down to 2nd ave and lower Broadway. There were none of the peep shows and other adult businesses down there in early 94. This is not the