Nashville nears $12M contract with firm to design MLS stadium at fairgrounds

Joey Garrison | The Tennessean

The Metro Sports Authority Board of Directors gave preliminary approval Thursday to contract Populous Inc., the country's dominant sports architecture firm, as the lead architectural, engineering and design firm for Nashville's planned Major League Soccer stadium at The Fairgrounds Nashville.

The sports authority voted unanimously to authorize the authority's chairwoman Kim Adkins to execute an agreement with Kansas City-based Populous Inc. after pending language is finalized in the coming days.

Based on current language of a draft agreement, the contract fee would be valued around $12 million, which would come from $225 million in revenue bonds that the Metro Council in November authorized for the stadium project in November.

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Finalizing the contract with Populous is still contingent upon ongoing negotiations between Metro attorneys and the firm regarding lingering business and legal terms. They involve final pricing and change-order authorizations, according to Michelle Hernandez-Lane, Metro's chief procurement officer.

The impetus for project leaders to get the board's vote on the contract now, rather than waiting on those details, is because the stadium has fallen slightly behind its original timeline.

Mary Cavarra, representing Nashville's MLS expansion franchise led by businessman John Ingram, said designs for the stadium were originally slated to begin in May.

"The issue is right now we're 30 days behind, and if we don't get the architect started this month or next week with preliminary kick-offs of designs, we can't afford to go another three weeks or it will cause issues later on," Cavarra said.

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Populous Inc., one of the largest architecture firms in the world, designed each of Nashville's other major sports venues, First Tennessee Park, Bridgestone Arena and Nissan Stadium. The firm has produced some of the most recognizable sports venues in every major professional sport.

Eight architecture firms, including Populous, responded to Metro's request for proposals.

MLS awarded Nashville its 24th franchise in December. The Nashville team is expected to begin play in 2020 at a temporary stadium location with the MLS stadium at the city's 117-acre fairgrounds to open in 2021.

But the stadium won't be built — and bonds to construct the stadium won't be sold — unless several hurdles are cleared.

It reached one of those last week when the Metro fair board approved an updated site plan for the fairgrounds. But the Metro Council still has to vote to rezone the property to allow for a 10-acre mixed use development on the site and vote to tear down existing buildings on the fairgrounds property. The plan is to rebuild those facilities on a different portion of the site.

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The council is expected to take up the proposals this summer and early fall.

The sports authority, which would own the stadium and lease it to the Ingram-led team ownership group, has three more actions as well for the stadium to move forward: a ground lease with the fair board, a stadium lease with the MLS franchise owners, and a stadium development agreement.

The overall price-tag of the MLS stadium is $275 million when including an additional $50 million in future general obligation bonds that are to go toward infrastructure and site improvements at the fairgrounds. The council will have final say on those bonds as well.

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Monica Fawknotson, sports authority director, said a preliminary agreement on these matters could be set to go before the board in July. Attorneys for Metro and the team are still hammering out details, she said.

"We're not quite there yet," Fawknotson said. "I hear we're about 99 percent there. It is still really important to the overall schedule that we stay on track and we consider those documents in July."

Under the stadium financing plan, the ownership team led by Ingram — majority owner of Nashville Soccer Club — would pay $25 million up front and $9 million a year over 30 years to help retire Metro’s annual $13 million debt for the $225 bond issuance.

Sales tax revenue generated by the stadium, as well as a $1.75 ticket tax that would increase over time, is designed to cover the remaining $4 million. Metro would be on the hook to pay the difference if projections fall short.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236, jgarrison@tennessean.com and on Twitter @joeygarrison.