Nate Rau

USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee

When Mayor Phil Bredesen first began pushing his idea for a downtown arena in the early 1990s, it was because Nashville was losing entertainment business to Murfreesboro, not New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

Today Bridgestone Arena is one of the busiest arenas in the world based on tickets sold and attendance. The arena is regularly ranked with or ahead of Madison Square Garden, the United Center and the Staples Center.

As hockey fans from around the world descend on Lower Broadway for NHL All-Star Weekend, it’s hard to imagine that just two decades ago Nashville was losing larger concerts to the Murphy Center in Murfreesboro. Bredesen, the health care executive and hard-charging Metro reform politician, wanted to change that.

So he made the construction of a new downtown arena the centerpiece of his bold vision for Davidson County.

Arena took downtown Nashville from eerie to epic

“We needed a place where musicians can play in a big concert,” Bredesen said. “You shouldn’t have to drive down to Murfreesboro to go to a concert in Music City USA. The sports thing really came along a little bit later.”

Once the arena opened it triggered a domino effect that transformed Lower Broadway, ushered in professional hockey and professional football, and culminated in Nashville’s status today as an international it-city.

Bredesen viewed the arena as a way to clean up downtown with a big project, in hopes that the private sector would follow. At the time, Lower Broadway was a vacant street in the evening where trash blew around and crime, including prostitution, was a problem.

“There was always the hope that it would become an economic engine for the city,” Bredesen said. “When I first became mayor, I was trying to find some kind of anchor around which you can rebuild downtown.”

NHL All-Star Weekend in Nashville

Ironically, Bredesen wasn’t much of a professional sports fan when he suggested luring an NHL or NBA team to become the arena’s anchor tenant. He first proposed an arena with a capacity of about 25,000 people, much larger than basketball or hockey teams desire.

“In fact I remember when we first proposed it and I talked a little bit about professional sports and what we had to do, there were people who were just derisive about that,” Bredesen said. “(People would say), ‘If you think you’re going to have a professional sports team down on Lower Broad, you’re just crazy.’ ”

Bredesen’s idea worked. The arena lured people to Broadway, which attracted more restaurants and bars and more private sector development. The city’s desire to bring a hockey or basketball team caught the attention of Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams, and that eventually led to the Tennessee Titans setting up shop here.

Bredesen said his biggest challenge came when property values skyrocketed after he picked the corner of Fifth Avenue and Broadway for the arena. The rising real estate values busted the city’s land acquisition budget and upped the cost of the project to $144 million. His success in revitalizing downtown Nashville boosted Bredesen’s political profile and helped him go on to win two terms as governor.

NHL All-Star Weekend in Nashville schedule

In the years since, Lower Broadway has become an international tourist destination with Bridgestone Arena at the center of it all.

“It has met and exceeded my hope in that regard,” Bredesen said. “I think it has been an important piece of helping make Nashville what it is today.”

Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and on Twitter @tnnaterau.

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