Earlier this week – Tuesday, to be precise – the final in a series of public planning sessions for a stadium at the Fairgrounds Nashville was held in the Creative Arts building, just steps away from the chosen site of the stadium. It was more like a brainstorming session – multiple architectural firm spitballing ideas with members of the public who dropped in (no more than a dozen at Tuesday’s event, though there may have been more at previous editions).

Post-its describing the current Fairgrounds situation Site plan in District 17 Checking out a crowdsourced annotated site plan Mockup of potential fairgrounds layout Schematic of Brown’s Creek floodplain Priority list from one of the community groups The only negative comment (from hundreds of post-its) about a soccer stadium

I didn’t have the chance to sit down with too many of the architects and/or planning firms (I was only there for an hour or so, they were more than gracious to spend plenty of time with folks who asked questions or offered suggestions, though this was less of a “come talk to us while we work” event than the previous sessions). I also didn’t want to share any of their specific plans, putting their proprietary work out there without permission.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive vibe from the community – whether through a post-it wall of wants, needs, likes, dislikes, etc., the brainstorming sheets from the previous meetings, and the folks who were actually in attendance (aside from one local news reporter whose story clearly came from a… certain perspective) – which I guess shouldn’t surprise me given the nature of the Save The Fairgrounds crew: they’re a disingenuous bunch, not even based in Davidson County, and their objections have nothing to do with actually saving the Fairgrounds.

The community members of District 17 and the great Nashville community – not only including, but especially those who use the Fairgrounds on a regular basis for racetrack, flea market, or other purposes – tend to be in favor, in my experience (I don’t want to speak on behalf of all, of course, but in my experience, it’s a strongly-“Pro” crowd). They want the Fairgrounds to be improved, and see adding a professional sports franchise to It’s unfair to them to have their avatars be used by the Steve Glovers and (ugh) Rick Williamses of the world, for a cause opposite the one they’d be likely to get behind.

Off my soapbox, anyway.

Here are a few more photos I took outside the Fairgrounds, of the lower-level soccer fields – for community use, as well as potential parking with reinforced turf – that are already under construction.