Early today, Broadway Sports Media‘s Davey Shepherd and Ben Wright got a chance to visit Nashville SC’s new stadium preview center, which gave an inside look into what fans can expect as they select their seats in the new stadium. Tonight’s local stadium update meeting of the year gave more insight into the progress on Nashville’s 30,000 seat venue.
Metro Council member Colby Sledge began the meeting, who quickly turned it over to Shanael Phillips, Community Management Director of the project. She reported that the 39% of the workforce hours so far have been covered by underrepresented minority and female workers. The goal had been at least 22%. Additionally, 37% of the business subcontracts have been awarded to female or minority owned businesses, ahead of their goal of 30%.Â
Philips concluded by sharing some of the work that was being done in the community outside of the stadium. The team had done some exterior improvements at Napier Elementary., such as pressure washing all of the playground equipment, paving and repairing sidewalks, as well as performing some other exterior repairs.
Miaeh Turner, Construction Manager, gave an update on the Logistics Plan. They are working on finishing the concrete pouring, with three of the four sectors completed. She also emphasized their desire to be good neighbors and keep the community informed when concrete pours take place. She finished by showing before and after photos of the progress made since the last meeting in December.
Trevor DeLong, Construction Superintendent, started off with a short video of a drone flight over the stadium site. Taken on March 7th, the video really showcased how much progress is taking place. The current focus is the South end of the stadium where steel beams have already started to go vertical. The site just celebrated going 200 days without a single injury onsite.
DeLong wrapped up with a look at what to expect through the rest of the year. Construction is running on schedule and on target to finish May of 2022. The crane is expected to be demobilized in October and will be followed by field build up in November. It’s hard to believe that in eight short months, we will start to see a field being laid out.
Ian Ayre, Nashville SC’s CEO, started off by discussing the 2021 home opener against FC Cincinnati that was announced today. Season ticket numbers continue to grow for 2021, and Ayre says the team is really pleased by the support they are seeing. According to Ayre, they have almost sold out all Premier Club seats and will soon begin sales for the North and South Club.
“I am blown away by how much progress is made from a week to week”, Ayre said. The club website will continue to keep everyone updated on the progress.
Councilmember Colby Sledge wrapped up the meeting with a question and answer session. The first question was around neighborhood infrastructure improvements. Sledge said that next meeting they will have an update, as they are still awaiting some permitting. He went on to mention that Phase 2 of Fair Park was funded last week and more details would be coming shortly.
This was the first community meeting that I’ve been able to attend, and I was very impressed by how thorough and thoughtful the team has been with engaging the local community and communicating progress. I was also impressed by the amount of progress that has been made in just three short months.
I cannot wait to see the stadium continue to take shape and look forward to finally getting into the stadium. It will be here sooner than we think.
