Winter Panda

The Nashville Stars gave a presentation of their site assessment to the TSU finance committee on November 16. That presentation can be heard here. The relevant portion begins at 2:50:54. The site assessment highlights can be read here beginning on page 123. https://www.tnstate.edu/board/2023.11.16 Board Materials Second Draft Materials Board Submission Final Posted and Board Submission .pdf

In the video, they discussed the next steps for MLB to expand. Stewart said that MLB will meet after the World Series to determine which cities are the best candidates. He mentioned Raleigh as being Nashville’s competition. Stewart said that an expansion team would begin minor league play in six years and begin MLB play in seven years. Stewart discussed the stadium sites including the East Bank (which is not viewed favorably because they wouldn’t be able to create their own neighborhood around it), the healing site? in North Nashville (55 acres) and TSU’s site (200 acres). He discussed the ownership group which he said currently has three anchors and some smaller investors. He said they’re looking for one more anchor. Stewart mentioned that should Nashville be selected that the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City would create a satellite museum in Nashville in conjunction with the Stars.

Here's an interesting discussion regarding the Nashville Stars.

That's right. The arena/stadium in Russia looks like this from above.

TSU released an update to their Master Plan on June 15 https://www.tnstate.edu/board/2023.06.15 Final Board Materials.pdf (relevant portion begins on page 120 of the PDF). In it they mentioned developing their Cumberland River property and building a professional baseball stadium among other things. Separately they mentioned building a hockey arena. In this interview from May of 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6oFvgjP4Ag Dave Stewart of Music City Baseball mentioned that the plan is to first build the event venue space and have mixed use around that before adding the baseball portion to the stadium later. The old renderings that Music City Baseball released some years ago featured a concert venue in the same building as the baseball stadium. I wonder if something like this could be done, https://manica.global/page/vtb-arena-park---dynamo-central-stadium where the event space could also be the hockey arena for TSU and the soccer portion would be for baseball. This could provide the stadium with some State funding that would likely be tolerable to the average citizen as it could be pitched as being for TSU's proposed men's and women's hockey teams. However, in that same interview, Dave Stewart mentioned that the hope for the concert venue is that it have a 25,000-seat capacity and be expandable up to 50,000. That’s obviously massive for a typical concert venue, let alone a college hockey arena.

I don’t doubt that the engineers would be very capable of converting First Horizon Park to MLB standards. I do wonder if the Stars have not pursued this option more fervently due to their desire to have their stadium be domed. Additionally, I am concerned that any expansion of First Horizon Park would necessarily involve the demolition of existing buildings near the stadium. I wonder if the cost savings of not starting a stadium from scratch would be outweighed by having to purchase and demolish these surrounding structures. That being said, I don’t know what impact converting the stadium into a soccer specific one would have on the stadium’s current footprint. The First Horizon Park redeveloper may find themselves in a similar predicament with the surrounding buildings if this were the avenue pursued following the new MLB stadium being placed elsewhere. One possibility for keeping First Horizon Park a baseball venue would be to move Vanderbilt’s team there. This would allow Vanderbilt to demolish Hawkins Field and would provide additional space for the expansion of FirstBank Stadium.

If Nashville does ever receive an MLB team and it is determined that both the Sounds and the MLB team cannot coexist in the same city, I wonder if First Horizon Park could be converted into a soccer specific stadium similar to what Huntsville did with their Joe Davis Stadium where Nashville SC’s MLS Next Pro team is set to play. Obviously, soccer can already be played at First Horizon Park as Nashville SC played there when they were still in the USLC. However, that configuration didn’t have the most ideal sightlines for soccer. If it could be converted into a soccer specific stadium, perhaps they could attract an NWSL expansion team or relocation. The possibility of the NWSL coming to Nashville was discussed several months ago, but I haven't heard anything more on it since then.

According to this video from August of 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmT3TUCXje0 the zoo expansion is 40 acres. I would imagine that most of it would be for the safari experience. According to this video that Natti_amusements posted some time ago, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCPnSwi6fJs&t=672s Storyville Gardens in total is 165 acres. Of that, the park itself is only around 40 acres with “a lot of parking, three hotels, and quite a bit of retail, dining, and entertainment surrounding the park.” Forty acres doesn’t seem like a ton of space, but as you point out, Tivoli Gardens (20 acres) and Blackpool Pleasure Beach (42 acres) are able to do a lot with a little. The relevant portion of the Storyville video begins at 8:32.

For those interested in listening to the TSU Board of Trustees meeting regarding the Nashville Stars from back in November, the audio can be found here. The relevant portion begins at 1:44:20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAObHf-LH7Y&t=6835s

That makes more sense. The panjiva website is a little confusing if you don't have an account (which I don't). If you select the Bill of Lading next to the Nashville Zoo, it takes you to the most recently posted Bill of Lading which is the unrelated Dollywood project.

TSU has been trying to develop this space for a while. I image the issue they ran into was the likelihood of flooding. MKSK, TSU’s original development partner, released renderings some time ago. It seems as though they were aiming to develop something akin to UTK’s Cherokee Farm, but with a mixed use component. https://www.mkskstudios.com/projects/tennessee-state-university-cumberland-shores-innovation-district

I don't disagree. It's definitely a family coaster.

There’s been some discussion on reddit over the past couple of weeks regarding the possibility of the Nashville Zoo getting a Vekoma Family Boomerang Racer roller coaster. This would be the first of its kind in the United States, although Boomerangs more broadly are fairly ubiquitous. Interestingly, it seems that Dollywood may have some involvement. https://panjiva.com/Vekoma-Rides-Mfg-B-V/1306668 Currently there is one in the Netherlands.