The Tennessee Titans have been discussing renovations to Nissan Stadium with Mayor John Cooper, but there are new indications the franchise could end up building a new home altogether.
Renovation talks hit a speed bump when the price tag for upgrades to Nissan Stadium unexpectedly skyrocketed. The Tennessean reported that the original price for renovations was $600 million, but a Titans spokesperson told Axios the cost may be double that figure. Now, the franchise and decision-makers will have to determine the best course of action.
The Titans released a statement on the matter, per News 4 Nashville.
“Over the past year, we’ve been gathering community feedback and digging deep into the needs of the stadium. We’ve worked with multiple experts to help us learn more about those needs, and what we’ve discovered most recently is that the stadium has a lot more infrastructure needs than we originally anticipated.
For example, the stadium’s structural frame was built with concrete and needs to be largely replaced with steel. The mechanical, plumbing, and electrical systems need to be completely replaced. The window system throughout the building is so antiquated that it is not even manufactured anymore. All of these new revelations are adding up and moving a renovation price nearly double what we initially anticipated. When you consider the present and future needs of our current stadium, it’s possible that another path, such as a new, modern stadium that could better serve its community’s needs, might be a more responsible option to explore.
We remain committed to our original mission: find an elegant solution to upgrade the stadium to first-class, NFL-quality standards and remove Nashville’s general fund from stadium business once and for all through a re-imagination our current lease structure, which as it stands today, puts the burden of an aging stadium’s costs on the city and Nashville’s general taxpayer.
With all this in mind, we need to take a step back and re-evaluate if a stadium renovation is the most responsible option forward and explore other paths.”
While clearly nothing has been decided, a new Titans stadium in Nashville would be enticing. Nashville is quickly growing and becoming a hot spot for tourism — whether that be for bachelorette parties or sporting events. Building a new stadium could also come with the option to construct an indoor location — which would boost Nashville’s chances of hosting a future Super Bowl. “Music City” impressed in hosting the 2019 NFL Draft, and could be set up to do more in the future.
