High Strung Music City Center’s curving roofline and rounded façade recall the warm wood of the fiddles and guitars that have made Nashville famous.

such as mac-and-cheese, chili, and grilled-cheese sandwiches, and to performers positioned throughout the center. There was gospel, opera, and — of course — country music, and the Grammy-nominated Nashville Symphony gave the inaugural perfor- mance in the 57,000-square-foot Grand Ballroom. The ballroom’s ceiling made it hard not to keep looking upward — it’s designed to make guests feel as if they’re sitting inside an acoustic guitar. A highlight of the press tour was a visit atop the center’s four-acre green roof, which is designed not just to insu- late the building, but to slow rainwater runoff so it can be captured and used for irrigation. The roof is only one of many environmentally friendly features designed into the building — managers are seeking LEED Silver certification. Music City Center draws inspiration from the city around it, but also draws visitors out into the city. Soaring win- dows and numerous terraces provide views of Nashville’s skyline and the sur- rounding South of Broadway (SOBRO) neighborhood, and fill the interior with natural light. A street-level plaza, between the center and the adjacent Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and the under-construction Omni Nashville Hotel, was the site for a grand-opening concert on May 21, which featured locals including Vince Gill and Sheryl Crow. The visit also included a hard-hat

tour of the 800-room Omni, which will open in October and will be connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, where an expansion now under way will more than double the size of the facility and add a new 800-seat theater in the round. Press-tour guests stayed at the boutique-style Hutton Hotel, with 247 rooms and 52 suites, and the 340-room Loews Vanderbilt Hotel Nashville — two luxe star properties from the city’s inventory of 25,000 hotel rooms. Not everyone supported the plan

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to build the $585-million Music City Center, Spyridon said. But the CVB set a self-imposed goal of booking a million room nights in conjunction with the new center, and on the morning that the rib- bon was cut, Spyridon offered a progress report: They had booked 1,062,787 room

nights and 123 meetings. “That,” he said, “should silence the critics.”

. —Barbara Palmer

For more information: visitmusiccity.com/ meetings

800.527.8941

AUGUST 2013 PCMA CONVENE

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