Nashville’s Metro Council voted last night to approve the 1% hotel tax hike that the state already approved in April to provide around $350 million for a new Tennessee Titans stadiums — but put off voting on a term sheet for the stadium and an authorization vote on using city land for future meetings. And some councilmembers made noises that before they okay a potential $1.2 billion total public expense, they want to know why exactly the Titans’ current stadium can’t just be renovated:
Metro Council requested a report of Metro’s minimum obligations with the current lease to renovate the current stadium.
“Instead of the minimum, it looks like maybe we got the cost of the gold-plated renovation,” Metro Councilman, Bob Mendes said.
“We asked for the Honda Civic option and what they’ve given us back is sort of a Cadillac option,” Metro Councilman, Sean Parker added.
The council got the report on Monday. But as The Center Square journalist Jon Styf notes, the report didn’t actually report on how much Nashville would be on the hook for renovations under the Titans’ current lease, but rather just how much it would cost to build team owner Amy Adams Strunk’s dream home (answer: $2,114,072,284) and how much it would cost the city on upkeep of the old stadium until 2026 ($37,110,275), which isn’t the same thing at all.
That’s still only two members griping out loud out of 40 on the council — but then, the council did defer some decisions until future meetings, when it could have just rubber-stamped everything. The next council meeting is on Monday, and it will be very interesting to see what questions the council has for Mayor John Cooper about his stadium plans: “No, really, tell us how much a renovation would cost or prepare to go pound sand” would not be at all unwarranted, and it sounds like there’s at least a non-zero chance that someone will say it.