Nashville MLS Hopes Face Crucial Tuesday Vote

NASHVILLE, TN — Nashville Major League Soccer expansion prospects could skyrocket Tuesday as the Metro Council is set to vote on a major part of the financing plan for a stadium at the Fairgrounds Nashville.

Having started the process through which MLS plans to award four expansion bids as an underdog, the Music City has become one of the top candidates in the wake of successful soccer events at Nissan Stadium and as other cities have struggled with stadium plans of their own.

Despite this, Tuesday's vote to authorize the issuance of $225 million in bonds to build the facility is no shoo-in as a number of councilmembers have questioned the inclusion of a land deal with the team's would-be owners that would give them 10 acres of land near the stadium for a mixed-use project. But given the Metro Council's large membership — with 40 members, Nashville has the country's third-largest city council, smaller only than New York City and Chicago — it's hard to say if the opposition can muster the 21 votes needed to stop the deal.

Under the financing plan, the owners would pony up $25 million up front and $9 million a year over 30 years to help retire Metro’s annual $13 million debt for the project. In addition, sales tax and ticket tax revenue would go to the debt service. Metro would be on the hook for any shortfalls.

Metro Mayor Megan Barry and the team's lead owner John Ingram — he of the Ingram family, one of the city's richest; other members of the ownership group include the Turner family of Dollar General and development giants MarketStreet, along with the Wilf family, which owns the NFL's Minnesota Vikings — have shown little desire to compromise on the land deal. Councilman Jeremy Elrod has filed an amendment to remove the 99-year peppercorn lease on the 10 acres from the project and prominent councilmembers like John Cooper, Bob Mendes, Jim Shulman and Tanaka Vercher, who chairs the powerful Budget and Finance Committee, have been critical of the land deal.

While approval Tuesday wouldn't automatically mean the project is a go — the fair board would have to approve the lease, the Sports Authority would have to issue the bonds and the council would have vote by a two-thirds majority to tear down buildings at the fairgrounds, all of which would follow after the MLS awards the expansion bid — it's likely to lift Nashville into front-runner status for one of two teams the league plans to announce in December.

And failure Tuesday wouldn't necessarily dash Nashville's soccer dreams, but it would send Barry and the team back to the drawing board and back to the negotiating table to cobble together a deal before the league announces the other two expansion bids in 2018.

Image via HOK/Nashville Soccer Club Holdings