Nashville CC Still Is on Right Track

Butch Spyridon knows something about turning lemons into lemonade.

Spyridon, president of the Nashville (Tenn.) Convention & Visitors Bureau, sees some real positives as a result of a recent local controversy that is at least a twist in the road to the new 375,000 square foot, $645 million Music City Center scheduled to open in late 2012.

“Everything is still intact,” Spyridon said. “This is a good project for the city, and people are lining up to buy it before it even breaks ground.”

Even though revelations that a public relations firm associated with the project spent $375,000 more than it was authorized prompted Nashville Mayor Karl Dean to take responsibility away from the governmental entity overseeing the project, Spyridon said it could mean the convention center might wind up on an accelerated schedule and, at the very least, encounter less local political opposition than before.

Before resigning last month from the project, local public relations agency McNeely Pigott & Fox submitted bills for its communications work totalling $450,000. The local Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency, which until just recently was the governing entity on the convention center project, had authorized the agency to spend $75,000.

“The PR snafu was an unfortunate incident,” Spyridon said. “From a spending standpoint, it was a bit aggressive, but it was caught and the agency resigned.”

When news of the cost overrun broke, Dean called for an investigation of all convention center spending by an independent auditor and asked the Tennessee State Legislature to rush approval of a new entity, the Convention Center Authority of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville, to take over the project.

“Questions about spending on this are valid and deserve to be answered,” Dean said. “When you're dealing with public money on a public project, the public deserves to know how every dollar is spent.”

He added, “Music City Center is the largest development ever undertaken by Metro. We need to move forward with this project in a way that allows the public to have full confidence in how it's being managed.”

McNeely Pigott principal David Fox declined to comment to Tradeshow Week. However, in a letter to MDHA Director Phil Ryan, Fox wrote, “We do not believe this is at all fair, but we also do not want to prolong this debate.”

Spyridon said the public relations agency spent more than anticipated on a local communications campaign because of unexpected requests for information from local political leaders who opposed the convention center project.

“You have detractors,” he added. “Detractors on the city council continued to create layers of reporting.”

As a result, Spyridon said, more time had to be spent on creating a Web site, cost reporting and neighborhood presentations.

“There was a regular barrage of questions,” he added. “All these things were add-ons.”

Spyridon said a transfer of authority for convention center development from one agency to another always had been planned. The public relations spending controversy simply sped it up.

“It's just putting it all into play earlier, with a more watchful eye on the cost side,” Spyridon said.

Meanwhile, city officials have begun consulting property owners in the footprint of the proposed convention center to make them offers on their land.