The Tennessean
Jennifer Brooks

The developers have made their pitches, the state fair board has picked four favorites, Wednesday night it was the public's turn to try to get some answers.

Hundreds of people turned out to hear the four developers describe their plans to revitalize the troubled state fairgrounds property.

Two want to raze the site and reinvent it as a mixed-use residential and shopping hub. One wants to use the site as a hub for a future movie and television studio.

And one wants to keep the fairgrounds and racetrack right where they are to update and improve them for a new generation.

First up was Jim Cheney, vice president of corporate development for the Southern Land Company. In their plan, the fairgrounds would be reinvented as Legion Park, site of 1100 new apartments, condos and cottages, priced to suit the surrounding neighborhood.

Legion Park, he said, would center on an outdoor amphitheater, perfect for outdoor performances and concerts — using the old racetrack stands for seating. It would be a commercial development geared toward "small businesses that want a cool, fun place to work, but can't afford the rent in some other parts of town."

Next up was Team 821, which imagines a completely different future for the fairgrounds site — as a movie studio, artist colony and hub for local universities' film schools.

Over the course of a decade, the site would be built up into a Tennessee version of Hollywood, a move the developers hope would bolster economic development at a time when the city's signature music industry is struggling economically.

While most of the developers were clamoring to rip out and repurpose the fairgrounds, the Tennessee Motorsports Conservancy wants to preserve and improve one of the oldest working motor raceways in the state.

Racing is its legacy
Racing has been at the fairgrounds since the first dirt track in 1904. NASCAR legend Richard Petty is a member of the conservancy; four generations of his family have raced there.

Music City Motoplex owner Joe Mattioli made his pitch to the audience, arguing that Metro's focus should be "to preserve the history and heritage of motor sports in Tennessee."

"Your grandparents, they got it," he said. "Let's look back and see what this racetrack has meant to the community of Nashville."

The track would be preserved, but the rest of the site would be radically reinvented into a family-friendly entertainment draw.

Among the attractions proposed for the site: a Curb Foundation Motorsports Hall of Fame, an indoor water park, a hotel, an RV resort, a home base for the Baker/Curb NASCAR team and even a minor league baseball stadium.

Mattioli said the site would still have space to host the state fair and the other components would pump what he estimated would be $160 million in ongoing revenue into the city.

But the final presenter, Rob Lowe of Wedgewood Partners, warned against romanticizing the fairgrounds.

"It's a sea of asphalt," he said. "It's not family-friendly at all."

Instead, Wedgewood wants to find an alternate site for the state fair, still within Davidson County. The developers want to buy a 200-acre parcel in the Bordeaux neighborhood that abuts another parcel of county-owned land.

The city and developers would swap parcels, leaving Wedgewood with a "blank canvas" for a mixed-use development that would include a 25-acre park and a possible commuter rail link. In turn, he said, the fair board would have a blank canvas of their own in Bordeaux.

The audience was asked to respond by submitting written questions. The notes asked pointed questions about traffic flow, noise concerns, financing, parking and other practical questions.

The real question most people wanted answered was: How much will this cost Nashville taxpayers?

One by one, the developers demurred, refusing to give dollar figures for the kind of tax breaks or development incentives they would expect from the city.

All mentioned that they would expect some form of tax-increment financing to capture a share of the area's tax revenues to offset the cost of development, as well as other incentives to be named later.

Afterward, some audience members seemed intrigued by the different proposals.

Amber Hudson of Nashville came because she said she was thinking of moving into the neighborhood near the fairgrounds, but only if the site is redeveloped.

"I was really excited by some of the things they were talking about. Just about anything would be an improvement at this point," she said. "Some of the things they were describing, I was ready to move right in."

Contact Jennifer Brooks at (615) 259-8892 or jabrooks@tennessean.com.