Featured image credit: Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans have officially fired the starting gun on development of the New Nissan Stadium, pledging that the venue will be unlike any other stadium in the world.
The NFL franchise yesterday (Thursday) held a groundbreaking ceremony attended by the likes of Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, and country music legend Garth Brooks.
The $2.1bn (£1.66bn/€1.94bn) project is being developed on the East Bank in Nashville, across from downtown and on the east side of the current Nissan Stadium campus. Scheduled to open in 2027, the three-year construction project will ultimately deliver a 60,000-capacity stadium designed to serve as a centrepiece of the East Bank.
The 1.8 million square-foot New Nissan Stadium will feature a circular-shaped, high-tech ETFE translucent roof and sightlines to the field 38% closer than the current stadium. Exterior terraces and porches will provide panoramic views of the city and serve as a social space during event and non-event days. The facility will also feature a 12,000 square foot community space available for use year round.
In addition to Titans games, the New Nissan Stadium will host Tennessee State college football games and community activities, while also targeting major events such as Super Bowls, NCAA Final Fours and College Football Playoffs. WWE’s WrestleMania is proposed to be the venue’s first major event, aside from the NFL, in its opening year.
“This new stadium will be made by and made for this community,” said Burke Nihill, president and CEO of the Titans.
“To our fellow Nashvillians and Tennesseans, in the coming weeks and months, you will see your new stadium coming out of this very ground, and your stadium won’t be like any other stadium in the world. Your stadium will proudly represent the character, the soul, the diversity, and the audacity of Nashville and Tennessee.”
The Titans in January detailed the complete Architecture and Engineering (A&E) team for the New Nissan Stadium. Tennessee Builders Alliance (TBA), made up of Nashville-based I.C.F. Builders, Brentwood-based Polk & Associates, Turner Construction Company and AECOM Hunt, is serving as the construction manager for the project.
The design team is led by architect of record, TVS, and lead design architect MANICA. Hastings, a Nashville-based architecture firm, also participated in the design work as the concept phase exterior design consultant. Twenty-four firms, including nine local businesses and 13 disadvantaged business enterprises, make up the architecture and engineering team.
Earlier in January, the Titans granted a fresh look at the New Nissan Stadium after updated design details were approved. In November, the team agreed a 20-year deal with Nissan North America for the automotive company to take on naming rights to the new stadium.
Metro Nashville Council issued the final approval for the stadium venture in April 2023. The plan was passed by a vote of 26-12, coming three weeks after the Metro Nashville Sports Authority, the owner and landlord of both the Titans’ current Nissan Stadium and new venue, unanimously approved the agreement.
The stadium agreement, initially agreed in October 2022, includes a new 30-year lease and non-relocation agreement between the team and the Sports Authority.
Adams Strunk said yesterday: “A generation ago, my father, Bud Adams, moved the Oilers to Tennessee. He saw a beautiful city here in Nashville, poised for growth and ready for the NFL stage. He met the people who lived here and observed how hard they worked and how impactful they could be when they came together as a community. He saw everything Nashville was and could be and decided to make it our home.
“But even with all that foresight, I don’t think my father could have dreamed of just how right he was. This city and this state have been the most incredible home we could ever have asked for. And last year, we signed a new lease with the City of Nashville to remain here for another generation.”
Lee added: “This is truly a historic and important moment and day. The beginning of a season for our community and for our state. And much has been said, but I think enough cannot be said about what the Titans have meant to Nashville and to Tennessee for the past 25-plus years, the impact that this organisation has had on economic development, on opportunity for Tennesseans, on a quality of life that’s made our state different than every other state in the country.
“It (the stadium) is for the fans all across the state. It is for the people that will benefit, that might never even come to this stadium, but will benefit from the opportunities that are created and the impact that it has on the view that the rest of the world has of our city and of our state that makes us the best state in the country.”
The current Nissan Stadium opened in 1999 and is due to be demolished in stages after the 2026 NFL season.
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