On October 2, Major League Soccer’s Nashville SC concluded its first full-season program at its new permanent headquarters at GEODIS Park, a 30,000-seat stadium just south of downtown Music City in the historic Nashville Fairgrounds complex. -out) against the Philadelphia Union on May 1 at the newly completed venue, which ranks as the largest purpose-built football stadium in the United States and Canada. The $335 million allocation, not without much controversy, was designed in partnership through Populous in the role of reference architect and design architect with Nashville’s own HASTINGS as design architect. The design team worked hard with Nashville SC, a new club created in 2020 that played its first two seasons across the Cumberland River at the HOK Sport Stadium-designed Nissan while the structure of GEODIS Park was underway.
While professional football is evidently the raison d’être of the iconic new stadium, GEODIS PARK was also designed, in this case Nashville, to host giant concerts. Proprietary infrastructure required for exclusive concerts and tours, adding a flexible venue for level equipment, built-in power resources, and a truck tunnel leading directly from a loading dock domain to the field.
“GEODIS Park is a world-class stadium that speaks particularly on a human scale,” said Bruce Miller, senior director and general manager of Populous | Americas and Populous Principal-in-Charge. “Nashville’s identity is seamlessly and authentically woven into the design and fabric of this stadium through our collaboration with HASTINGS, which combines innovation and cutting-edge design to energize and serve Nashville SC, its enthusiasts and the city. “
As Miller mentioned, the design team strived to achieve a sense of authenticity by creating Nashville’s new stadium, which takes the form of an exposed metal design surrounded by a 360-degree canopy that rises above the stands. Its familiar and undeniable design is intended to reflect its location in the Wedgewood-Houston community adjacent to downtown. Once a gravel shopping area, today’s Wedgewood-Houston is a bustling arts center dotted with warehouses and historic factory buildings. The stadium expresses this juxtaposition with the tall canopy design representing the commercial aesthetic and brick-clad ground floor designs that outline the lobby representing the residential homes discovered in the community.
The design of GEODIS Park is also not intended to overwhelm visitors with garish and extravagant fanaticism. Although the home of Nashville SC is striking, the stadium adopts a more sophisticated and “inhabited” aesthetic with warm materiality and a commercial touch. Bamboo covers the 65-meter-wide lobby ceiling and orientation will pay homage to the surrounding neighborhood’s commercial heritage. Backed by a physically powerful public art program, artwork and posters around the stadium’s exterior pay homage to Nashville’s history, namely its musical heritage, while team slogans line the box tunnel and brilliant graphics depicting players and club enthusiasts hanging from their exposed metal beams can be discovered.
GEODIS Park offers a trio of club experiences: the stylish Valkyrie Premiere Club in the middle of the midline, the music-themed WeHO Club in the north end, and the casual Sorry Goal Post Club at the south end. For those who need to get close to the action, there’s a 3150-square-foot safe state segment built into the bowl. The venue also offers a diversity of suite features, adding a shared suite concept. With a small army of local vendors operating on-site, the concession’s peak functions (hot chicken, street tacos, pickled hot dogs, etc. ) are, as are seating functions, equally diversified.
Billboards at GEODIS Park, which add two giant screens in the court bowl, as well as ribbon panels and court signs, are from Daktronics, which also designed signage outside the stadium to “increase the network experience” before and after the game. , and events outside of match day.
“Designing spaces for our network is rewarding, but a task of this magnitude, in a historic district like this, and hosting the number and voracity of that fan base, is an unprecedented privilege for me,” Powell said. “Nashville SC identified early on that this stadium deserves to be just Nashville. We were honored to constitute our city in the execution of his vision.
While Nashville SC enthusiasts enthusiastically embraced the club’s superlatively large new home (the 2022 season was completely sold out), the buildup to the stadium’s development, as mentioned, was mired in controversy and legal battles. In its early days, two separate lawsuits were filed. opposed the stadium’s owner, Metro Nashville, due to considerations that the stadium’s structure would disrupt the annual Tennessee State Fair fair held at the Nashville Fairgrounds, which is also home to the Nashville Speedway, a flea market monthly and a stadium known as the mecca of professional wrestling. A solution to stop the demolition of buildings to make way for the new stadium, a flagship component of a larger mixed-use redevelopment plan at the fairgrounds, was also presented by Metro Council Member Steve Glover in August 2019. , but was ultimately defeated.
Squeezed through litigation and a growing budget, demolition paintings at the Nashville Fairgrounds nevertheless began in March 2020 (the venue was scheduled to be completed during SC Nashville’s inaugural season in 2020) after an agreement was reached between Nashville Mayor John Cooper and the club. Owner number one. John. R. Ingram and adjustments were made to the original stadium agreement. A naming rights agreement was finalized with local freight logistics company GEODIS in March 2022.