Don’t look now Uptown, but Nashville is lobbing $633 million into the zero-sum convention and destination location game. The new debt would go toward a giant new convention center. Never forget that the NASCAR Hall of Fame is basically an expansion of Charlotte’s money-losing convention center, with the addition of some permanent exhibit space.
The working plan is still for the Hall to attract 800K visitors a year and for corporate sponsors to pay off the $21.5m. loan the city of Charlotte took out to bootstrap the space in operation. Should be interesting.
