Metro Can Take Parking Lot for New Convention Center

A circuit court judge has ruled that Metro can legally take a five-acre parking lot to build Nashville’s new downtown convention center.

Tower Investments owns the lot, across from the Sommet Center. Attorney Joe Conner says Tower may appeal the decision to get a higher price for the property.

“It’s our hope, and my client’s hope, that we can work with the city to resolve that so neither side has to proceed with a continued, expensive legal process.”

Tower can already receive nearly $15 million that Metro deposited with the court last fall. Tower wants more than that, but Conner wouldn’t say by how much.

If the case proceeds through the court, a jury could eventually decide the value of the lot.

Hearings are still pending on two other landowners in the footprint of the convention center: Christie’s Cabaret and the Musician’s Hall of Fame.