by Jon Styf
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has signed a bill to block Metro Nashville’s requirement for a council supermajority vote on demolition at the Fairgrounds Speedway.
Nashville’s council is expected to soon hear a proposal on Bristol Motor Speedway rebuilding the grandstand and track at the Fairgrounds Speedway in order to bring a NASCAR race back to the fairgrounds.
The deal doesn’t have a final price tag but it would include up to $100 million in bonds in addition to $17 million from the state and $17 million from the Nashville Convention and Visitors’ bureau reserve fund, which comes from Davidson County hotel and motel tax collections.
In 2011, Metro Nashville added a restriction via referendum that “No demolition on the premises shall be allowed to occur without approval by ordinance receiving 27 votes by Metropolitan council.”
The state law prevents Nashville from enforcing that law for a project that includes demolishing and replacing structures at the speedway. Instead, only a majority of 21 will be required to approve the project. Both the House and Senate sponsor are from Bristol.
“We are just asking because we are trying to do renovations, we do have to include the word demolished because that is what it says in metro government’s charter,” State Rep. John Crawford, R-Bristol, said during House Local Government Committee. “… All we’re wanting to do is go in and do some remodeling and improvements around the fairground.”
Former Council member Jamie Hollin, who said he helped write the referendum, Tweeted that it was never intended to apply to demolition and replacement of an area of the fairgrounds for the same use, and he believes it was “bad legal analysis” that led to the unnecessary bill.
A pro forma for the speedway deal estimates $168 million will be paid in debt service on the bonds over the 30-year life of the lease. Those bonds will be paid for by ticket tax, rent from Bristol Motor Speedway, a sales tax capture, 5 percent revenue share, an annual $650,000 payment from the CVC and revenue from advertising and sponsors.
The deal would build a new 30,000-seat grandstand, track and surrounding structures at the speedway.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter at The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway” by Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
There it is. State overreach.