Tennessee's entertainment district is one step closer to becoming a reality

The University of Tennessee has moved a step closer to the creation of a publc-private funded entertainment district on the south end of Neyland Stadium. 

As expected Tennessee’s Board of Trustees approved the project on Monday at their spring meeting. 

The first phase of the project which is a partial destruction of the G-10 parking garage is slated to start in July pending expected final approval from the State of Tennessee.

“This is an asset for 365 days a year and not just 39 days (for football and basketball home games),” UT Chancellor Donde Plowman said at the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday. “We are going to be pursuing public-private partnerships in almost everything we try to do going forward to move the university to the next level. This is one very bold and dramatic opportunity.”

Tennessee has used public-private funding for the creating of new dorms on campus.

Tennessee’s cost of the entertainment district project is expected to be $80-90 million for the construction of the new G-10 garage. A project that according to documents must be completed by August of 2027. 

The project which is being developed by the 865Neyland real estate group, will see the developer pay Tennessee 1.5 million in annual rent plus the school gets a 3-5% of gross operating revenue from both the hotel-condo as well as the entertainment space. It’s a part of a 99 year lease that Tennessee has with the developer group.

The entertainment space will 60,000 square feet of exterior space and 50,000 of interior space restaurants. It will also feature an outdoor concert space.

The hotel-condo is expected to have 180 hotel rooms, 30 condos and 50 luxury condos plus a roof top bar over looking Neyland Stadium.

For AD Danny White the entertainment district is an idea that has been years in the making and one that came out of the recently completed renovations to the south end of Neyland Stadium.

“The first conversation was when I wanna say it was like a $25 million price tag just to put brick facade on the south side of the stadium because it’s so tall,” White told Volquest in a previous site down interview. “And I said, why wouldn’t we consider if a private developer would wanna put a hotel up there and some donor condos that would be a nice asset for us and it would save us a ton of money. That’s kind of where we first started. It started with that kind of conversation and then it kind of grew from there.”