Subject: Heywood Sanders

• Thoughts from the Music City Center Debate

  I, too, went over to see Butch Spyridon and Heywood Sanders talk about the new convention Alas, Poor Grizzly River Rampage, I Knew It Wellcenter.  If you weren't there, and chances are that, if you are under 40 or non-white--unless you worked for the media or are an elected official of some sort--you were not, I am here to report that you missed a surprisingly raucous event.

  June 1, 2009

• Convention Center: Debating Something That Won't Actually Happen Anytime Soon

  Yesterday, Heywood Sanders and Butch Spyridon -- the Music City Center's version of Spy vs. Spy -- had that debate we've been pimping for the past two weeks. Aunt B. should weigh in later today or tomorrow with observations that may be hilarious considering she spent half the time watching through a gap between her fingers, like a 12-year-old catching her first big-screen glimpse of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And if you check out wrap-ups by the Tennessean or City Paper, you'll see words like "con

  June 1, 2009

• Music City Center: The Billion Dollar Debate Today

  Some say it's the greatest idea since hockey and ice cream. Some believe it''ll be the biggest boondoggle since the Iraq War, Part II. But wherever you fall, today's the day you can get the details unfiltered in a debate over the Music City convention center.Speaking on behalf of the project -- which is expected to cost more than $1 billion when a publicly-built hotel is included -- will be Butch Spyridon, chief of the Nashville's tourism bureau. Playing devil's advocate will be Heywood Sanders,

  May 31, 2009

• Convention Center: The Skeptical Study No One Ever Talks About

  The road to convention center skepticism tends to run through the office of Heywood Sanders, the urban development academic at the University of Texas at San Antonio who writes extensively about convention center economics, and who is coming to Nashville this weekend to participate in a public forum on the proposed Music City Center. (Sanders did an interview on Liberadio(!) earlier this week.) But for all of the public conversation about a new convention center over the last couple of years

  May 29, 2009

• Music City Megabox

  What the convention center studies tell us about cost and siting

  October 5, 2006

• Nashville's big bet on the dying convention business

  April 23, 2009

• Convention Center: Vandy Debate Pits Dr. No Against Head Cheerleader

  Fans of lively debate rejoice! From 2 to 4 PM on Sunday May 31st, Vanderbilt will host a panel discussion on the Music City Center, the proposed billion dollar convention center in downtown Nashville. Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention & Visitor's Bureau, will represent the pros. While the con corner will feature University of Texas at San Antonio's urban studies professor Dr. Heywood Sanders, a skeptic whose scathing critiques of convention center expansions have earned him

  May 15, 2009

• Convention Center: Council Squabbles Over Vandy Debate

  Metro Council meetings never looked so adorable.Yesterday, Councilman Jim Forkum started a mini e-mail-squabble about the upcoming convention center debate at Vanderbilt. A pro vs. con battle between Heywood Sanders, an urban studies professor and noted critic of the meetings industry, and Butch Spyridon, the President of the Nashville Convention & Visitor's Bureau, the debate was organized by Forkum's own colleagues, Councilwoman Megan Barry and the other four at-large members. Problem is, For

  May 20, 2009

• May Town Scam, Hear No Evil

  May 28, 2009

• The Race is on to Build a Medical Mart in Nashville

  Nashville's advantage: Less corruption, land and labor costsAccording to Tradeshow Week, a Dallas company is well on its way to creating the nation's premier medical mart, or what's essentially a mall for medical products and services. Market Center Management is currently eyeing three downtown Nashville buildings in hopes of having the 1.5 million square foot facility operative within a year. Any new business that size would be a huge bonanza for our fair city. The problem is that both Clevelan

  May 29, 2009

• Convention Center Fantasy Math Continues

  In their formal request to the state for authority to create a "tourist development zone" as a funding device for the proposed Music City Center (MCC), Mayor Karl Dean and MDHA director Phil Ryan continue to promulage the sham arithmetic that has been used repeatedly to build an economic case for a new convention center: A new convention enter is projected to attract 1 million additional visitors annually, generate an estimated $700 million in direct visitors spending, which would equate to a

  June 19, 2009

• More preachers behaving badly

  June 25, 2009