New Upscale Hotel Threatens Music City's Soul

Nashville's Planning Commission approved the project despite a contrary recommendation by the commission's staff reviewers. The proposed development will "demolish most of a block of buildings on Broadway and replace them with a complex including a Westin hotel tower and has the city pondering the future of its nostalgic main street, with its boot-and-hat stores, Dixieland flavor and country kitsch so retro it never lost its hipness in the first place."

The 19-story hotel would tower over two- and three-story commercial buildings that make this a funky downtown strip of mom-and-pop stores. Patrick McIntyre Jr., executive director of the Tennessee Preservation Trust, says, "The main thing is it sets a terrible precedent that would open the door for any number of projects like this, and eventually what's left of our historic downtown would be destroyed."