GEODIS Park is the new home of Major League Soccer’s (MLS) Nashville SC and is the largest
purpose-built soccer stadium in the United States and Canada. Designed to capture the distinct
architectural character of Nashville, the 30,000-seat stadium anchors a renewal of the city’s
historic but underutilized Nashville Fairgrounds, a well-loved destination known for its 50-yearold
flea market, short-track speedway, and municipal fairs. Built specifically for MLS, GEODIS
Park also has the capacity to support a wide range of year-round live events and is the catalyst
for investments of over $500 million in the historically underserved neighborhood.
To express the Nashville architectural motif and the city’s industrial roots, the stadium
features carefully crafted exposed steel, timber, and brick throughout. An elegant steel roof
canopy over the seating bowl cantilevers 80 feet to provide rain protection and sun shade for
80% of the seats. At each corner, the soaring canopy cantilevers in two directions, creating a
dynamic visual feature. Fans are welcomed by seven distinctive mass timber entry canopies—
innovatively built of dowel laminated timber—that span 30 feet between steel support
frames. This sleek, blended structural system echoes the industrial architecture prevalent
throughout Nashville while improving sustainability and reducing overall construction costs
compared to a traditional steel system.
To deliver this project on budget and on an accelerated schedule, the structural engineer,
who is the entrant, developed and utilized a proprietary integrated delivery platform called
ConnecTID which tightly integrated the structural steel analysis, frame and connection
design, and high-fidelity fabrication-ready digital deliverables. ConnecTID provided tighter
and more accurate steel bids, improved overall coordination, and greatly reduced the
dollar amount of steel change orders that plague projects that are delivered traditionally
but have accelerated schedules. As a result, the steel was erected four weeks ahead of
schedule, enabling the stadium to open and start generating revenue for the owner—and fan
excitement in the community—seven weeks earlier than anticipated.
Today, GEODIS Park provides a distinctly Nashville home field for the loyal and growing
MLS fanbase and is rejuvenating the historic Nashville Fairground, benefitting the entire
neighborhood. The innovative and client-responsive structural engineering of GEODIS Park
exemplifies engineering excellence in a very visible way, meeting all client needs and creating
a new asset for the city of Nashville.
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