Nashville’s new $585 million downtown meeting and entertainment complex, the Music City Center, which includes the Convention Center and the Country Music Hall of Fame, has a new hotel.

The $190 million Omni Nashville Hotel totals 1.2 million-square-feet, is 21 stories high and features 800 guest rooms, 80,000-square-feet of meeting space, two ballrooms, four Nashville-themed restaurants and 200,000-square-feet of parking space.

It was designed by Texas-based HKS Hill Glazier Studio, built by Alabama-based Brasfield & Gorrie and funded by TRT Holdings Inc., the parent company of Omni Hotels.

Exotic Details

The exterior of the Omni project consists of architectural precast, glass curtainwall, exposed steel, Turkish limestone and approximately 100,000-square-feet of stucco.

As a result of limited space that afflicts most downtown projects of this size, QUIKRETE’s pre-blended Pump Grade Base Coat Stucco was selected as the material of choice for the project’s 7/8-inch stucco system.

According to Jeff Harper, president of Capital City Stucco, who acted as a sub-contractor on the job, the basecoat product solved a number of problems.

“We not only needed a high quality pre-blended product that met the project’s specifications but also one that was both economical and consistently mixed, which is otherwise unavailable with traditional field or concentrate mixed products,” says Harper.

He also had to deal with some LEED compliance issues and  was grateful in knowing that his stucco base was manufactured less than 10 miles away.

“Having a local stucco plant nearby not only helped us with our LEED compliance but gave us the satisfaction of knowing we could get material when needed at a very low transportation cost,” Harper says.

Capital Gains

Based in Alpharetta, Ga., Capital City Stucco was founded by Jeff Harper in 1989. The company, which has 15 employees, specializes in stucco, stone and EIFS. There is rarely an occasion when Harper does not use a stucco product (the stucco manufacturer’s Pump Grade was also used by him on the Hyatt Place Hotel across the street.)

“We like their stucco because of its consistency, ease of logistics—there’s no sand piles to deal with and because I can get a single-sourced system manufacturer’s warranty,” says Harper.

Dryvit’s Commercial Cement Plaster System 2 with Dirt Pickup Resistance finish was the approved stucco system on the Omni. It was supplied by Valley Interior Products Inc., which has five service centers located throughout Tennessee and Kentucky. Valley offers a complete line of building materials for both commercial and residential applications including drywall, acoustical ceilings, insulation, metal studs, EIFS, stucco, stone and related accessories.