NASHVILLE -- "Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, 50 cents." Roger Miller sang those lyrics in the 1965 hit "King of the Road," which was recorded right here in Music City. Viewed from that angle, the place has come an awful long way in 50 years: Judging from all the hoteliers in the boutique, lifestyle and just about every other higher-end sector eyeballing Nashville for expansion, nobody is getting a room for 50 cents.
Thompson Hotels might evoke the edginess of New York's Lower East Side, Kimpton Hotels the taste and foodie-ism of San Francisco, Virgin Hotels the sophistication and Brit wit of London. But all three, among others, have their first Nashville properties in the works. And there's good reason for the activity.
As hoteliers and analysts celebrate the continued resurgence of U.S. lodging demand, which is only now matching prerecession totals, the fastest-growing U.S. market, in terms of both supply and demand, is Nashville. And the contest is not even close.
While Nashville's room rates averaged about $117 a night last year, pretty much even with the U.S. as a whole, they've surged more than 20% since 2013. Last year, Nashville's revenue per available room (RevPAR) jumped 22%, easily the country's highest demand-growth rate, according to research firm STR (which, by the way, is based in nearby Hendersonville, Tenn.).
In fact, the only other U.S. city to approach that growth rate in 2014 was Denver, where demand might have been given a bit of a lift with Colorado's legalization of marijuana -- or what some in these parts call "wacky tobbacy."
And last year was no fluke. In 2013, only Houston's 14% RevPAR growth was higher than Nashville's 13%.
That kind of prosperity has brought some global hotelier attention to a city whose 37,000 rooms put its inventory in line with New Orleans, St. Louis and the Twin Cities but leave it a couple of new convention-center-type hotels short of the Denvers, Detroits and Seattles of the world.
Thompson Hotels announced last August that it was building a 224-room lifestyle hotel in the Gulch district that separates the Music Row area from Nashville's downtown near the Cumberland River, with the hotel slated to open in summer 2016. Niki Leondakis, CEO of Thompson Hotels parent, Commune Hotels, called Nashville "a booming city by various economic standards, including employment, construction and the influx of young professionals."
By the end of next year, Kimpton Hotels is also slated to make its Nashville debut with a 180-room boutique hotel being built in Nashville's Midtown area near Vanderbilt University.
On the more conventional front, the city's first hotel under Starwood Hotels & Resorts' Westin badge will open its 430 rooms in 2017 across the street from the new, 1.2 million-square-foot Music City Center convention facility (property that is adjoined by the 800-room Omni Nashville Hotel that opened in 2013).
And Virgin Hotels, which opened its first hotel in January in Chicago, chose neither New York nor London but Nashville for its follow-up effort. The 240-room hotel, whose Nashville-based developer, D.F. Chase, is also building the Westin, is slated to open in the fall of 2016 and will be anything but down-home. The property will consist of two modern-looking buildings (one with a rooftop pool) connected by a glass walkway. In a nod to the city's heritage, though, the hotel will include a recording studio, and the official address will be One Music Row.
"Nashville's time is now, and we want to be part of that excitement," Virgin Group founder Richard Branson said when the company announced the hotel last year.
The uptick in business and musical pull may even be drawing in some notable newbies. No less a source than Us Weekly, citing its own, uh, sources, is on record saying that actress Reese Witherspoon, who spent much of her childhood in Nashville and famously portrayed June Carter Cash in the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line," has been scouring the area for potential boutique-hotel sites.
Spend a little time in this town, as I did, and one might find a series of activity districts separated by lengthy, quiet stretches rather than an urban, chaotic mass like New York, Chicago or San Francisco. Geographically, Nashville is the size of New York and Chicago combined, even though its population of about 600,000 people makes it smaller than Boston.
Still, take a stroll through the downtown and SoBro areas of Nashville, and the sheer volume of live music, both in sound and in numbers, is astonishing, even for someone who lives in Los Angeles and has spent an extensive amount of time in Austin, Texas (aka "the Live Music Capital of the World"). Even on a Tuesday night, dozens of bars, restaurants and saloons will feature singers and songwriters plying their trade.
And it's absolutely everywhere. Sure, one might expect the music to be canned when trying to satisfy his inner pseudo-foodie (pseudie?) by checking out the latest spin on Southern cooking at a place like Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant (as I did). But, sure enough, as soon as that fork digs into the plate of Cajun chicken and waffles, the P.A. system is going to throw off some feedback and you'll hear something along the lines of, "So we wrote this one when ..." followed by either a blast of electric guitar or a strum of the acoustic. It's inevitable.
And whether that music is in the corner bar or a massive new convention center, more people are being drawn to the city.
Last year, Nashville attracted about 13.1 million visitors, up 7.4% from 2013. While those numbers are modest compared with some of the coastal U.S. cities, consider that Nashville drew more than 20 people per resident, which is on par with San Francisco and far eclipses cities like Los Angeles and New York.
The flood of activity is a far cry from five years ago, when Music City suffered from a flood of the more literal type. After more than a foot of rain fell during a 36-hour period in May 2010, the Cumberland River flooded Nashville, causing about $2 billion in damage, killing 11 people and shutting down properties such as the massive Gaylord Opryland Resort for the better part of six months.
"The industries that drive Nashville -- health care, music and publishing -- are all doing really, really well," said Jan Freitag, senior vice president at STR. "Meeting planners are always looking for that next shiny thing, and right now, Nashville's it."
Of course, when it comes to the state of Tennessee, the activity isn't confined to Nashville. In Memphis, Elvis Presley's estate broke ground on a 450-room hotel on a 24-acre site just north of Graceland. The Guest House at Graceland, which will cost an estimated $70 million, is slated to open this fall.
Meanwhile, in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., about 200 miles east of Nashville in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains, Dolly Parton's Dollywood just started taking reservations for the theme park's first hotel. The family-oriented DreamMore Resort will have more than 300 rooms and cover 100 acres when it opens in August.
Still, Nashville's activity leads the way in Tennessee. In fact, this year, Adventures by Disney added Nashville to its list of Weekend Trips itineraries, which in this case includes a private dinner and show at the Grand Ole Opry, a stay at the Gaylord Opryland and a chance to record a song at RCA's legendary Studio B.
Sure, cynics might scream "cross promotion!" (Disney owns ABC, home to the country music-themed television drama "Nashville"), but only three other North American cities -- New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco -- can claim the honor of getting their own weekend itineraries via Disney.
All of which is fit for a city that can lay claim to giving birth to what was arguably the most famous song about the lodging industry. Because, while Elvis was born in Mississippi and planted himself in Memphis, he recorded "Heartbreak Hotel" in Nashville.