With the Tennessee Titans and Nashville government officials seeking final approval for a new $2.1 billion domed stadium on top of the current paddock space for IndyCar's Music City Grand Prix, race COO Jason Rittenberry is confident organizers for the series' newest street race will “have a seat at the table” as the area is completely transformed.

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“Yes, but they’re taking our event into account. Everyone wants it to be here long-term, and we’ll find a way to make it work,” Rittenberry told IndyStar on Thursday in an exclusive interview, days after the Titans’ future stadium plans were unveiled. “Our commitment is to run the race every year and get it back downtown as soon as possible if, for some reason, we do have to leave. But right now, we’re on a path of feeling confident we’ll be able to make a course work downtown while the Titans lots are impacted by construction.”

Mayor John Cooper's administration plans to file the initial legislation for Nashville's 40-member Metro Council approval by early November, according to The Tennessean. Should the project be approved, crews would break ground in the fall of 2023, keeping next year’s early-August race weekend free from interruptions, course changes or alterations to the current paddock footprint.

Despite the public outcry from some portions of the fanbase and corners of the paddock on the high frequency of crashes in the first two races, the race COO said officials, along with track designer Tony Cotman, have no plans to make major alterations.

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“I’m not going to put blame on drivers or the track, but if IndyCar felt there was an issue with the track, they’d be pushing us to make changes, and they’re not doing that,” Rittenberry said.

Paddock for IndyCar's Music City GP will be re-envisioned

Come 2024 and 2025, though, changes will be inevitable. What’s already one of the tightest paddocks on the IndyCar calendar, a space the series shared in 2022 with Trans Am, GT America, Indy Lights, Stadium Super Trucks and Vintage Indy, will have to be completely re-envisioned.

During that timeframe, Rittenberry imagines race weekends may only encompass IndyCar and Indy Lights due to the limited space. And even with exterior construction complete, Rittenberry said it’s likely the Titans and local officials will wait past IndyCar’s 2026 date before demolishing the old stadium to be certain the new one is fully operational and ready to host that fall’s NFL season.

Planners, however, don't intend to make a simple swap of turning current paved parking space into a stadium, while demolishing the current stadium and paving everything flat once the rubble is cleared. “I know there’s a big emphasis for a lot more green space (on the east bank of the Cumberland River) once the new stadium is complete,” Rittenberry said. “I’d venture to say it’s not going to be another large, paved lot. ... As much as I wish that was the case, I think the value of that property and the revenue that could be created by going vertical is going to be too much to offset allowing it to become a (just) parking lot.”

According to The Tennessean, the new stadium deal will require the city to provide a minimum of 2,000 parking spots, rather than the 7,500 that exist around the current stadium.

“Once the plans are finished and approved, we’ll evaluate them and see what our options are (for the paddock), but part of that might be, do we look at St. Pete, where half of the paddock is in a parking garage?” he said. “That’s not ideal, but it’s been done before, so as they’re finalizing designs for those, we’ll want to make sure we can pull haulers into the first floor of them if that’s what we need to be working with.”

Permanent outdoor stage, air-conditioned stadium benefits

Having to think outside the box for its future permanent paddock space will be balanced, he said, by several plusses from the updated space, including the addition of a permanent outdoor stage that could host the Music City GP’s concerts.

Rittenberry also added that, with the future stadium being domed, race promoters could utilize it for far more than just the few suites and a media center that have been its main uses the past two years. He could see it being used similar to how Lucas Oil Stadium hosts part of the annual PRI (Performance Racing Industry) trade show.

“That could give us options that people might be very excited for, when you think about August in Nashville, to be able to put up some fan zones and displays in the stadium with air conditioning going,” he said.

Additionally, the placement of the new stadium inside what’s currently the paddock space will mean race organizers can drastically expand hospitality offerings. Rather than only using the east-facing suites inside the current Nissan Stadium and allowing guests to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows toward the racetrack, the current track setup will actually circle the stadium, making suites on all sides viewing opportunities.

Altogether, it should make getting through the headaches of the next couple years bearable, Rittenberry said. The goal for the two races set to be affected by construction is to continue using the Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge that set the race apart in aesthetic, gave the drivers two high-speed sections on the course and helped deliver a portion of the race to downtown Nashville proper.

Plan is to keep race downtown, other sites possible if necessary

But how the racetrack looks on either side of the bridge is bound to change. The roadway the Music City GP uses for Turns 1, 2, 3, 9, 10 and 11 may very well be open throughout the bulk of the construction. What complicates things in that area when it would come in keeping that track portion status quo, Rittenberry said, is that space for pitlane will be squarely in the building zone.

“One thing we’re confident in is there will be a race and the bridge will be part of it. It’s just about what the route on the east side of the river will be,” he said. “But there’s plenty of roadway on the east side we can use. And when it goes back, we could potentially add onto more of the west side downtown – particularly if we lose some length on the east side.

“But it’s absolutely the strategy to keep the race downtown (during construction) and walking distance from Broadway. That’s one of the big selling features of our event – that you can fly in, stay downtown and walk to our event.”

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That being said, if the current footprint won't work for 2024 and 2025, Rittenberry said the Music City Grand Prix will remain on the IndyCar calendar. Other options include running around another (albeit smaller) stadium at Vanderbilt University, or running at Nashville Superspeedway – where IndyCar held races from 2001-08 and the NASCAR Cup series made its debut in 2021.

“With the assurances we’ve been given from the Mayor’s office and the city, we feel confident we’ll be able to keep this downtown in some way, shape or form (in 2024-25), but that’s not to say we haven’t thought about that, yes,” Rittenberry said. “If it absolutely came down to that as a last resort, and the city said there was nowhere else to run this race, yeah we’d consider it, absolutely. Is that in our consideration at this point? No, but we’d do that before we didn’t have a race for two years.

"This is all tough to think about, but we’re looking at this as a very, very long-term commitment. We’re thinking about a 20-plus-year deal, and if we’re disrupted for two, we feel confident enough in the city, our event and IndyCar’s product that this isn’t going to set us back. We think we can offset those two years with other enhancements to the event, and after those, we can come back bigger and better for an event better event for our fans.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Building Titans stadium to disrupt Music City GP in '24-25