First Horizon Park, formerly known as First Tennessee Park, is a baseball park in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. It is the home of the Nashville Sounds, a Minor League Baseball team of the International League. The ballpark opened on April 17, 2015, and can seat up to 10,000 people. It replaced the Sounds' former home, Herschel Greer Stadium, where the team played from its founding in 1978 through 2014.
The park was built on the site of the former Sulphur Dell, a minor league ballpark in use from 1885 to 1963. It is located between Third and Fifth Avenues on the east and west (home plate, the pitcher's mound, and second base are directly in line with Fourth Avenue to the stadium's north and south) and between Junior Gilliam Way and Harrison Street on the north and south. The Nashville skyline can be seen from the stadium to the south.
The facility's design incorporates elements of Nashville's baseball and musical heritage and the use of imagery inspired by Sulphur Dell, the city's former baseball players and teams, and country music. Its most distinctive feature is its guitar-shaped scoreboard—a successor to the original guitar scoreboard at Greer Stadium. The ballpark's wide concourse wraps entirely around the stadium and provides views of the field from every location.
Though primarily a venue for the Nashville Sounds, collegiate and high school baseball teams based in the area, such as the Vanderbilt Commodores and Belmont Bruins, have played some games at the ballpark. Nashville SC, a soccer team of the USL Championship, played its home matches at the facility from 2018 to 2019. It has also hosted other events, including celebrity softball games and various food and drink festivals.
History
Planning As early as 2006, the Nashville Sounds had planned to leave Herschel Greer Stadium for a new ballpark to be called First Tennessee Field located on the west bank of the Cumberland River. The US$43 million facility would have been the central part of a retail, entertainment, and residential complex which was expected to continue the revitalization of Nashville's "SoBro" (South of Broadway) district, but the project was abandoned in April 2007 after the city, developers, and team could not come to terms on a plan to finance its construction. Instead, Greer was repaired and upgraded to keep it close to Triple-A standards until a new stadium could be built. In late 2013, talks about the construction of a new ballpark were revived. Three possible sites were identified by the architectural firm Populous as being suitable for a new stadium: Sulphur Dell, the North Gulch area, and the east bank of the Cumberland River across from the site proposed for the First Tennessee Field project. The chosen location was the site of Sulphur Dell on which baseball had been played as early as 1870. Known in its early days as Sulphur Spring Park and Athletic Park, the first grandstand was erected in 1885 for the Nashville Americans, the city's first professional baseball team. Sulphur Dell remained Nashville's primary ballpark until its abandonment in 1963 and demolition in 1969.
Mayor Karl Dean drafted plans for financing the stadium and acquiring the necessary land from the state. The deal involved the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (Metro) receiving the state-owned Sulphur Dell property—then in use as a parking lot for state employees—in exchange for paying the state $18 million for the construction of a 1,000-car parking garage on the site and $5 million for an underground parking garage below the proposed new state library and archives. The city also acquired the land on which the Nashville School of the Arts is located.
The financing plan involved public and private funding. At the time, the city planned to pay $75 million for the acquisition of the land and construction of the stadium project. However, a 2017 audit revealed that it had actually paid $91 million after accounting for additional costs associated with the expedited schedule and infrastructure work around the project site. The stadium is owned by the city and is leased to the team for 30 years, until 2045. The Sounds ownership group agreed to spend $50 million on a new, mixed-use and retail development located on a plot abutting the ballpark to the east by the third base/left field concourse. This land was sold to Chris and Tim Ward, sons of co-owner Frank Ward, who built a two-story retail center on the site. This building is anchored by a Brooklyn Bowl, featuring a bowling alley, live music space, and a restaurant and bar, that opened in June 2020. Adjacent to this and overlooking the third base concourse just outside the stadium by the left field entrance is a two-story bar called Third and Home, which also opened in June 2020. Developer Portman Holdings built an eight-story, 363-unit residential structure with retail and restaurant space on the other side of the greenway beyond the left-center field wall along Third and Fourth avenues known as Starling, which was completed in spring 2024. North of the site, Embrey Development built a privately funded 306-unit luxury apartment complex called The Carillon. The city's original $75 million planned expenditure resulted in taking on $4.3 million in annual debt, paid for by five city revenue streams: an annual $700,000 Sounds' lease payment, $650,000 in stadium-generated sales tax revenue, $750,000 in property taxes from the Ward and Portman developments, $675,000 in property taxes from the Embrey development, and $520,000 in tax increment financing. The additional overage was paid with existing Metro capital funds. The city pays $345,000 for annual maintenance of the stadium.
Construction The ballpark project received the last of its necessary approbations from the Metro Council, the State Building Commission, and the Nashville Sports Authority on December 10, 2013. Groundbreaking took place on January 27, 2014; the public ceremony was attended by Mayor Dean, Sounds owner Frank Ward, Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Conner, and Milwaukee Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin. At the time, the Sounds were the Triple-A affiliate of the Brewers.
The construction team began site excavation on March 3, 2014. Workers unearthed artifacts dating to around 1150 AD. Fire pits and broken pieces of ceramic pans were found in the ground below what would be left field. Archaeologists believe the area was the site of a Native American settlement and that the artifacts were the remnants of a workshop where mineral water from underground sulfur-bearing springs was boiled to collect salt. The artifacts are on permanent display in the Tennessee State Museum's Mississippian Period exhibit. A portion of the property was used as a city cemetery in the 1800s. The interred were relocated. In 1885, during the construction of Sulphur Spring Park, workers unearthed bowls, shells, a flint chisel, and human skeletons believed to belong to Mound Builders.
Construction of the ballpark's steel frame began on August 18; of steel and of concrete were used. By November 3, the installation and testing of the stadium's four free-standing light poles and two concourse-based lighting arrays had begun. Installation of the 8,500 seats started on January 20, 2015. The guitar-shaped scoreboard began to be installed on February 23. On March 19, the home plate was transferred from Greer Stadium and crews began laying the sod.
During construction, the need for new water and electrical supply lines arose. Because these were not factored into the original $65-million cost, another $5 million was appropriated from existing capital funds. An additional $5 million was later required to pay for cleaning contaminated soil, increased sub-contractor pricing, additional labor costs incurred by delays caused by snow and ice, and upgrades including the guitar-shaped scoreboard. The Sounds ownership team contributed $2 million toward the cost of the scoreboard. These and other additional expenditures, such as a $9.5-million greenway, $5.6 million for street paving, sidewalks, and electrical work, and $3.6 million in flood prevention, brought the total construction cost of the stadium to $56 million and the total cost of the project to $91 million.
The facility received LEED silver certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in April 2015 for its level of environmental sustainability and for using strategies for responsible site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Some of the ballpark's environmentally friendly initiatives include a green roof on a concessions building along right field, rainwater harvesting, and a rain garden. A section of greenway beyond the outfield wall connects the Cumberland River Greenway to the Bicentennial Mall Greenway. The project team also diverted or recycled 90 percent of construction waste from landfills, and almost a third of building materials were regionally sourced.
Naming rights Memphis-based bank First Tennessee purchased the naming rights to the stadium in April 2014 for ten years with an option for a further ten years, naming it First Tennessee Park. The bank's name had been attached to the team's previous attempt at building a new stadium a decade earlier. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. First Horizon National Corporation, the parent company of First Tennessee, began unifying its companies under the First Horizon name in late 2019. Subsequently, the ballpark was renamed First Horizon Park in January 2020.
Upgrades In 2026, the Sounds asked Metro Nashville for $107 million, spread out over 30 years, to make repairs and keep the facility up-to-date. Areas needing the most attention include ADA compliance issues and improving suites and the club level.
Tenants and events
Minor League Baseball
In the ballpark's inaugural game on April 17, 2015, the Nashville Sounds defeated the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, 3–2 in 10 innings, courtesy of a walk-off double hit by Max Muncy that scored Billy Burns from first base. Nashville pitcher Arnold León recorded the park's first strikeout when Colorado Springs' Matt Long struck out swinging as the leadoff hitter at the top of the first inning. The park's first hit was a left-field single that came in the top of the second inning off the bat of the Sky Sox's Matt Clark. Clark also recorded the stadium's first RBI, slapping a single to center field in the fourth inning that sent Luis Sardiñas across the plate for the ballpark's first run. The first home run in the park's history was hit by Nashville's Joey Wendle four games later on April 21 against the Oklahoma City Dodgers.
Tickets for the home opener, which went on sale March 23, sold out in approximately 15 minutes. Though berm and standing-room-only tickets are normally sold only on the day of games, the team began selling these in advance of the first game due to high demand. Paid attendance for the first game was a standing-room only crowd of 10,459. Before the game, Mayor Karl Dean threw out the ceremonial first pitch. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was performed by Charles Esten (a star of the television series Nashville), who also sang at the park's ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier in the day. Also present at the ribbon-cutting were team owners Masahiro Honzawa and Frank Ward, Pacific Coast League (PCL) president Branch B. Rickey, Oakland Athletics president Michael Crowley, Mayor Dean, and members of the Metro Council who voted to approve financing for the stadium. The Sounds were, at this time, members of the PCL and the Triple-A affiliate of Major League Baseball's (MLB) Oakland Athletics.