A business office in downtown Nashville has been purchased by Dolly Parton, and the country music icon plans to convert it into a hotel.
Parton and the Dollywood Co. bought the property at 211 Commerce St. (seen here via Loopnet) for $75 million. Per Lincoln Property Company's website, "new ownership has approximately $13 million in planned new upgrades" for the 233,214 square-foot building.
"Since the pandemic, commercial real estate is becoming an opportunity," Parton told the Nashville Business Journal. "I strongly believe in the future of Nashville and feel this is a great investment."
The building is walking distance from all of Lower Broadway's hotspots, including the Ryman Auditorium, and is across the river from Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL's Tennessee Titans.
It won't be Parton's first foray into the hotel business. She owns multiple resorts that are part of her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Yet it'll be the first official Parton hotel in Nashville, with the Graduate's rooftop, Parton-themed bar not being affiliated with the singer-songwriter and businessperson.
Parton's the latest country star to invest in downtown. Garth Brooks' Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk opened over Thanksgiving weekend, and there's plans underway to rebrand the Wildhorse Saloon as a Luke Combs-themed bar and restaurant.
The news caps off an eventful year for Parton. Recently, her ambitious, covers and collaborations-heavy album Rockstar had the best opening sales week in her 49-album career. It finished No. 3 in the Billboard 200's tally of the most-consumed albums in America after its first week, placing behind Drake's freshly-expanded For All the Dogs album and Taylor Swift's 1989 (Taylor's Version).
She'd stalled at No. 6 twice before: with the 1987 Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris collaboration Trio and the 2014 solo effort Blue Smoke.
