The Tennessee Titans will begin construction next week on an expansion project at Saint Thomas Sports Park, which will almost double its current footprint in Nashville’s MetroCenter neighborhood.

The plan includes 60,000-square-feet in additions, including a new building situated along one of the practice fields, and major renovation of spaces within the existing 75,000-square-foot building. Improvements to Saint Thomas Sports Park, home to the team’s practice facility and corporate office since its inaugural season as the Titans in 1999, will continue to transform the space into a modern, first-class building aimed at enhancing the production of both its football and business staffs.

Controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk, who assumed her role in 2015, has made a priority of ensuring that the team has the best tools at its disposal to perform on and off the field. In the past five years, the Titans organization has seen its staff grow by 50 percent. This increased headcount and the continuing evolution of the Titans’ overall business led to the decision to develop the building.

“We’ve added so many members to the Titans family over the past several years,” Adams Strunk said. “Evolving our workplace makes perfect sense from both a growth standpoint as well as maximizing our team’s overall effectiveness. This new facility will ultimately create the modern environment that will enable further success.”

Optimizing the workspace of the coaching staff and players is a key goal in the new office building. A revamped auditorium for all-team meetings, modernized meeting spaces for film study and a new draft room are among the items planned. These improvements come following Adams Strunk’s already completed renovations to the facility, which include a new cafeteria, weight room, locker room, training room and TV and radio studios.

Also planned in the new development is a 2,000-square-foot event space that leads out onto a 2,300-square-foot rooftop deck. While this space will be used for day-to-day staff functions, it will also serve as a key entertainment area for sponsors and other visitors to the facility.

On the business side, the construction will allow the Titans to consolidate various departments that had been housed in multiple locations into the same building. Currently, the Titans lease additional space in MetroCenter to accommodate growth and houses its Ticket Sales group at Nissan Stadium. The new space will bring the vast majority of its staff under one roof.

In addition to functional workspace, a two-story, 39,000-square-foot parking garage will add over 100 parking spaces to the facility.

Titans staff toured multiple NFL practice facilities as research for the building development to ensure the team’s ideas matched or exceeded current NFL standards. The project is in collaboration with Smallwood Nickle Architects, who developed the renderings of the proposed space. PBG Builders Inc. has been hired as the contractor.

The Westwood Middle School 6^th Grade basketball teams welcomed Irving College to the Joel Vinson Gym on Tuesday night.  Playing in their first games of the year, the Westwood teams got a sweep over the visiting Tigers.  The Lady Rockets rolled to a 49 to 10 win.  The Rockets gutted out a 28 to 24 victory. 

In the girls’ game, Westwood held the Lady Tigers scoreless in the 2^nd half to break open a 1 point game.  The Lady Rockets were led in scoring by Maddie Meacham who had 21 points, 14 of those coming in the 4^th quarter.  Audri Patton added 13 points while Maggie Brei and Anna Reed each netted 6 points. 

In the boys’ game, Westwood held off a late charge from Irving College to grab the win.  Blake Cummings led the Rockets in scoring with 11 points.  William Rogers scored 6 points and Matt Moore and Neyland Grant each chipped in 4 points. 

The 6^th grade girls’ team will be back in action on Sunday when they host Community at the Joel Vinson Gym. 

The Predators four-game road trip concluded with a 1-2-1 mark after Nashville fell, 5-3, to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.

The Predators clawed back into the game on multiple occasions, tying the game at 2-2 in the third period and then again at 4-3 with 5:34 left in regulation, but three power-play goals for the Canucks defined the evening.

“Definitely a frustrating game,” Preds center Ryan Johansen said. “We feel like we did a lot of good things. The first period was OK, but after that, I thought we played a good game. Obviously, they had three power-play goals, and they have good players over there, good young team, lots of skill and you can’t give them that many chances. A couple unfortunate bounces too on the goals, but it was a frustrating one because we felt a little unlucky.”

“It’s tough,” Preds Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “Guys played hard and kept fighting back in the game and just couldn’t get there.”

Tuesday’s 5-3 loss wasn’t a particularly poor effort – the Predators recorded a season-high 19 shots in the second period – but it also wasn’t a quality enough performance to claim two points. On some nights, average execution is enough for a win, but when a few losses start to pile up in a row it can feel like only a near-perfect game plan is enough to claim a victory.

“It’s a little inconsistent,” Preds forward Filip Forsberg said. “We want to come out and carry the play, and I think we think we’re doing OK in the first period, but they were better – and we’re not OK with that.”

It took until the second period for someone to find the back of the net, and it was Tanner Pearson, who gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead. Nashville evened it up at 13:35 of the period when the new-look line of Calle Jarnkrok, Matt Duchene and Viktor Arvidsson got the puck to the net, and Jarnkrok slapped home a loose puck for a 1-1 draw through 40 minutes.

Both clubs found their offense in the third, and Elias Pettersson scored twice for the Canucks, including what proved to be the game-winner. Mikael Granlund redirected a point shot for Nashville’s second goal, and Forsberg tallied on the power play to record a goal for the fourth-consecutive game, but that was as close as the Preds came.

After four games and 10 days on the road, the Predators are now looking forward to getting back home – a chance to get in a pair of productive practice days before hosting Chicago on Saturday night as they look to snap their losing streak.

“It’s the end of a long road trip for us, lots of traveling, four time zones as well,” Johansen said. “We’ll get back, take a couple of days, and then take our next game and play our brand of hockey and our best hockey, and we’ll go from there.”

Notes:

With a goal on Tuesday night, Calle Jarnkrok now has eight points (5g-3a) in his last eight games versus Vancouver.

Miikka Salomaki and Matt Irwin were scratched for the Preds on Tuesday night.

The Predators will now return to Nashville for a three-game homestand which starts on Saturday night (at 7 p.m. CT) at Bridgestone Arena as the Chicago Blackhawks come to town.