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Does Branson, Mo., ring a bell?

On March 1, the Houston County, Alabama County Commission unanimously approved plans for a country music resort called "Country Crossing," near Dothan, Ala. Billed as a Branson-like national destination, the potential $300 million complex (part of which is to be called "Little Nashville") would include numerous performance venues, hotels (including "Nashville Grand"), restaurants, a possible theme park, and a midway and RV park. The same designers behind such tourism stalwarts as Epcot, Disneyland and Universal Studios are developing the master plan. An unofficial economic impact study published recently by the Dothan Eagle found the project could directly create over 1,800 jobs in year one, with 1,100 more created indirectly. First year revenue was estimated at $136 million, with an annual payroll of $74 million. Tenth year projections expect the resort to reach total revenue of over $870 million with nearly 5,000 jobs created.

BusinessTN first pointed to this potential development last summer when the Alabama state House of Representatives passed a bill on behalf of proposed investors by creating an enterprise zone in a slightly different location. The bill's originator, Rep. Terry Spicer, was quoted in the Tuscaloosa News at that time as saying, "This is going to be a little Nashville right here in [Alabama]."

Ronny Gilley and his company, Ronnie Gilley Properties LLC, lead the private development. Gilley says more than 20 country music artists are closing in on signed agreements to locate themed venues at Country Crossing where he says they will perform routinely.

"There will be George Jones' Possum Holler dinner theater—a high-end dinner theater with seating capacity of 700 or 800. Tracy Lawrence's Barbecue and Opry House. John Anderson's Seminole Wind Grill. The [Darryl] Worley Bird Café, which will be a major military tribute as well. Those are just a few that we have all but completed deals with. There will be a minimum of 20 themed venues that will have the likeness of a multi-platinum selling country music artist," Gilley says. "Branson has 57,000 dinner theater seats. We won't have quite so many, but we will have eateries with entertainment venues inside that will have the same effect. We'll also have a state-of-the-art amphitheater—a musical fairgrounds that will host four music festivals a year there. We'll have different genres of music at the music festivals, but for the most part, it will be a country music themed resort destination point."

Branson, one of Tennessee's biggest misses as regards economic development historically, attracted 7.8 million people in 2006 and generated $1.8 billion in revenues. Though a mini-Branson by comparison, Country Crossing appears to be a project with significant economic potential. Did Gilley, an Alabama native, ever consider a Tennessee location for Country Crossing?

"We never had any discussions with any one in Tennessee with regards to such, no," Gilley responds.

Gilley, who recently signed an artist deal with Nashville-based Bandit Records himself, is a frequent collaborator on real estate developments throughout the South with various country artists. The most visible partner on Country Crossroads is George Jones, a longtime spokesperson for Gilley Properties. Gilley, meanwhile, has done various other projects with country music stars through the years, including with Alan Jackson (La Borgata, a residential development in Panama City Beach Florida), Tracy Lawrence (in whose most recent video Gilley appears), and Kix Brooks, with whom Gilley partnered on a residential home development called Brookwood in Enterprise, Ala.

It was Brooks who created a national stir recently about the in-state sustainability of another stellar Tennesee business asset, the annual CMA Music Festival in Nashville. A member of the Country Music Association, Brooks told an audience at Lipscomb University that for the city of Nashville to grow its annual downtown event it ought to begin to pay artists to perform, lest artists begin choosing not to participate and the event become lackluster in nature. Overnight, media outlets in places including Dallas, Texas, and elsewhere across America began opining that perhaps their municipality had the financial will to woo the festival to its shores. (It would be easy to brush aside such out-of-state commentary as mere conjecture were it not for the fact that just a few years ago rumors surfaced that the CMA Awards show—for four decades a Nashville mainstay—could be leaving for Atlanta or a larger media market. Then, as now, fears were assuaged with calming comments from local decision-makers. A few short years later, the show traveled to New York City for the first time.)

Enter Gilley, again. In addition to the new Country Crossings development, Gilley is also the man behind "BamaJam," a new music and arts festival scheduled to take place in Enterprise this June 5-7, interestingly, the very same dates as the CMA Music Festival. Scheduled performers include Alabama's Randy Owen, Hank Williams Jr., Lynard Skynard, ZZ Top, Ricky Skaggs, Miranda Lambert, Trace Adkins, Little Big Town, Tracy Lawrence, Jason Michael Montgomery and Eric Church, the majority of whom are top country artists. So is Gilley paying the artists to perform at his event?

"We are, indeed," he says.

And what was Gilley's opinion of the recent remarks made by his friend and business partner Kix Brooks regarding artist pay for festival appearances?

"Bringing entertainment into southeastern Alabama is a vehicle to deliver expanded trade and commerce throughout the communities here," he explains. "And it is certainly the artists who are bringing the people in here, not me. All the surrounding businesses, including me, will profit from those visits from people all across the Southeast United States. So in my opinion, the artist should be rewarded for that. It creates a lot of commerce for the community."

Was Gilley's choice of dates made intentionally to compete with the CMA Festival?

"Here's the reality," he says. "In that time of the year, no matter what weekend we picked we were going to be in direct competition with another major country music event. We finally said, 'Hey let's look at what will make our project successful.' We've not received any backlash from Nashville and certainly hope that we don't. But our commitments are steadfast right now."

And generally speaking, what is his view of Alabama and other states eyeing a greater piece of the country music pie?

"As far as the state of Alabama is concerned, it is very, very aggressive in economic development and growth right now," Gilley says. "There is a massive market before us—the baby boomer generation retiring—and the cold hard facts are that 40% of that population over the next 10 years is expected to leave the state they are now living in and move to a state in the southeastern United States. So somewhere in the proximity of 20 to 30 million Americans are getting ready to embark at this region of the country, and the most recognized genre of music for that massive given market is country music. We've tried to align ourselves with the country music industry in order to expose our projects and our communities and our state to the rest of the country. So far, we've been successful."

It bears mention that Gilley and the state of Alabama are not alone in wanting to make inroads on Nashville's country music industry. Last summer, the Oklahoma legislature signed off on a study, sponsored by Rep. Randy McDaniel, a first vice president at Wachovia Securities, to determine what incentives Nashville and other cities offer to attract artists and what the home state of country stars such as Reba McIntire, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Blake Shelton and Carrie Underwood could do to be more competitive in attracting country music-related activity and investment. Translation? While economic expansion is great, and needed, the Tennessee business community should never lose sight of what stellar assets it already has in its possession, and protect them with all its might.

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