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Getting aloft and Indigo in Your Element in Nashville

In the surest sign yet it's catching on that there may be more to Nashville than twang, three "corporate boutique" hotel brands are coming to town.

Construction crews have been at work for a while on West End Avenue in Nashville, where InterContinental's Hotel Indigo brand is scheduled to open up this summer. Yesterday it was announced that two Starwood attempts to be hip will join it. Aloft and Element will both arrive downtown as part of a new Nashville Sounds minor league ballpark.

We're not sure how excited to get about all these new brands since only a few Hotel Indigos have popped up and not one Aloft or Element is more than a bunch of SecondLife pixels. Of course that's kind of fitting in this case since it will be years before these announcements turn into real buildings. An InterContinental that was announced for Nashville several years back has only made it as far as a leveled lot and a big sign. A Westin that was to be built downtown may never happen because it will require ripping down historic buildings and changing the height allowances along Broadway.

We keep reading how there's a net migration of people and businesses from the largest U.S. cities to mid-sized ones with lower costs, so perhaps the corporate boutique hotels want to be there to take advantage of the trend: most of the Aloft announcements in particular have been for up-and-coming secondary markets like this.