The hotel, at 1600 West End Ave., will occupy the first 14 floors of the 23-story building with the spa, health club and condos on the nine stories above. Besides office and retail-restaurant space, the 25-story building will had 18,000 sf of meeting space that includes a 10,750-sf ballroom. The two towers will be connected by a ground-level building that will hold a bar, shops and possibly four restaurants, Palmer's staff tells GlobeSt.com.

Developer Alex Palmer estimates the project will take two years to complete with the hotel component opening in late 2008 or first quarter 2009. The hotel would be the first luxury inn to open Downtown since the Hilton Nashville Downtown opened across from the Gaylord Entertainment Center in 2001. Of the planned InterContinental Nashville, Palmer says "there is not a hotel in Nashville now that will come close to this hotel" in the luxury column.

Palmer has planned West End Summit since he began acquiring Downtown parcels at Broadway, West End and 16th avenues seven years ago. On his deal with InterContinental, which closed April 21, Palmer says "there could have been a deal a long time ago, but I wanted an upper-end hotel." He says "there are a lot of entertainment people who come to Nashville and a lot of people who tend to come here on business."