SS&E, F&M Bank Announce Clarksville Event Center Named F&M Bank Arena

On one of the more sweltering days in recent memory throughout the state of Tennessee, there was an additional reason for the heat in Clarksville on Thursday morning.
"It's a hot day - no, seriously, it's a hot day because of what's happened today," Montgomery County Mayor Jim Durrett said through the steamy conditions.
Just behind the Mayor's right shoulder, steel beams rose up from the ground, and to his left were the renderings of what's to come with a new name affixed to the building in the designs.
SS&E, in conjunction with F&M Bank, announced Thursday that the event center in Montgomery County, located in downtown Clarksville, Tenn., will be named F&M Bank Arena. The announcement comes after SS&E and Clarksville-based F&M Bank entered a multi-year naming rights agreement on behalf of F&M Bank Arena in May.

"As we immerse ourselves more fully in this community, it is absolutely awesome to have an iconic brand like F&M Bank to link arms with," Predators COO Michelle Kennedy said. "They're a great, iconic brand in this area, and that's a part of what we want to be associated with. We want to be a great, iconic brand as well and just make this an enormously prominent center that's going to help this community and Austin Peay and create just another terrific partnership that we're so proud of."
"We think it's a real economic engine for downtown, and for the entire county, to be perfectly honest with you," F&M Bank President and CEO Sammy Stuard said. "Our bank has been very successful here. We're a 115-year-old bank now, and this community has been good to us, and so we're always looking for ways to give back. We think in the long run, over the next 20 years, that this is going to be a tremendous way for us to do that, and I think it'll be a game changer for downtown Clarksville."

Construction continues at F&M Bank Arena's downtown location of First Street and College Street. Ground broke on the facility in November 2020, and the venue is scheduled to open during the 2022-23 season under SS&E management. SS&E will be responsible for F&M Bank Arena's day-to-day operations and will be charged with booking the facility to bring the venue to life and make it flourish.
F&M Bank Arena's primary tenant will be Austin Peay State University, whose men's and women's basketball teams will call the facility home. In addition to the facility's main, flexible event space - which will be able to host sporting events, concerts, banquets, conventions, trade shows and other events - the multi-level venue will feature a separate sheet of ice that will be used for youth and adult hockey leagues as well as figure skating.
The main arena bowl will also be able to add an ice surface, giving it the ability to host hockey tournaments and attract larger on-ice events or competitions much like the existing Ford Ice Centers in Antioch and Bellevue. Using these ice sheets, the Predators will offer a variety of learn-to-skate programs at F&M Bank Arena, continuing their mission to expose and grow hockey to more Middle Tennessee residents.
"We are not a traditional hockey market in the sense that it's been around for 100 years, but we're creating that traditional hockey market," Kennedy said. "We're starting to see people who have known hockey since they were born, and we need to continue to do that to continue to expand the footprint, continue to offer those programs to everyone. We are as much a community partner as we are a hockey team or a concert venue, and this is a further expansion of that. Not only do we get to expand a hockey footprint to another community, but we get to expand our reach, our foundation, all of the things that our organization does."

The arena will also contain luxury suites, premium seating, private hospitality space, party rooms and common areas that will have full access to the arena bowl. The Austin Peay men's and women's basketball teams will move their coaches' offices and training facilities into F&M Bank Arena, which will also house their practice court.
F&M Bank Arena will hold approximately 6,000 fans for concerts; 5,500 for basketball games; and 5,000 for hockey games, and there will be plenty of each in the years to come with the perfect partner involved.
"For those two organizations, F&M and the Predators, to start building what's going to happen inside of that arena and be a part of the great things that are happening in Montgomery County, we're just tickled to death," Durrett said. "To put together two quality organizations - and I know both of them are so community oriented - and join those two forces together here in Montgomery County at the F&M Bank Arena, it's going to be pretty dang cool."