CAA’s new – Creative Artists Agency is opening a new Nashville office this July, a 75,000-square-foot space designed for a wide range of people—from multimillion-dollar dealmakers to 23-year-old assistants changing shoes before heading out to cover concerts—featuring a li
For a workplace built around music, sports, and talent pipelines, the details matter—and in CAA’s new Nashville office, they were designed to match the people who walk through the doors.
This July. Creative Artists Agency will open a new office in Nashville that will serve 160 employees working a traditional 9-to-5 schedule. Inside. the spaces are meant to accommodate widely different needs: agents signing multimillion-dollar deals. 23-year-old assistants changing out of their office shoes after work to head out and cover the concert of a potential client. and visiting parents or family members who accompany new. young. unsigned talent.
CAA approached the redesign with an end goal that is simple but demanding: the office should feel comfortable for everyone who uses it. “We just wanted to show, through programs and rooms, that you could be comfortable here,” said Howie Nuchow, CAA managing director and sports co-head.
The building is part of the Nashville Yards development, a 19-acre mixed-use project in downtown Nashville. The new office spans 75,000 square feet across two floors, and it nods to the city’s music culture and history while reflecting Nashville’s growing role as a sports mecca in the South.
The vibe is carried through multiple spaces. There is a music listening lounge with dark club chairs and a grand piano tucked into the corner. along with a rooftop terrace offering panoramic skyline views. Hallways and office walls are lined with sports photography. arranged like a series of galleries that reinforce the agency’s sporting identity.
Architect Emily Stampanato. CannonDesign’s commercial practice leader. described the office as a collection of smaller projects that had to work together without losing individuality. “We really had like 10 different micro projects within the project,” she said. “We had to change the mindset and treat each one almost uniquely because in the end we wanted it to read as an ecosystem of spaces that all work together. But each one had to have its own DNA.”.
While there’s a conventional hierarchy in the floor plan—including a traditional boardroom and window-lined offices looking out onto the city—CAA also built in guest-ready spaces for clients to use. communal seating in a central social hub. and work-lite environments across lounges. speakeasies. and terraces. Private conference rooms and wellness rooms are part of the mix as well, alongside two speakeasies.
The amenity-heavy design reflects the job CAA does day to day. The agency caters to a wide range of stakeholders. from NBA legends and touring musicians to college football coaches and YouTubers. Its new Nashville office aims to serve that same spectrum. whether an agent is hosting a longtime client for an informal catch-up. a younger executive is bringing new talent into the roster. or a client is in town to prepare for a campaign or tour.
Nuchow said the office’s workplace diversity is also meant to help CAA attract talent, both on the client side and among its staff. “You couldn’t encourage somebody to come to the office the way it was set up before, without all of those elements,” he said.
That emphasis on daily experience wasn’t only conceptual. CAA employees helped shape the design in a direct way. Over the past several years. CannonDesign worked with the agency after conducting more than a dozen interviews with employees and holding about eight focus groups to understand how staff at every level used the office and what could be improved.
One piece of feedback led to a last-minute change: a bathroom was converted into a plush employee dressing room. The update is designed for young agents and assistants who regularly need to prepare for nights out with clients or to attend concerts of musicians represented by the agency.
As Nuchow put it, “Assistants work all day long and then they have to change clothes and go cover bands at night. Instead of getting dressed in bathroom stalls, we asked could we create an amazing area for them to bond with their colleagues as they’re getting dressed and ready to go out together.”
It’s an unusual decision for an office, and it points to what CAA and CannonDesign say they were trying to capture: the culture of an agency where work and social life can overlap, and where people at different levels experience the building in very different ways.
Stampanato said the office was designed around a specific audience rather than a generic workplace template. “There’s a social climate that I haven’t seen in an office environment in a lot of years. if ever. ” she said. “We knew we had a special group of people. that we couldn’t just build a program that was a cutting-edge office. It really had to be curated and scripted to this specific audience.”.
In Nashville—where CAA has had an office for more than 35 years—the new space is set to open this July. turning familiar agency routines into something more tailored: not only places to meet and work. but rooms meant to keep the momentum going before a meeting. during a deal. and after the last call ends for the day.
CAA Creative Artists Agency Nashville office Nashville Yards CannonDesign sports and entertainment agencies workplace design employee dressing room music listening lounge speakeasies