The Nashville area has business and industry sectors that are as diverse as can be found anywhere on the planet, but the attributes that attract companies to the region and keep them here are remarkably similar.

An excellent quality of life, a low cost of doing business and accessibility to multiple modes of transportation are among the list of strong positives cited by companies large and small. Even during a sluggish economy, businesses from manufacturers to retailers to providers of high-end health services say the region is still the place to be.

“All the recognition the region has gotten as a great place to do business certainly factored into our location decision,” says David Osborn, general manager of the Nashville Medical Trade Center, a $250 million proposal that would overhaul the existing Nashville Convention Center and turn it into a multistory medical mart with 2 million square feet of permanent and temporary showrooms for health-care manufacturers, distributors and information technology companies.

And while Nashville is best known as Music City, the moniker Health Care City wouldn’t be out of line either, another reason why the medical mart’s backers are looking to call the city home.

“The concentration of health-care companies and talent in this town is unbelievable,” Osborn says of the project, which also will feature an innovation center and small-business incubator. “The center will establish Nashville as a real hub for all those companies who deliver and provide care.”

The trade center leads the charge among many big-ticket projects that are looking at the Nashville area.

The Nashville area continues to rank high on lists of good places to live and work, and the region’s GDP in 2008 hit $79 billion, a 16 percent rise in just four years.

Helping to spearhead those recruitment and expansion efforts is Partnership 2010, a public-­private partnership and affiliate of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce that promotes economic development in a 10-county region.

Other companies that are growing their presence in the region include Lennox Hearth Products, which is moving its headquarters and R&D operations from California to Nashville and its customer- and technical-service departments to Union City.

Musical instrument distributor KHS America, which distributes Juniper wind instruments, Mapex drums, Majestic concert percussion and Altus flutes in the United States, relocated its corporate headquarters from Austin to Mt. Juliet in Wilson Coiunty, creating 54 jobs.

High-end motorcoach supplier Prevost Motorcar, a division of Volvo, opened a 60,000-­square-foot sales, service and parts distribution facility in Goodlettsville to serve the Southeast. And while some major businesses are setting up shop, such big-name locals as Goodlettsville-­based Dollar General and Emdeon are raising their profiles with public stock offerings.

“We had parts of our business here for more than 20 years, and when we rebranded ourselves and consolidated some operations a few years ago it made sense for Nashville to become our corporate headquarters,” says Tommy Lewis, senior vice president of communications for Emdeon. “For us, what’s not to like? This is a desirable place to call home.”