We are using the McDonald 2.7m and ESO 1.52m telescopes to obtain spectra of nearby stars at high-resolution, high S/N, and with complete optical coverage. The sample includes all stars in the Hipparcos catalog brighter than MV = 6.5 (˜ K2 V) within a 12770 pc3 sphere centered at the Sun. The survey is 78 % complete. The database will be publicly released in approximately 1 year. We plan to: 1) Provide homogeneous radial velocities with the accuracy required to exploiting in full the accurate proper motions and parallaxes determined by Hipparcos (0.1 < σ (v) < 1.0 km s-1); 2) Provide homogeneous chemical abundances for a large (> 30) number of elements with an accuracy of 0.04 dex; 3) Determine the fundamental stellar parameters for the sample using an array of different methods. We discuss potential applications.