Nashville Chapter September Meeting!
Richard Warren (Bradley Arant): Richard mentioned that a developer from Chicago had bought the old Cumulus Broadcasting property on 2nd Ave., for he believes for $34 million. Originally they were going to put up three towers but now they have just done a deed in lieu of foreclosure, to transfer that property back to their lender, who had loaned them $26 million. He went on to mention that Nashville did not have developers with deep pockets as they do today and they are looking for where they want their building ten years from now and they cannot be worried with short-term dislocation. If it takes two years, it takes two years to get the project done.
Amanda Guadarrama (W.E. O’Neil Construction): Amanda is a general contractor here in Nashville. She mentioned that they are working on several projects here, including a big retail facility in Cool Springs, Franklin area called Ovation, and they have public storage in Mount Juliet. She is seeing lots of activity and there is a little bit of an upscale right now.
Emily Kirkland (Hastings Architecture): Emily said that they are involved in a lot of projects around the city. One thing that she could mention is that Vanderbilt’s innovation district just received approval. She believes it is a pretty big and exciting thing that they are working on the master plan and she is certain that there will be a lot of interesting projects that will come from this approval.
Jim Murphy (Bradley Arant): Jim believes that things seem to be speeding up a little bit. He said that he does a lot of economic development and land use, particularly over on the East Bank and there is a lot going on there. He believes it will speed up even more in the next year. Jim said that this is a big area where several different developers are doing things, so it will be interesting to see how everything comes out. It is an interesting time to be in Nashville. He went on to mention that it will take about two plus years to redo the road on James Robinson Parkway. Right now, it is the barrier that is keeping East Bank Blvd from going North up to Jefferson Street near Oracle. They are looking to have it completed before the Super Bowl is hosted in Nashville.
John Agee, P.E. (Terracon): John said that they are ahead of last year. Their commercial group is staying strong as far as business sectors go. The transportation infrastructure has picked up and TDOT has spent a lot of money on projects and is learning how to move the needle forward, which he said we desperately needed as a state. He went on to mention that their power generation group is actually up and industrial and logistics is still going really strong. He said people are still betting on Nashville.
Kelly Cochran (State of Tennessee Real Assets Management (STREAM): Kelly does leasing for the State of Tennessee representing state agencies in leased office space. She said they are very busy trying to get a lot of things wrapped up before the election. She has a lot more work going on right at the moment and tying up loose little projects and getting things across the line. Everybody is waiting to see what the new initiatives will be with the next governor.
Susan Felts (First American Title Insurance Company): Susan said that she is involved in and with East Bank projects. She is also busy in the energy space, including the data centers. Her first half of the year was really busy with the senior living and retail sectors.
Tanya Iacabone (W.E. O’Neil Construction): Tanya is seeing solid across most markets – retail, hospitality – in terms of projects that they are bidding on. She went on to mention that multifamily is getting popular again and it is a big sector for them across the country as a company. She also mentioned that a couple of design groups mentioned that they are working on a lot lately, too, so that’s always good to hear. She also mentioned that the multifamily projects are more garden style apartments and affordable housing.
Brian Parker (Pathway Development): Brian provides development services for different ownership groups. He is noticing on projects that lender requirements have gotten a little more stringent and equity and also contingencies. They are asking for more and more contingencies on the projects. He went on to mention that they have had an uptick of potential opportunities in the pipeline with people reaching out to them – hospitality groups, faith based groups, some student housing and retail, etc. Brian said that he is seeing prices kind of flatten a little and stabilize. He also mentioned that is is encouraging to see the young people go into this trade.
Deen Beeler (Thomas Construction): Deen is a general contractor and he said that Thomas Construction recently opened an office in Nashville. They started out building custom houses on the lake in the Ozarks and have expanded. Today, hotels are their bread-and-butter. They came to Nashville in hopes of expanding their footprint throughout the Southeast. As they continue to get staffed, he is trying to get some jobs here in Nashville.
Elizabeth Freeland (Freeland CRE): Elizabeth is part of the asset management brokerage company family office, based in Nashville. They do work primarily in Middle Tennessee, Southwest, Florida. One of the biggest changes that she has seen is the switch from small bay industrial back to large users. She is seeing between 50k to 100k square foot users coming back looking for space and that has been a little bit of a switch from what they have primarily seen, which was a lot of small users throughout Middle Tennessee. She is excited to see people coming from the West Coast or Canada and all around to Nashville.
Jackson Granstaff (Virtus): Jackson leads their national hospitality practice. He has seen a lot of projects in Nashville. He mentioned from an underwriting perspective, insurance has gotten so expensive. It has become something that can either kill a deal or make a deal happen depending on what people are able to get accomplished in the marketplace. He also mentioned that he is seeing a log of transactions that are either preparing or getting ready to move. He feels that there are a lot of things that is needing to move, so he is keeping a close eye on those projects.
Richard Sprecher (Resolute Road Hospitality): Richard said that their goal is to have a lot of hotels here in Nashville. Currently they have one open and is trying to do more hotel stuff. They are willing to co-invest and do third-party whatever needs to be done to get the deal done. They are ready to step up.
Pat Culligan (Hospitality Real Estate Counselors): Pat works with hotels and he said that one big thing about Nashville, from the hotel perspective, is that everybody talks about the supply growth, and so far this year, the demand growth has tripled. Pat said that it is hard to imagine it ever declining much with some of the developments that are occurring here. He said that the revenue per available room is about $100 above most other markets. They are doing a development here on the East Bank, and he loves hotels.
Thomas Freeland (Freeland CRE): Thomas said that there has been really solid growth in all those markets from Clarksville to Franklin. He thought it was interesting because he was talking to somebody today about Cookeville, and how Cookeville’s been growing like crazy, and they’ve got a lot of good developments. He has noticed that there has been a lot of supply constraint on retail, so they have been going around and buying up properties that are positioned in ways to be quickly converted into retail and have had good success buying and leasing those properties. He went on to mention that there has been consistent strong retail office demand in a lot of these markets that are tight, and so that’s been one thing that he has seen and done that has had success in the area.
Jordan Carpenter (Meritage Homes): aworks for one of the largest homebuilders in Nashville. He has seen the entitlement timelines on the land acquisition entitlement side really doubled in the last 4 years and it is hard to get through zoning and construction document approval. As an institutional group, they don’t close until everything is in place, so he has been partnering with a lot of different developers and land bankers, recently. He also mentioned that they have a lot of land on their balance sheets, and so it’s been a huge opportunity, recently, for developers, specifically with land banking.
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