News Room
PRIME PARCELS: Tower staking claim in hot SoBro
By Josh Flory - Nashville Business Journal
January 5, 2007
When it comes to downtown development, the area known as SoBro-South of Broadway-is the latest hot spot. California firm Tower Investments has staked out two of its choicest parcels.
Tower, a family-run firm with a portfolio that stretches from British Columbia to Savannah, Ga., touched down on Lower Broadway a year ago, dropping $9.4 million on a trio of buildings, including the 43,500-square-foot home of the Big River Grille & Brewing Works. Two empty lots that sit a couple of blocks south round out the trio.
In November, Tower bought an industrial building on Fourth Avenue, just south of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Formerly the home of Chilton Industrial Machine, Tower has demolished the building and expects to close on a nearby 5.7 acre parking lot just south of the Gaylord Entertainment Center.
With the burgeoning entertainment district next door, the spots are valuable in their own right. But they've become more prominent in recent weeks as backers of a proposed $455 million, 1.2 million-square-foot convention center have zeroed in on that site as a preferred location.
It's a plan that Tower supports, but the company knows it has plenty of other cards to play if the project goes elsewhere.
"We are in favor of (the convention center plan) but regardless it's a great piece of property in downtown Nashville, kind of right on the path of development," says David Marks, a senior vice president at Tower.
Bert Mathews, president of The Mathews Co. and an investor in the area, says Tower will have a tremendous impact on the Lower Broad and SoBro area, citing the recent purchase of the Chilton property as a "huge" development.
Besides providing surface parking in the short term, Mathews says, visitors who stand at the corner of 4th Avenue and Gateway Boulevard can now see almost all the way to 8th Avenue. "It allows people to really see the difference that Gateway, extended, will make," he says.
Tom Turner, executive director of the Nashville Downtown Partnership, says that Tower is an active investor, which is good for the city.
"I think it puts equity into projects and again, they are active investors," he says. "They do not buy and hold property-and hold it for holding's sake. Yeah, I think any time people put their money into action it's a good thing."