News Room
Business column: Investors from California buy big slice of Nashville riverfront
By Chas Sisk - The Tennessean
April 30, 2007
Marks family's philosophy behind involvement in redevelopment incorporates a 'simple formula'
It's easy to rhapsodize about riverfront development. But the Marks family doesn't seem like the type to rhapsodize.
To them, the decision to take the plunge on Nashville's waterfront was about hard arithmetic: rising land prices in California plus a good business climate in Tennessee plus a little bit of water equals economic opportunity.
It's a simple formula. So simple that Alex Marks, the family member responsible for residential development, finds it difficult to explain it without seeming glib.
The family came to Nashville "because you have a river," Alex Marks said. "It will sell itself."
Earlier this month, the family's firm, Tower Investments LLC, bought a majority stake in the $250 million Cumberland Yacht Harbor marina-and-condo project. It also negotiated an option on 28 acres owned by the descendants of the founders of the Steiner-Liff scrap yard, the industrial metal recycler now owned by PSC Metals Inc.
So far, the Markses have been fairly tight-lipped about their plans.
But one fact is clear: The Markses are moving a huge amount of capital into Middle Tennessee. And much of it is focused on a crescent of real estate that begins on Lower Broadway and swoops east into Donelson, along both banks of the Cumberland.
Local owners displaced
Local developers expect this trend to increase. Some believe that within the next few years, the dynamic inclinometer probably will become the dominant land owner in Nashville's core, displacing the old industrialist families such as the Steiners and the Liffs who until now have controlled downtown redevelopment.
But that doesn't mean the Markses will squeeze out local developers altogether. In Little Rock, Ark., where the family last made a redevelopment splash by renovating five downtown buildings, the Markses have earned a reputation for working closely with city officials and other developers to come up with plans that have broad support.
Mark Bloom, a longtime Nashville land investor who sold 8 acres to the Markses last year, pointed to their recently opened Paradise Park bar as an example of how he expects the family to operate in Nashville.
"They teamed up with the Breitling replica that own Bar Twenty 3 (in the Gulch)," he said. "They have, all the way down the line, tried to meet with local operators."
Just don't expect many vision statements out of these investors. When asked last week why the family had chosen to invest in Nashville, Alex Marks said two things:
1. Riverfront investments have done well around the country, and
2. Nashville has a riverfront.
It's really that simple.