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 and Tool, Tower has demolished the building and expects to close on a nearby 5.7 acre parking lot just south of the Gaylord Entertainment Center.

 

More than 4,200 mountaintop acres near Pickett State Forest have been purchased by The Nature Conservancy-Tennessee for $4.7 million and could be open for hiking within a year.

 

The property, on the Cumberland Plateau about two hours northeast of Nashville, is a "hot spot" of significant wildlife habitat, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Re-sources Agency.

 

It's home to big-toothed aspen and butternut trees, several bat species and the cerulean warbler, a rare songbird that migrates as far as Ecuador and Colombia each year.

 

The Cumberland Plateau itself, where timber companies and others have been selling off land in recent years, is a focal point of the conservancy's efforts to protect land and water.

 

"The Nature Conservancy uses a lot of scientific rigor to try to figure out where the most important places biologically are, worldwide," said Scott Davis, state director of TNC-Tennessee.

Fourteen years after the controversial Sunrise Hills development was approved by the city, homes continue to pop up at the Sonora subdivision.

 

The first phase of the subdivision, carved into a prominent hillside high above downtown, is nearly complete, with about 70 of 83 homes built.

 

Yet the future of Sunrise Hills' second phase, originally planned as about 90 more homes, remains murky at best.

 

Today's stricter building limits on city hills, plus millions of dollars in tax debt, will likely delay any more construction for years to come.

 

"It's not going to be a quick process," said John Pierce, vice president of Woodland-based Tower Investments, which owns a 32-acre stretch of land on the southeastern portion of the hill, planned as the second phase. "There's just too much debt."

A California ranching family with property interests in 13 states and Canada is buying into plans to build a new convention center in downtown Nashville.

 

The Marks family, which owns Woodland, Calif.-based Tower Investments LLC, has signed contracts to buy eight acres south of Broadway, including part of the site selected by a study committee as the best location for a new convention center and hotel.

 

"We're supporting the convention center and that plan," said David Marks, a senior vice president at the family firm. "We like the opportunity."

 

The deals appear to establish a price of more than $60 a square foot for land in the neighborhood known as SoBro - double the asking prices a decade ago.

It wasn't exactly love at first site, but it's fair to say that the big, wide parking lot behind the Gaylord Entertainment Center caught the eye of David Marks and his family of real estate investors not long after they arrived in Nashville.

 

"This property is only going to be appreciating as things develop around there," he said. "It's in the path of development, and it's a large piece of property. A large piece of real estate in the downtown is difficult to find."

 

With their acquisition of that 5.7-acre lot and another across the street, the 2.3-acre Chilton Industrial Machine and Tool Co., the Markses have more than doubled their investment in downtown Nashville, adding to a portfolio that already in cludes three buildings on Lower Broadway.

 

The investment is one of more than 100 that the Markses have made across the country and Canada through Tower Investments LLC, their family firm based in Woodland, Calif. They have amassed their portfolio without much fanfare, occasionally drawing praise from local officials without causing controversy.

Tennessee Real Estate Holding Co. has sold a 630,000-square-foot building on 60 acres in Jackson, Tenn.

 

The company is an LLC formed by Tomkins/Gates, a manufacturing holding company.

 

The property is located at North Parkway and American Drive in Jackson and has frontage along the L&N rail line.

 

Philadelphia-based Binswanger represented the seller in the transaction.

 

Tower Investments of Woodlands, Calif., purchased the building and plans to retrofit it and subdivide the space for smaller tenants.

As we mentioned the other month, the sale of new bonds was imminent in order to pay off the defaulted Ione CFD No. 1989-1 and 1989-2 Special Tax Bonds (Country Club Estates).  That sale has now closed and holders of the existing bonds that matured on or before October 1, 2005, should have received full payment on their principal and all accrued interest on the August 16 payment date, according to trustee U.S. bank. (If we read the trustee's notice correctly, bonds maturing after that point are defeased until they are called and paid off this Oct. 1.  The bottom line is that you're getting paid off; the trustee can answer your questions if we read that wrong.)

 

ROCHESTER/PINE ISLAND, MN (Aug. 22, 2006) - Adding to the excitement and economic development growth of the City of Rochester and its surrounding areas, Tower Investments of Woodland, California revealed Tuesday plans for a master planned development project, which will include commercial development, technology park and residential development.

 

Located between Rochester and the Twin Cities off of U.S. Hwy. 52, the 1,350-acre property, known by area residents as the "Elk Farm," will host more than 700 acres of dedicated open area and residential development, 400 acres for commercial zoning and approximately 200 acres reserved for the technology park and other industrial developments.

The look of Lower Broadway will soon be changing, and not just with the possible beginning of construction of a Westin hotel that would loom above the street's honkytonks.

Starting this fall, the building housing the Big River Grille and Brewing Works restaurant will be retrofitted with two extra floors and several terraces, providing 28,000 extra square feet of commercial and office space.

Nashville-based Everton Oglesby Architects is handling design work.

Several months ago, California-based real estate investment company Tower Investments LLC purchased the Big River building, located at 111 Broadway, and two other Lower Broad downtown properties.