SunTrust to Anchor New “Class A” Office Building at 999 S. Shady Grove

Boyle has broken ground on the first of two new 155,000-square-foot “Class A” office buildings in Ridgeway Center at Poplar Avenue and I-240. The buildings are the first new office buildings to be developed in Memphis since 2002 and will be located on the last available site in Boyle’s 206-acre Ridgeway Center development.

SunTrust Bank has signed a lease for 50,000 square feet of space in the first building at 999 S. Shady Grove, which will be known as SunTrust Center. The building will serve as SunTrust Bank, Memphis regional headquarters and will include a full-service branch with drive-through. SunTrust will take occupancy of their space in December 2008. The remainder of the space on the top three floors of the six-story building is available for lease.

The buildings will offer a combined 310,000 square feet of office space on a highly visible 13-acre site at Poplar Avenue and Shady Grove Road, directly across from the FedEx headquarters building, Embassy Suites, and the upscale Regalia specialty shopping center also developed by Boyle. Hnedak Bobo Group is the architect for the building and the general contractor is Mid-America Construction.

“Our company spent a lot of time analyzing the Mid-South market to determine where to best position our people for success in serving customers. With customers located throughout the entire region, we unequivocally concluded that Ridgeway Center was the best location for quickly accessing the many communities which make up the Mid-South. The people at Boyle Investment Company were very helpful and easy to work with in bringing our transaction to fruition,” says David Popwell, President & CEO of SunTrust Bank Memphis.

“The 13-acre site for the two office buildings is the last available site in our Ridgeway Center mixed-use development and, therefore, represents a significant milestone for Boyle,” says Russell E. Bloodworth, Jr., Executive Vice President of Boyle. “We first started developing Ridgeway Center in the early 1970s on a strategically located piece of property that was formerly the Ridgeway Country Club. The development of these two new office buildings represents the culmination of an extremely complex, mixed-use development that incorporates six different land uses and was the first of its kind in the city of Memphis,” explains Bloodworth.

“These upscale office buildings will be located on one of the most desirable sites in the Poplar corridor,” says Mark Halperin, Executive Vice President of Boyle. “Due to the unsurpassed quality of their design, the buildings will be perceived as the best address for office space in the East Memphis area.”

The design of these two new office buildings demonstrates the progression of a prototype corporate office building that Boyle, working closely with Hnedak Bobo Group, has fine-tuned since the company first developed the build-to-suit Marsh Building in Ridgeway Center in 1995 and the adjacent Morgan Keegan Building in 2000.

“The column-free space, the large floor plates of more than 25,500 square feet, and ample core-to-exterior glass dimension all work together to create unparalleled space planning options,” says Dan Elias, a partner with the Hnedack Bobo Group. Like the Marsh and Morgan Keegan Buildings, the exteriors of the new buildings will consist of precast concrete and high-performance glass, and the public spaces will be upscale with first-class finishes. In addition, there will be one floor of parking underneath each of the buildings. Another unique feature will be an exterior courtyard designed to accommodate corporate events, as well as provide a pleasant day-to-day amenity for the buildings’ tenants. Leasing and management of the new office buildings will be provided by Boyle.