July 21, 2015
Boyle Celebrates 80 Years, Sponsors Art Exhibit
By: Sarah Baker
Memphis Daily News
Boyle Investment Co. turns 80 this year, and has partnered with the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art to celebrate.
Boyle, one of Memphis’ oldest real estate development firms, is the title sponsor of the “The Crossroads of Memory: Carroll Cloar and the American South” exhibit from June 8 through Sept. 15.
Stanton Thomas, curator of the exhibit, said Cloar is the best-known artist to have come out of the Mid-South. Childhood memories, familiar Delta scenery, blues songs and photographs of ancestors inspire his paintings.
Boyle has had one of Cloar’s paintings displayed in its office at 5900 Poplar Ave. in Ridgeway Center since the office was built in the early 1970s and several Boyle executives also own Cloar paintings. Cloar’s painting “Bridge and Bayou,” owned by Boyle executive vice president Rusty Bloodworth, is included in the exhibition at the Brooks.
“This significant exhibit of Cloar’s paintings, marking the centenary of the artist’s birth, was the perfect fit for Boyle, which is celebrating 80 years of business in Memphis,” said Cameron Kitchin, director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. “Boyle’s real estate projects have transformed the local landscape and made a profound impact on the city’s footprint.”
Boyle’s history dates back to the founding of the city of Memphis. A Boyle family ancestor, John Overton, founded Memphis in 1819 in partnership with Andrew Jackson.
In the early 1900s, Edward Boyle developed the then considered stately Belvedere Boulevard, which is still one of Memphis’ highly dense residential areas.
Boyle Investment Co. was founded in 1933 by three of Boyle’s sons – Snowden Boyle, Charles Boyle and Bayard Boyle Sr. After World War II, the company, led by Bayard Boyle Sr., began buying land and developing it into residential subdivisions and shopping centers.
By the 1950s, the firm had become a full-service real estate investment operation, adding commercial and industrial properties and a long list of services including sales, leasing, management, construction, mortgage banking and insurance.
In the 1970s, Boyle accelerated the city’s growth eastward with one of Memphis’ first mixed-use office parks, Ridgeway Center.
In the 1980s, Boyle began development of Humphreys Center, a large-scale, mixed-use development that includes office, retail, medical and residential uses. That was followed by Boyle’s development of the 443-acre mixed-use Schilling Farms community in Collierville in the 1990s.
In 2001, partners Phil Fawcett and Jeff Haynes opened Boyle’s Nashville office, which has since expanded to 19 employees, two of whom, Mark Traylor and Thomas McDaniel, have joined Phil and Jeff as partners. This team oversees the development of several large-scale projects, including Meridian Cool Springs – a 60-acre mixed-use development in Franklin, Tenn., that offers more than 900,000 square feet of office space, 70,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and two hotels.
Boyle Nashville is also developing the 600-acre Berry Farms community in Franklin at the first Interstate 65 interchange north of Tenn. 840, where Phase I construction is under way.
Over the past several decades, Boyle has developed high-profile office projects in both the Memphis and Nashville markets including headquarters facilities for the Southeast Region of the U.S. Postal Service, Marsh USA, Raymond James, SunTrust, Thomas & Betts, Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp., Helena Chemical Co., Health Corp. of America, Community Health Systems, and Podiatry Insurance Corp. of America.
Boyle’s office team oversees the leasing and management of 2 million square feet of office space in Memphis, and Boyle Nashville leases and manages more than 1.2 million square feet of office space.
High-profile retail projects developed over the years include two national tenant big-box power centers in Texas: Preston Shepard Place in Plano and Southwest Crossing in Fort Worth.
Shopping centers in the Memphis region include the Shops of Forest Hill in Germantown anchored by Target; the Regalia specialty center in East Memphis with upscale tenants such as Oak Hall, Vineyard Vines and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse; Gallina Centro at Poplar Avenue and Houston Levee Road; and Southcrest Market in Southaven, anchored by Best Buy and Longhorn Steakhouse. Boyle also owns and manages several retail properties in Nashville.
Boyle’s industrial projects include the development of the 175-acre South Perkins Industrial Park, 154-acre Century Center Business Park, and light industrial facilities at the 443-acre Schilling Farms development.
Boyle also is known for its development of upscale residential communities including Farmington, several neighborhoods in River Oaks, Spring Creek Ranch, The Pinnacle of Germantown, Washington Gates, Green Shadows, Blue Heron, Southwind, Riveredge and Bedford Plantation, to name a few.
Boyle is in its third generation of family ownership and management. President Paul Boyle, grandson of the founder, leads the company. His father, Bayard Boyle Jr., and Henry Morgan are co-chairs. Henry Morgan Jr. and Bayard Morgan, also grandsons of Bayard Boyle Sr., are executive vice presidents.
“My father started with managing property for New York Life Insurance Co. and buying land and developing residential subdivisions and shopping centers,” Bayard Boyle Jr. said. “He had a remarkable ability to identify and acquire properties in areas that would become major growth corridors. We still stick to careful research and planning, whether it’s a residential subdivision, a shopping center, or an office building.”
Boyle has 31 people who have been with the company for more than 20 years. Bloodworth has been with Boyle for 44 years; Mark Halperin, chief operating officer and executive vice president, for 40 years; Joel Fulmer, senior vice president, for 41 years; and Cary Whitehead, executive vice president, for 18 years.
“We operate on the belief that properties are long-term investments that should be carefully planned, built and maintained, and that our people are by far our greatest asset,” Paul Boyle said.