August 03, 2015

Boyle Investment Bulks Up Meridian

By
– Nashville Business Journal –

Boyle Investment Company is bulking up its mixed-use Meridian Cool Springs development, adding a three-story office building and Williamson County’s firs banking branch for BB&T Corp.

The 67,710-square-foot building will be a twin to Boyle’s 2555 Meridian Blvd. building, which is already 87% occupied.

Boyle declined to give development cost for the new building at 2550 Meridian Blvd., but Franklin city building permits show the company put at least $1.1 million into 2555 Meridian and its suites.

Nearby, BB&T will open in 2008, says Randy Drake, area executive for Middle Tennessee. BB&T, the nation’s 12th largest bank, entered the Middle Tennessee market three years ago with a commercial banking branch in Murfreesboro and opened its first retail branch in the Green Hills area this year.

Memphis based Boyle also plans to add Noshville, Boscos, Nucci’s Italian Ice & Gelato, as well as other eateries, to the eastern entrance of the 40-acre development. Total cost of the development will be about $175 million.

Jeff Haynes, chief manager for Boyle in Nashville, says it is possible that Meridian will see a steakhouse, such as Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, at one or both of the freestanding retail outlets at the gateway of the development.

The building Boyle is adding to Meridian is speculative and Haynes declined to name prospective tenants.

Tom Frye, director of CB Richard Ellis of Nashville, says filling it shouldn’t be hard given the hot pace of businesses snapping up Cool Springs office space. In the first half of the year, 265,000 square feet of office space between Brentwood and Cool Springs was absorbed – 67 percent of the total net absorption in all of Middle Tennessee.

CB Richard Ellis sold Boyle the land for Meridian in 2001 – when Franklin officials pushed for office space with retail support.

Haynes says the 2555 Meridian building filled fast, with Microsoft Corp. moving into the third floor, and Community Health Systems Inc. taking an additional 8,000 square feet after its merger with Triad Hospitals, Inc.

Community Health was one of the first to move into Meridian Cool Springs. It occupies its 175,000-square-foot headquarters at 4000 Meridian Boulevard.

Haynes says the mixed-use development is getting queries from prospective tenants, some through the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

The retail outlets allow the 6,000 daytime workers walkable access to lunch, dinner, and hotels. Haynes says that’s a dramatic change from competing Maryland Farms of Brentwood, which is so spread out and congested.

“It’s more of a lifestyle,” says Haynes.