Collierville Leaders Celebrate Opening of Office Building: Helena Chemical a Major Tenant at Schilling Blvd. Site

By Daniel Connolly of The Commercial Appeal

A two-story office building at 255 Schilling Boulevard was the center of attention Thursday as Collierville leaders held a ribbon-cutting for one of the suburb’s latest developments, a project that leaders say is an example of the type of project they want.

Helena Chemical, a long-standing Collierville-based maker of fertilizer and other agricultural products, has its company headquarters just a few feet from the new building and is renting the top floor of the new structure for its southern business unit, which has outgrown its space. A total of 25,000 square feet on the ground floor of the new building is available for other renters, said Les Binkley, vice president of Boyle Investment Company, which constructed the project.

Boyle hopes to rent the remaining space to law firms, real estate agents or other professionals.

Helena Chemical is receiving local tax breaks on its own property at the site, said John Duncan, Collierville’s director of economic development.

The new building is the type of high-quality office space that Collierville wants, Duncan said, adding that he’s trying to recruit more corporate headquarters, regional offices and similar business units to the town.

“So corporate campus office development is our No. 1 economic development priority,” Duncan said. “This fits perfectly into our strategy.”

Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner Jr. had a similar view.

“I think it really puts the town of Collierville on the map for corporate headquarters and future businesses that come along,” he said.

A few feet from the new building, construction workers were moving around on a steel skeleton structure. This will become a 9,000-square-foot retail space, hopefully with restaurant options, Binkley said. And construction is wrapping up on an 125-unit apartment complex just across the parking lot from the new building.

Binkley envisioned a place where office workers could work, eat, shop and live all in the same neighborhood.