August 25, 2017

Exclusive: Tenant unveiled to join Pinnacle in Boyle’s $20M East Memphis project

Memphis Business Journal

Boyle Investment Co.’s $20 million East Memphis development now officially has a second tenant.

Strategic Financial Partners is set to move into about 13,000 square feet of Boyle’s 949 Shady Grove project, which is currently under construction, the first week of November.

Strategic president Russ VanderSteeg said he’s excited about the chance to create a more collaborative, modern working environment in the new building, which will be anchored by Pinnacle Financial Partners.

“This particular move for us is very, very exciting, as it is really a total remake of what we’ve been,” VanderSteeg said. “We’re trying to become much more appealing to the millennials. … We’re heavily invested in recruiting new talent to the organization.”

As a part of this effort, VanderSteeg said his company, which has operated in Memphis since 1933, is hoping to drive more collaboration in the new space by installing significantly more open workspaces.

Since 2003, Strategic Financial has been located at 795 Ridge Lake Blvd., which is owned by Embassy Properties, an LLC that Joe Steffner, Newmark Knight Frank’s senior vice president and regional managing director, is the registered agent for. But before then, the firm had been a Boyle tenant for more than 20 years.

“We had relationships with a lot of these guys for decades,” said Boyle senior vice president Kathy Pampuro. “We’re just glad to have them back.”

VanderSteeg said he was quite excited when Boyle announced the 949 project and that the firm’s relationship with the “outstanding landlord” was a strong pull toward locating in it.

Strategic Financial, which is affiliated with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual), will have options to increase its space in 949 if the company continues its growth, said VanderSteeg.

Recently, the company created a Wealth Strategies division and hired longtime financial planning lawyer Patrick Crowley to run it.

“[Crowley’s hire] allows us to offer quicker, more efficient [complex estate planning] solutions to our clients,” VanderSteeg said. “It will help position us to where we believe the whole financial services industry is going — a lot of compression on commissions and fees and being much more advisory and advice-oriented.”

Jacob Steimer covers CRE, manufacturing, finance and nonprofits for MBJ.