March 15, 2018

Fast-growing company moves HQ, 124 new jobs from Nashville to Brentwood

Soon after gaining new owners, a fast-growing health care company is decamping Nashville for Brentwood — moving its headquarters there and committing to add 124 new jobs.

SpecialtyCare Inc. and state officials announced the move and expansion on Thursday. Next month, SpecialtyCare will consolidate several local offices, including its head office on West End Avenue, into a 40,000-square-foot space in Brentwood’s Maryland Farms office park.

SpecialtyCare outsources its clinicians for operating room procedures in more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems in the U.S., according to the company. Last fall, members of company management paired with a New York private-equity firm to buy the company. SpecialtyCare projected its revenue to hit $340 million last year, a 17 percent increase in just one year.

SpecialtyCare is negotiating for jobs incentives from the state Department of Economic and Community Development. Grant contracts have not yet been signed, said a department spokeswoman; state law shields incentives information from becoming public until that point. It appears SpecialtyCare also is receiving incentives from the Tennessee Valley Authority, as indicated by a quote from a TVA executive in Thursday’s announcement.

SpecialtyCare’s move kicks off a new chapter for Eastpark, a trio of buildings within Maryland Farms owned by Boyle Investment Co. and Nashville’s Ayers Asset Management, which is the private real estate portfolio of Jim Ayers, chairman and majority shareholder of FirstBank (NYSE: FBK).

Together, the trio of buildings contain about 195,000 square feet of office space. About 75 percent of that space is available to lease, after accounting for SpecialtyCare and a few other small leases, said Thomas McDaniel, who is Boyle’s lead office broker in Middle Tennessee. Boyle, based in Memphis, is one of this region’s largest developers.

Boyle and Ayers are investing $12 million in renovations and upgrades to overhaul Eastpark, from the guts of the building and new facades all the way down to the lawn sprinklers. In its office, SpecialtyCare is creating a simulated operating room and investing in touchscreen technology as part of its move.

For most of the past 20 years, HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA) had occupied almost all of the space in the three Eastpark buildings combined, McDaniel said. By April 1, HCA will have vacated that space and shifted all its employees to offices at the former Brentwood campus of AIG (NYSE: AIG), property that HCA purchased in 2014.

“[Eastpark] wasn’t outward looking; it was really dominated by HCA. Although it’s at a Main-and-Main location in Brentwood, most people who pass through Brentwood never had any reason to step on the campus,” McDaniel said. “We’re reopening that prime intersection.”

Marketing efforts are underway to attract more tenants to the property. One of the three buildings, containing about 33,000 square feet, is being pitched as a chance for one company to occupy the entire space and have building signage, McDaniel said.

“A lot of people are looking for that kind of product: They want Brentwood and a high parking ratio, but they don’t want to pay brand-new-building rents, which have really jumped,” McDaniel said.