Schilling Farms Center Nearly Quarter Booked

By Jerome Obemark
– The Commercial Appeal –

Schilling Farms Business Center in Collierville has leased almost one-fourth of its space to two office tenants, said Joel Fulmer, senior vice president of Boyle Investment Co.

The 62,000 square foot, one-story building is the first speculatively built office/office-showroom building in the 443-acre Schilling Farms mixed use community, he said.

“We have active interest from other prospective tenants, and we expect to start a 20,000 square foot expansion of the building when it is 50 percent leased,” Fulmer said.

Thyssen-Dover Elevator Co. has leased 11,712 square feet of space for the company’s headquarters for North American manufacturing of the Thyssen Elevator Group, said Terry Day, controller.

The Thyssen-Dover office includes the executives group, centralized purchasing, sales support and accounting functions. It has about 36 employees, and most of them moved from the Horn Lake office, Day said.

The company’s manufacturing plant in Horn Lake closed more than two years ago and shifted the manufacturing work to plants in Middleton, Tennessee and Walnut, Mississippi. Horn Lake still has about 400 employees in support functions, including research engineering, sales support, human resources and payroll, Day said.

Thyssen Industries AG, a German-based company, acquired Dover Corp’s elevator business in January 1999.

Also, Physiotherapy Associates, a provider of outpatient physical therapy services, has leased 3,696 square feet in the building for a clinic.

Physiotherapy Associated has Memphis headquarters offices in Southwind Executive Suites at 3250 Players Club Parkway, Fulmer said.

The office-office-showroom building has large glass windows in front. In the rear, it has dock-high doors and drive-in doors. It is designed to be flexible to serve multiple tenant types including those with storage and showroom needs as well as office needs. It also can accommodate a call center, Fulmer said.