HealthSpring Completes MetroCenter Campus

We’re excited to announce today the on-time completion of the second phase of HealthSpring’s new MetroCenter campus located at 500 and 530 Great Circle Road in Nashville.

HealthSpring MetroCenter Site Plan

The two office buildings, totaling 175,000 square-feet, serve as the primary location for more than 1,050 of HealthSpring’s 3,600 employees, with future capacity for 1,260 employees. Prior to the completion of the new campus, which conveniently accommodates operations in one location, year-over-year growth had spread HealthSpring’s MetroCenter operations across three different buildings.

“The new building provides a light-filled, welcoming space that enhances productivity, allowing our valued employees to work comfortably as they serve the needs of our customers,” said Herb Fritch, president of HealthSpring. “The increased space has already contributed to job creation and we hope it continues to allow HealthSpring to support the growth of the local economy and the healthcare industry.”

HealthSpring has made more than 260 local hires since the first phase of the campus opened in August 2011. Additionally, building the site contributed to several construction-related jobs.

“Building each of the two offices employed approximately 125 people in the field in construction and other building-related jobs,” said Dean Taylor, Jr., owner of T.W. Frierson Contractor, Inc. “Additionally, every job in the field supported two jobs in the offices and shops of the contracted firms working on the project.”

The facility was developed and is owned by Southeast Venture and our co-investment partners. Southeast Venture’s in-house design services group served as architect and interior design firm for the project, and our property management arm will handle all day-to-day aspects of the property’s long-term operation and maintenance.

Integral partners in the HealthSpring development included T.W. Frierson Contractor, Inc. and Harvest Construction Company.

The project was constructed on 21.10 acres on Great Circle Road overlooking Amulet Lake. The one-story facility is located on a campus with ample green space and a 997-space parking area. The two U-shaped buildings mirror each other, with a connecting courtyard in between that serves as an inviting public space where employees can gather for events, lunch or meetings.

Phase II Ribbon Cutting – May 14, 2012

Highlights of the HealthSpring campus include:

• Expansive wrap-around windows to provide ample natural light for all employees, not just those in offices, as in most office buildings
• Landscaped outdoor courtyard with sunken seating
• Multiple dining areas with café-like atmosphere
• Shared business amenities, such as training rooms and conference rooms, grouped in the center of each building, creating a ‘town center’ for the office ‘neighborhood’

With the HealthSpring building complete, just 53 acres of undeveloped land remain in MetroCenter, which is less than 10 percent of the business park’s total usable land of approximately 650 acres.

Nashville CRE Week in Review: Week of March 4

Nashville CRE Links

1. Congresswoman Black’s company buys MetroCenter building for $8.75 million (link)
2. Demand, prices climbing for suburban apartments — Nashville Business Journal (link)
3. Real estate notes: Black buys big — Nashville Post (link)
4. Rep. Diane Black’s husband buys office building for $8.7M — Tennessean (link)
5. Simon Property takes full Opry Mills ownership — Nashville Post (link)

Market Conditions 2011 — MetroCenter

Deliveries, Absorption & Vacancy

Vacant Space

Quoted Rental Rates

Office Breakdown

Next week: Rivergate/Hendersonville

Also in this series: Green Hills, Downtown, Cool Springs, Brentwood, Airport North & South

Welcome Lee White as our new Property Manager

Join us in welcoming Lee White to Southeast Venture. Lee recently joined the firm as a property manager.

He will handle the day-to-day operations of over 400,000 square feet of office and industrial space located in Brentwood, LaVergne, Antioch and the Nashville submarkets of Belle Meade, MetroCenter, the Gulch and the airport.

Lee comes to Southeast Venture from Cassidy Turley, where as assistant property manager, he aided in the supervision of multiple portfolios, consisting of over 2,000,000 square feet of office, retail and industrial properties.

He also worked as a tenant field researcher at the Costar Group, where he collected information on commercial tenancy in office, industrial and retail spaces for 12 counties in Middle Tennessee.

In 2008, Lee received a bachelor’s in construction management and land development from Mississippi State University. While in college, he completed two internships with Southeast Venture, first as a brokerage assistant and then as a development project manager.

He is a licensed affiliate broker in the state of Tennessee.

Welcome Lee!

Nashville Office Market 2011

Over the next couple weeks we will be posting some statistics and submarket breakdowns about the Nashville area office market.

Nashville’s overall office market has continued to strengthen in 2011.  The market ended the first quarter of 2011 with a vacancy rate dropping to 10.2% from 10.6% at the end of 2010, as companies continue to take space off the market and appear to have better visibility going forward.

Some of the more notable transactions were Jackson National Life Insurance moving into 154,737 square feet at One Greenway Centre; Griffin Technology moving into 40,000 square feet at 700 Benton Ave; and Sherrard & Roe moving into 29,947 square feet at The Pinnacle at Symphony Place.

HealthSpring continued their growth and consolidation in MetroCenter, recently signing on for an additional 75,000 square feet to bring the total to 175,000 square feet for the two phase project developed by Southeast Venture.

Two buildings were delivered to the overall Nashville market in the first quarter totaling 58,000 square feet, with 424,667 square feet still under construction.

Stay turned next week for Nashville’s Total Office Market Statistics.

HealthSpring Phase II Underway

HealthSpring MetroCenter Site Plan

We are pleased to announce that HealthSpring, a leading Medicare Advantage plan, has executed a lease for Phase II of its MetroCenter office campus.

The 75,000-square-feet, one-story building at 530 Great Circle Road will be built under the terms of the existing long-term commitment HealthSpring signed in 2010, and is where the company plans to consolidate employees from two of the three buildings the company currently occupies in MetroCenter. We broke ground on Phase I of development in last September.

Phases I and II of the project total 175,000-square-feet of office space and 997 parking spaces. The development sits on 21.10 acres overlooking Amulet Lake.

Phase II construction will be designed for general office use. The building will be a mirror image of Phase I. A connecting courtyard between the two buildings will serve as an inviting public space where employees can gather for lunch and meetings.

Phase I of development is slated to be complete in July, with Phase II construction completing May 2012. Once finished, less than 50 acres of MetroCenter’s 650 total usable acreage will remain undeveloped.

With the completion of this project, we will have developed approximately 450,000-square-feet of office space in MetroCenter within the last six years.

A Little History To Cap Our 30 Years

In addition to sharing pictures from our 30^th Anniversary Party, we wanted to share some history of our company from over the past 30 years.

Dick Sorenson, a seasoned real estate developer from Atlanta, and George Volkert, a local real estate professional and Georgia Tech football star, established Southeast Venture in 1981.

The company is led today by seven principals: Todd Alexander, Wood Caldwell, Michael Finucane, Randy Parham, Paul Plummer, Cam Sorenson and Axson West. Wood, Paul, Cam and Axson have been with Southeast Venture for over 20 years.

Southeast Venture has grown with Nashville. And like Nashville, we’ve been fortunate to enjoy times of economic expansion and learned how to be resourceful during down times. Though no one wants to experience a recession—and in our history we’ve been through three—the lessons we’ve learned during the down times have made us a better, stronger company. It taught us how to turn obstacles into opportunities.

The firm’s story was born in 1981 when a banker called George and asked him and Dick to solve a problem. Perimeter Park, then under construction, had run into some difficulties and the bank needed someone to fix it. So Perimeter Park became the company’s first project. We handled the leasing, property management and landscaping, and turned a struggling property into a success.

The founding principals were also among the first to see the potential in Williamson County. As development partners with Gary Baker and the late Gerry Ezell, Southeast Venture led the project to create what is now Cool Springs. Southeast Venture handled master planning, rezoning, assembly of the land and approval of the Cool Springs interchange.

Dick Sorenson, Paul Plummer, Wood Caldwell, Cam Sorenson, Todd Alexander, Randy Parham, Axson West, Michael Finucane

Construction on the Cool Springs interchange was well underway when the bank financing the project went under, forcing Southeast Venture to relinquish control. But George and Dick’s dream stayed alive, and today Cool Springs is one of the most successful mixed use developments in the south.

In 1991, Southeast Venture added third-party brokerage to its repertoire, and completed its first major third-party project with Sam Moore a year later, brokering the development of Royal Park Business Center.

Other Southeast Venture third-party projects include: Lakeview Regional Medical Center in St. Tammanny Parish Louisiana, Indian Lake, Stewarts Ferry, a major U.S. Postal facility in Royal Park, Central Woodwork Office and Distribution Center in Memphis and Mallory Park, an office park on the former “flagpole property” in Brentwood.

Southeast Venture’s brokerage arm has grown from two to 15 brokers. In April 2011, the company added brokers Finucane and Alexander to its ownership team. This was only the third time in 30 years that Southeast Venture has added partners.

Our Brokerage Dept.: Axson West, Jon Petty, Jimmy Pickel, Tarek El Gammal, J.T. Martin, Todd Alexander, John Cavin, Gilbert Smith, Alan Treadway, Michael Finucane

The second time was in 1998 when a merger with Metro Center Inc. brought in Randy as a principal and added his broad background and talent in lease management. Over the last five years, Southeast Venture has developed 390,000-square feet in MetroCenter.

Southeast Venture also works closely with HG Hill Realty Company, the largest private property owner in Middle Tennessee. Providing brokerage and design services, Southeast Venture’s projects with HG Hill include BMW/Mini Cooper of Nashville, Gateway at Armory Oaks, Armory Hill Corporate Office Center, Hill Center in Green Hills and the Hill Center in Belle Meade.

If you were to ask what’s Southeast Venture’s stamp, what sets us apart, I’d have to say our track record and leadership that is well known and respected in Nashville. We know the local market, care about the local landscape and have been a part of greater Nashville business community for the last three decades.

The Southeast Venture Team

HealthSpring Groundbreaking

Trumpet fanfare and sounds of excavation punctuated HealthSpring’s MetroCenter groundbreaking Monday, Nov. 1, which celebrated the construction of HealthSpring’s new office building that will be developed and owned by Southeast Venture and its co-investment partners.

The widely attended event featured comments from Mayor Karl Dean, who highlighted the roughly 300 jobs the construction will bring to Nashville.

The 98,352-square-foot building will house HealthSpring employees from two of the three buildings the company currently occupies. When construction is complete, just 53 acres of undeveloped land will remain in MetroCenter, which is less than 10 percent of the business park’s total usable land.

The event’s media coverage speaks for itself. Check out the video from Channel 5, or read the great story in this week’s edition of Nashville Today (Search Headlines: HealthSpring breaks ground on new MetroCenter complex)

The groundbreaking was also mentioned in Chamber Chief Economic Development Officer Janet Miller’s blog, the Nashville Post’s business blog and on the Business Journal’s Web site.

Left to Right: Ralph Schulz, Shawn Morris, Mayor Karl Dean, Mike Mirt and Cam Sorenson

Shot of the crowd

Trumpet fanfare!

HeatlthSpring plans Multi-million Dollar Expansion

Read all about this incredible deal (which was brokered by Southeast Venture) in the Nashville Business Journal.

MetroCenter Fared Well During Flood

Nashville experienced the worst flooding in memory last month. All around the city, businesses and homes thought to be safe from flooding were damaged. MetroCenter sits on the banks of the Cumberland River. It survived the flood undamaged thanks to a system built into the site to handle flood waters.

The recent flood event represented the worst condition that has tested MetroCenter’s flood protection system. The river quickly rose higher than the lake, ultimately cresting at record levels, preventing the lake from being able to drain into the river. We also had a record rainfall event in a 48-hour period. What happened to MetroCenter? The levee around MetroCenter worked. It did not leak at any point. Water did not flow over it at any point. Officials from storm water management and independent consultants engaged by them checked the levee every day during the May 2010 flood. At no time did the river threaten to spill over the levee next to the river.

An inspection of the levee on May 12, 2010 showed that the river never got closer than approximately 5 feet from the top of the levee.
No sandbags were placed on the levee. A short, low wall of sandbags (about 60’ long by 3’ high) was placed under an overpass on I-65 to the south of MetroCenter (not on the levee) as a precaution. However, flood waters never reached the sandbags. This was done to prevent water that was backing up into the property on the South side of I-65 from flowing under the overpass.

The retention ponds and canals in MetroCenter worked as they are designed to work. Water levels in the retention ponds and canals in MetroCenter did rise – as they are designed to do when it rains – as these ponds and canals collect the rainwater than falls in MetroCenter. No water from the Cumberland River overflowed into these retention ponds and canals. We estimate that the water level reached somewhere between elevation 403 and 404, collecting on MetroCenter streets in a few places where there was a low spot in the street for drainage. Again, this was rainwater that fell in the MetroCenter storm water basin, not water from the Cumberland River.

No building was flooded. No water – neither rainwater from the retention ponds and canals, nor river water from the Cumberland – entered any building at MetroCenter at any time. Some water seeped through the earth berm supporting I-65. However, it was easily
handled by the drainage system.