ATLBrain

Who says First Tennessee needs more space?

I seem to remember reading about a traffic plan several years ago. It had something like access roads between St. Thomas Hospital and the Woodmont/White Bridge intersection with Harding Rd., and either 1 or two smaller bridges over a pass-thru Harding Rd.. The bridge(s) would extend from the BM Town Center to the H.G. Hill SC. I think!!! Anyone else have the scoop?

I assume that a crane or other large equipment has not yet been parked at the future location of the Manning, but I know from the maps where it will go. So look at the very first picture above and imagine you're standing exactly where the photog stood to take that pic. Now look beyond the building under construction (BM Court) and across the street where that 1980's faux-colonial brick building is. When the Manning gets started, I'm pretty sure you will be able to see the crane above that 1980's building across the street from the Belle Meade Court. I'm not 100% sure, but at least 80% sure. At 10-stories tall, the Manning should be visible from that vantage point. Now that I look at the photos again, I'd expect the Manning to be more visible in the second photo than in the first b/c the first is taken so close to the BM Court.

Wow! Thanks. So the Manning will be going across the street, the background in the first pic, right?

Producer, your info sounds very experienced. Are you involved in the CC project? Or in possible development of adjacent/nearby parcels?

Great pics. Thanks. So what's that weird canopy like thing being erected behind Harrison Square? I have to say that there looks like a lot of urban infill is going on up there. Looks good. I like the same view, Dave. If Westin is built, will that view be obstructed? It really is a great location for a hotel, now that I see/think about it.

Any pics, guys? Hope it was a good meet-up.

Welcome to the Nashville forum, although I'm not a resident of Music City myself. Where did you move from?

In the second to last pic, is Griffin Plaza going up on the parcel to the left? Also, will the Eakin/Hensler twin towers go up right behind where you stood to take that pic?

Yikes! Now that is garish. Of course, I'm 37 and NOT part of their target demo. Also, thanks, Chris for all the great pics. I don't get to see much of the Nash these days (except through these types of pics).

Very few will be so sensitive to the rate cuts in that target demo.

So what and where is that last photo?

This one sounds very similar to that proposed for Nashville... http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=jwmarr...polis-in-usa556 This one has residential (on top?). You know, the more I see of Indy, the more I think Nashville could learn from its example. Seems like a relatively nice city. And also (a proposal for Indy), on the top end of my estimate, at 44 floors and aprox. 1000 rooms (no pic)... http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=conven...anapolis-in-usa So it looks like I would award the design contrac to HKS, LOL. Now that's settled, you guys get going on this. OK?

Or even better... Pickard Chilton or HKS! Ahhhh.... take a gander at this: http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=projec...lasvegas-nv-usa Of course, it has more than 3000 rooms!

Three acres behind the Hall of Fame? Really? It looks like much less than that, more like 1-1.5 acres. I really have no clue, but I'll go through the exercise. Somewhere between 33 and 42 stories depending on how much of that 1-1.5 acre is used. Let's just say 50,000 sf for the sake of simplifying. How many rooms would you say are possible on half that footprint, 25-30 rooms per floor? So putting that towards 1000 rooms, you'd need something like 33-40 floors on top of the base which would have to accommodate some degree of lobby and parking, let's say 2-3 levels as it presumably wouldn't need a lot of floors for banquet rooms. So you'd have something like a 35-43 story building, somewhere between 400' and 500'. OK, so how'd i do? Or you could look at other cities that have built a CC hotel with 1000 rooms and see what shape that took. I just hope that Nashville does not hire Portman, Rabun or Swenssen to design it. Wonder if Hastings does hotels, or Tuck-Hinton towers. It really would be neat to see a cool, semi-circular modern tower with lots of glass rise 600' or so on that side of Nashville's downtown.

I thought I had read on this board that the sites that have frontage on Gateway (or whatever the H$LL they're calling it these days) had a much taller height permission. I thought it was Michael Hayes who stated that... if not, then apologies, Michael. I'm pretty sure it someone on this board who is in development. Maybe they would have some input here as to how tall a 1000 key hotel is likely to be in that vicinity.

Also, did anyone who attended this meeting get any sense that the participants in the decision making are yet aware of the differences in the designs of convention centers? In other words, the exteriors of the Phila and DC centers are much more visually appealing than, say, the GWCC, NO and Dallas centers. Not surprisingly, much of the difference lies in the use of prestressed concrete vs. other materials that lend themselves to more detail and openness to the streets/surroundings. I think much of that has to do with their respective locations and the eras when they were built/expanded. My question may be a bit premature as concept drawings apparently have not yet been proffered.

Producer, does it make any sense for Nashville to acquire "more land than they need" at an obviously greater initial cost in order to control the surrounding land? As such, they could lease that property in the form of parking structures and retail space for X years (20-30), thus maintaining some level of control over future expansion. For example, that property across 8th Avenue looks like it might be conducive to future expansion.

Ah, yes. Thanks. Turner... Turner... Turner... why didn't I remember that? They're all over the place here in Atlanta.

Yes, the Novare projects are very similar. I have seen all of them in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Nashville, and I'd have to agree that Viridian is a little nicer looking than the rest. Unfortunately, it's too close (IMO) to the L&C tower next to it. You can tell that I'm partial to a sliver design. Regarding Giarratana's experience, I gather from this eternal thread that his expertise exists in the deal-making a'la Trump. I don't think he is a project manager (per se), and that's why he (and Novare) have relied heavily on their construction PMs on their projects. He has had issues with the former general contractor (I don't recall if it was Bovis, but it was a big player) that he had retained for Signature, and they parted ways. If I'm correct, he has not replaced them. I think there is a lot of doubt from people on whether or not he can pull together a project this size. In my opinion, if he had deeper experience this project would have already been started. To borrow a phrase, I think he bit-off more than he could chew. At this point, I'm afraid its shelf life has expired. Others on this board are more optimistic. We can only wait a while longer to know if this one ever happens.

It was a joint project with both developers, as was Encore. They also had a proposal for the Polar Cold Storage parcel downtown at Charlotte and 11th in the North Gulch. As I understand things, he has sold his interest in that property to Novare, who still plans to develop it into a multi-building project sometime in the future. Giarratana, meanwhile, said he needed to focus on the projects he already has in various phases of development (i.e. Signature, Encore, and two buildings in Belle Meade). I believe he also owns some other parking facilities downtown as well.

I think your questions are spot-on. As far as I can tell, nobody (at least here on this forum) knows the depths of foreign (buyers) demand in Nashville (or for that matter in Atlanta, or even NYC). Relating to Nashville, Signature may have a potential pool of demand from overseas. As I mentioned above, I'm not optimistic that Giarratana will find many buyers from abroad. Of course, currency exchanges favor foriegn buyers looking for a good deal in real estate in the USA. I also expect (don't know for sure) that foreigners would want to seek those deals in vacation or leasure properties. However, it appears that urban areas (non leisure per-se) are attracting foreigners for other reasons (business, second home, and yes, even investments). I say investments because there has been a coincident depressing of R-E values in most markets as noted above among many other sources (i.e. People would be buying for the long term investment). Having said this, I don't think Signature will find a lot of buyers from abroad. I just don't know of any real draws for foreigners to Nashville along the lines I've noted above. I don't want to get too far away from Richard Lawson's very good point that there may be foreign capital that sees investment in a Nashville hotel (aka Palomar) as sound. Who knows?

I don't know much about the South Florida market. Back to Signature, my point is that a market may exist for foreign buyers. While I thought I made the clear distinction between individual (foreign) buyers and lenders, who knows if Mr. Giarratana has turned to foreign lenders? And the term I used was buyers, as distinguished from investors (Read, speculators). Although, I'm not optimistic that much foreign demand exists for this particular building, Richard has made the correct point that foreigners are buying property in major American cities. On the point about "investors/speculators" WRT Signature, I would be very surprised to see much flipping there even if it gets to the construction phase. I believe this for several reasons, not the least of which is the high price and slow initial demand. Is this an obvious reflection of a slowdown in the Nashville (DT) market? Who knows, as there hasn't been a project with units this expensive in Nashville heretofore. If I'm correct, it appears that Mr. Giarratana can't rely on a significant "pop" from a "land rush" to get units (a'la Viridian, Icon).

Let me know when property stops depreciating. Obviously, nobody knows where that point is, and the only way you or I have of knowing is through lagging data. That's why it's called investing risk capital. Your point is taken, but you can't argue that foreign investors are NOT buying real estate in the USA.

This is the one point where I would disagree with you. With real estate on the downslide, the devalued dollar makes property very attractive to foreigners. Of course, I'm making a distinction between foreigner buyers and lenders. Nevertheless, Atlanta has seen a significant bump in the number of foreign buyers. Mayber Mr. Giarratana should advert in the Financial Times/ToL/International World Herald, etc. You get the idea. LOL