Real estate notes: Texas investor buys manufacturing plant

Also: Holrob still likes Hendersonville, bank signs on for Gulch space

Email | Print By Geert De Lombaerde

Crosland's Terrazzo tower

A Texas-based investment group has acquired the Nashville manufacturing operation of FlexSol Packaging Corp. for $5.3 million.

AIC Ventures already has leased back to FlexSol, for 15 years, the 120,000-square-foot facility on Visco Drive east of downtown. The plant serves as the product development hub for Florida-based FlexSol, whose four factories have the capacity to make 230 million pounds of packaging and plastic films a year.

AIC spokeswoman Monica Ghioc said the deal is the company’s first in Nashville. In addition to the Nashville plant, AIC also acquired and leased back a smaller FlexSol site in Statesville, N.C.

In all, AIC has funded almost 90 sale-leaseback deals with a total value topping $700 million since its inception, often focusing on mid-sized industrial buildings like FlexSol’s.

Holrob to build more retail up north

Developer/broker Holrob will soon begin adding to its Hendersonville holdings with the construction of a 15,000-square-foot retail center near the new Wal-Mart SuperCenter on booming Indian Lake Boulevard.

Holrob broker Elizabeth Davidson said the center will rise near the corner of Indian Lake and North Anderson Lane and sit on the edge of Wal-Mart's parking lot, fronting Indian Lake. It will end up housing about a dozen tenants and offer some units smaller than Holrob’s typical 1,600- to 2,400-square-foot spaces.

The project is slated to hit the market next spring and rent for between $24 and $25 per square foot.
Even though the Indian Lake corridor and other parts of Hendersonville have been served with hundreds of thousands square feet of new retail in recent years, Davidson said the market is still strong.

“We thought we would see a bit of a breather now, but there is still great demand there,” she said.
Overall, the retail market is holding up, Davidson added, although activity among local mom-and-pop operators has fallen off.

BB&T inks Terrazzo lease

North Carolina-based financial holding company BB&T has signed a lease for more than 7,000 square feet of space in the Terrazzo condo tower being built in the Gulch.

The country’s 14th-largest bank, which owns insurance agency Cooper, Love, Jackson, Thornton & Harwell, will take up 5,700 square feet for a retail branch and another 2,500 square feet for a wealth management office. Tennessee President Missy Wallen said the office in the Crosland development will enable her team to serve the downtown, midtown and Music Row markets efficiently.