Cool Springs site with Pickering property to get $500M project

Highwoods Properties plans to develop up to 1.3 million square feet of office space on land it has acquired in Cool Springs.

Last December, the Raleigh, N.C.-based real estate investment trust purchased 68 acres of what was known as the Pickering property. SouthStar LLC, a local development and investment company, took possession of the other 77 acres.

The companies have agreed to jointly develop a $500 million project on the property along McEwen Drive and Carothers Parkway, just southeast of the Nissan headquarters. Highwoods will act as master developer of the overall infrastructure and build the office space, which is to be three times larger than the office space in Nissan’s HQ. SouthStar will develop retail space at the corner of its portion of the property, plus a little bit of office space, a hotel and residential projects, including single-family homes and apartments.

Highwoods is now back in the development business in Cool Springs, where it previously developed nearly one million square feet of office space before running out of land there. “It’s one of the best submarkets in the Southeastern United States,” said Brian Reames, a senior vice president with Highwoods and regional manager of its Nashville division. “We’re working closely with the city (Franklin) and staff to develop a mutually beneficial plan.”

Glenn Wilson, CEO of SouthStar, said design work is under way for the mixed-use project on the 145 acres, that prior to its sale, was dubbed the largest untouched tract of family-owned real estate in Franklin’s I-65 corridor.

One plan is to keep a large portion of the property as green space, Reames said.

Highwoods has focused on developing office space in areas with more mixed-use retail amenities that are desired by its tenants and their workers, Reames said. The 937,000 square feet of office space Highwoods developed and still owns and manages in Cool Springs is 93 percent occupied.

Elsewhere in the Nashville area, Highwoods is completing a new headquarters for the LifePoint hospital chain and 45,000 square feet of retail space at its Seven Springs development in south Davidson County. Last year, Highwoods exited Nashville’s airport submarket by selling its portfolio of five office buildings.

“It was part of an ongoing strategic plan to deploy capital in the best submarkets,” Reames said. “Cool Springs fits the bill for redeploying some of that capital.”