The property remains one of the rare big, blank-slate properties still available in the construction spree overhauling what is the region’s longtime corporate headquarters hub, as seen on our interactive Williamson Watch map. The land borders Interstate 65 at the northbound offramp of exit 67, where more than 100,000 vehicles pass on the average day. The site is across McEwen Drive from developer Pat Emery‘s Franklin Park office campus and just down the road from the massive proposed Ovation mixed-use development, which could contain as much as 1.4 million square feet of competing office space.
The Franklin Summit land, at 1397 Huffines Ridge Drive, is owned by Franklin-based developer SouthStar LLC. Messages to principals Glenn Wilson and Glenn McGehee were not returned. SouthStar retained brokerage firm Avison Young to list the property ( see that listing here). The listing does not suggest a price.
More than a year ago, Wilson and McGehee unveiled supersized plans for the property that called for 800,000 square feet of office space they said would be ideal to land a corporate relocation. The roughly $250 million to $300 million of plans also called for a pair of hotels to be developed by Chattanooga-based Vision Hospitality Group.
The enormity of those plans echoes what SouthStar initially attempted to achieve with its half of the nearby Ovation property, where the company planned close to 1,000 residential units, a pair of hotels and almost 500,000 square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment venues. Last fall, Wilson and McGehee sold that land to Atlanta-based developer Thomas Enterprises Inc. at nearly five times the price SouthStar paid.
SouthStar’s traditional wheelhouse has been more along the lines of retail-only developments and medical office buildings, among other projects. Regarding Ovation, Wilson and McGehee have said the scale of that project ballooned to the point where it simply outstripped their firm’s ability to execute on that vision.
Wilson and McGehee assembled the Franklin Summit site through a few deals that occurred from mid-2013 to March 2014. They paid a total of $13.5 million, according to county records. In previous interviews, Wilson and McGehee said they were debt-free on the site.
SouthStar owns or is under contract to buy a total of 64 acres immediately south of Ovation and the Franklin Summit site, at the intersection of Carothers Parkway and Liberty Pike. On one of those properties, SouthStar is under construction on a Life Time Fitness facility and related retail development.
