Jackson needs more than just retail - offices and residential also

Latest 'instant city' rises
Hendersonville development aspires to be next Cool Springs, and more
By CHAS SISK • Staff Writer • February 24, 2008

A tide of people travels Sumner County's Vietnam Veterans Boulevard — as many as 44,000 cars on an average workday — bound for jobs elsewhere in Middle Tennessee.

Those cars carry away not only people, but also money and time that could be spent in Hendersonville, says Don Long, the city's economic development chief. It's a daily exodus that prevents his community from reaching its potential, he believes.


"For years we've been a bedroom community," he said. "Now we're going to be a standalone city in our own right."

Like many in Hendersonville, Long has high expectations for the city's latest project, a 400-acre development of offices, shops and apartments called Indian Lake Village. The project stretching two miles along Vietnam Veterans Boulevard's southern side will officially open early next month.

With the project, Hendersonville becomes Middle Tennessee's latest entrant into the contest to lure corporate offices and white-collar jobs to suburban locations, joining Franklin's Cool Springs and Murfreesboro's Gateway project.

But with a design that is modeled on a town square, lead developer Halo Properties hopes it can create an environment that is far more pedestrian-friendly than Indian Lake Village's predecessors. Their plans include an on-site public library, parks, apartments, even space for a future commuter rail station.

"What Halo is doing is more of a town center, with work and play," said Wood Caldwell, a principal with Southeast Venture, a Nashville-based real estate firm. "Nobody was talking about that stuff when we did Cool Springs."

Grabbing the lifestyle
Indian Lake Village is the latest — and so far, the largest — example of a new concept in retail and office development.

Dubbed a "lifestyle center," the project attempts to create a small, self-contained city, where people can walk to offices, shops, apartments and recreational areas without cranking an ignition key. The goal is to create an area that is active around the clock, not just during business hours.

The concept is quickly growing in popularity nationwide, but so far, it's largely untested in Middle Tennessee.

Elements of a lifestyle center have popped up in the small Hill Center at Green Hills and the gigantic Avenue Murfreesboro and Nashville West shopping centers. Developers also have included lifestyle centers in their proposals to revive the Bellevue Center mall and to create a new commercial district in Bells Bend.

But no project so far has incorporated offices and residential units to the extent of Indian Lake Village, said David Baker, a principal in the Nashville retail real estate consultancy Baker Storey McDonald.

"It's taking urban design and moving it to the suburbs,"said Baker, whose firm has
been retained to help market the project.

'Like an outdoor mall'
Plans for Indian Lake Village call for building 1.5 million square feet of retail space, making it larger than the CoolSprings Galleria shopping mall.

The first stores will open March 5 in a section of the project built by Columbus, Ohio-based Continental Real Estate Cos. called the Streets of Indian Lake. Major tenants include Barnes & Noble, J. Jill, Victoria's Secret and Regal Cinema — the kind of places more likely to be found in a shopping mall than a big-box shopping center.

1st office building is open
Already open is Indian Lake Village's first office building, a three-story, 50,000-square-foot building just south of the retail section. Halo is receiving about $20 a square foot for office space in its development, above average for the Nashville area, but about 10 percent to 40 percent less than new office buildings in Cool Springs and Brentwood.

One engineering firm, R.W. Beck Inc., moved into that building in January, and a second, OptiMech LLC, has signed a lease to move into the building this spring.

The development also includes 1,000 residential units. The first of those will be built by St. Louis-based MLP Investments, which plans to start construction on 300 apartments later this year.

"It's an area where you can come and go to a restaurant, go to a movie and shop in small bursts," Baker said. "Office space drives the daytime population, while apartment residents are the nighttime population."

Tax revenue to soar
The city of Hendersonville expects Indian Lake Village to generate $2.8 million in sales tax revenue in its first year, a 40 percent increase over last year's collections. That money is now lost to shopping malls and retail centers in Davidson and Williamson counties, Long said.

But increased tax revenues are the least of the city's hopes for the development. The project's ultimate purpose is to create a lively commercial district that eventually draws corporate offices, much as CoolSprings Galleria has helped spark a boom in white-collar jobs and expensive housing in northern Williamson County.

Plans for Indian Lake Village call for as much as 2 million square feet of office space, 40 times more than stands there now.

"This is the thing we're lacking," said Randy Hoffman, a Halo partner. "This affords us an opportunity to become a more diverse community."

So far, both of Indian Lake Village's first office tenants moved from relatively nearby — from Goodlettsville in the case of R.W. Beck and from elsewhere in Hendersonville in the case of OptiMech.

Like countless Cool Springs companies, executives from both firms said it was the access to restaurants and other amenities, as well as proximity to employee housing, that led them to choose Indian Lake Village over other sites in Middle Tennessee.

"Everybody has made the drive to Nashville and Franklin before," said Arch Hatfield, OptiMech's president. "This makes for better family life, really, and it helps for recruitment, too."

Chas Sisk can be reached at 259-8283 or csisk@tennessean.com.

Pictures from the February 5th tornado

Top Ten Reasons to Shop Local

10. Local stores are more likely to carry locally produced foods which supports local agriculture.

9. Local business owners contribute to more local fundraising and 501(c)3’s.

8. Local businesses provide a majority of jobs.

7. Local businesses support other local businesses.

6. The business community becomes reflective of this community’s unique culture.

5. The sales taxes I pay support this community and county: fixing my roads, maintaining my recreational facilities, . . .

4. Competition and diversity result in fair prices and more choices.

3. Shopping local reduces my carbon footprint.

2. Local business owners invest in the community and have a vested interest in the future of this community.

1. My hometown is more important than a cheap pair of underwear!

Jackson 10th in murder and 13th in violent crime

This is ridiculous.

What are we going to do about it? The citizens of Jackson must stand up and do something about this. There aren't enough police to stop crime. Citizens must get involved and not accept crime. Period.

Gary Austin appears on Inc.5000 list

Wow - one of our own does good:

http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2007/company-profile.html?id=200736820

Physicians Quality Care

Jennifer Hoppers was kind enough to comment on the healthcare clinic being built near Quizno's on Pleasant Plains Extended. She sent me a link to their website which had the picture. The website is here: http://www.physiciansqualitycare.com/

Tennessee is the place you oughta be!

Top 10 states ranked by total population change (July 2005 to July 2006)

Texas 579,275
Florida 321,697
California 303,402
Georgia 231,388
Arizona 213,311
North Carolina 184,046
Washington 103,899
Colorado 90,082
Nevada 83,228
Tennessee 83,058

Top 10 states ranked by domestic in-migration (July 2005 to July 2006)

Texas 218,745
Florida 165,757
Arizona 129,987
Georgia 120,953
North Carolina 104,133
Nevada 53,105
Tennessee 50,383
South Carolina 47,950
Washington 43,089
Oregon 34,332

Bottom 10 states ranked by total population change (July 2005 to July 2006)

Connecticut 4,108
Massachusetts 3,826
Maine 3,354
Mississippi 2,044
Vermont 1,521
North Dakota 1,262
Michigan -5,190
Rhode Island -5,969
New York -9,538
Louisiana -219,563

Bottom 10 states ranked by total domestic out-migration (July 2005 to July 2006)

Connecticut -16,944
Maryland -25,610
Ohio -48,153
Massachusetts -49,528
Michigan -65,123
Illinois -68,661
New Jersey -72,547
New York -225,766
Louisiana -241,201
California -287,684

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

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