By Adam Sichko – Senior Reporter, Nashville Business Journal
Longtime Nashville real estate developer Alex Palmer has a deal in place to sell his most prized asset: West End Summit, his excavated city block development site in Midtown.
According to multiple sources, an out-of-state group is under contract to purchase the 3.9-acre site at 1600 West End Ave., where Broadway and West End fork. Palmer, founder and CEO of Alex S. Palmer & Co., has pursued a mixed-use development on the property for at least the past 15 years, to no avail. The beleaguered property has laid dormant for nearly the past five years, holding water for so long that the algorithms behind Google Maps show a standing body of water at the site. The inactivity has been conspicuous in context of Nashville's widespread development boom.
Palmer has steadily sold other assets, including his 18-story Palmer Plaza office building near West End Summit, in order to keep his quest alive. As we exclusively reported, Palmer launched a new push to spark action at the end of last year. On his behalf, executives with global real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (NYSE: JLL) solicited a select number of developers and presented them with several options — including buying the property.
According to sources, the group under contract has finished its due diligence period, a common window in which a buyer can scrutinize and research a property. That information can allow the buyer to attempt to renegotiate pieces of the deal, or sometimes, even walk away. The end of that time period means the group now cannot recoup its earnest money, funds that are customarily given as a sign of good faith to complete the deal.
Those are two key checkpoints that make the sale of West End Summit closer to becoming a reality. That said, it doesn't rule out the chance that the buyer could drop its contract — it just means that if that happened, Palmer would keep that earnest money.
Two sources said the point person on the buyer's side is based in Birmingham, Ala. More information about the buyer, and the contract price, was not immediately clear on March 12.
Calls to Palmer were not returned. In September 2017, his most recent interview with the NBJ, Palmer provided the following outlook: "It will happen. I have been working on this full-time for 15 years. We’ve had some bad luck. That happens, you just have to move on. We’re working diligently."
Alex Palmer
Palmer came closest to a breakthrough in 2012, when subsidiaries of hospital giant HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA) signed leases for office space that would hold some 2,000 workers. Palmer resumed blasting and excavation at the site, but stopped that work in mid-2013 as he worked to shore up financing. HCA ultimately pulled out and moved to the Capitol View development at 1100 Charlotte Ave.
In fall 2016, Palmer renewed his efforts to recruit investment partners and described his latest vision: 325 residential units, a four-star hotel with 250 rooms, and also an office building containing 360,000 square feet — which would be among the largest office buildings in Midtown. All told, the project would cost well in excess of $300 million to develop.
Although Palmer has strived to preserve some kind of role for his company in whatever project would occur, it's not yet clear if he will succeed in that effort.
In February, the Nashville office of commercial real estate company Foundry Commercial announced that it had hired Palmer's longtime right-hand man, Rick Frazier.