By Lance Allan
– The Daily News –

It can be a competitive business, but for Memphis commercial real estate professionals, a little competition doesn’t stand in the way of working together.

With that thought in mind, the Memphis Area Association of Realtors formed the MAAR Commercial Council in an effort to unite the industry. The group, which officially began in January with 100 members, has come a long way in a short time, growing to its current 230 members.

“The association was formed to give better representation to a group of people who practice commercial real estate who had not had it before,” said Joel Fulmer, senior vice president of Boyle Investment Co. and president-elect of the council. “The commercial broker community does have special needs of its own. This organization was put together to recognize those needs.”

Next steps. The idea has caught on within the commercial real estate community.

“We are not at the point where the majority of commercial real estate firms have joined the organization,” said Melanie Blakeney, technology services director for MAAR and staff executive for the council. “It shows that there is a need for the council and some sort of collaborative effort between all of them. Now that we have them involved, we can see what else needs to be accomplished.”

New trend. By better organizing its commercial real estate industry, Memphis is keeping step with other areas of the country. Five years ago, there were only five commercial divisions associated with local real estate associations such as MAAR. Today, that number has grown to 44.

“Realtor associations equated to residential Realtor associations,” Blakeney said. “They just did not provide a lot of service to commercial brokers five years ago. It’s dramatically growing. And what we’re doing locally is paralleling what is happening on a national level.”

The National Association of Realtors has been a catalyst for growth in commercial divisions providing support and organizational advice.

Industry resource. MAAR CommLink an online database that will feature commercial properties for sale and for lease in Metro Memphis, will serve as a highlight for the council when it is launched this fall. The new resource will include a members-only site and a limited access public site.

“It will serve as a one-stop shop for not only all of the real estate brokers, but also the general public to look and see what space is available in Memphis.” Fulmer said. “If it takes off like what we think it’s going to, it’s going to be far and above the most comprehensive source of information that we’ve ever had.”

In a pool of council members on various issues respondents were receptive to the idea of a commercial information exchange.

“We surveyed our commercial practitioners here locally, and one of the really desirable survey results was that we needed a commercial information exchange.” Said Will Barden, principal broker with Barden Commercial Realty and chairman of the committee working to launch CommLink.

Providing a voice. A primary objective of the council is to provide a voice for commercial professionals to government entities.

Real estate organizations on the local, state and national level have always provided a lobbying voice for Realtors. But that history has focused primarily on residential real estate.

“In perception, I think there’s quite a bit of commercial representation, but it probably hasn’t been maybe as widely recognized as the residential side.” Barden said.

And now seemed like a good time to bring a more focused voice to the table. Blackeney added.

“We realized if a council is formed to represent commercial interest in the community, we’re a lot more likely to be effective regarding legislative issues on a local, state and national level.” Blakeney said. “We can better understand what the needs of the commercial brokers are, so in turn we can convey that to elected officials.”

The group has already gotten its feet wet.

“One of the first things we did was partner with the (Memphis Regional Chamber’s) group, the Commercial Alliance, to work with loosening proposed seismic code guidelines that would have had a devastating effect on new construction and retrofitting of commercial building,” Blackeney said. “We were able to at least get a stay on that so we can work to come up with guidelines that are more reasonable.”

Uniting the industry. Several resource organizations are available for Commercial Realtors, including professional associations such as the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and the Institute of Real Estate Management. But a local group that brought professionals together from all facets of the industry just didn’t exist prior to the Commercial Council.

“In all those groups, we have our own mission, but there was a lot of crossover and overplay.” Barden said. “So MAAR reached out and created this Commercial Council … I think we can collectively speak with a louder voice when we’re all mobilized and have the same goal.”

United industry leaders has been an important early success for the council.

“What is gratifying is because of the Commercial Alliance, we were able to bring some major new members into the overall MAAR membership and membership in the commercial group,” Fulmer said of firms such as CB Richard Ellis and Belz Enterprises. “Those were big key pieces to the overall puzzle that had been missing.”

Bringing commercial real estate professionals together has not only helped build a strong foundation for the group, but also has provided valuable information for its members.

“The council provides a place for all of us to meet, deliberate, kind of prioritize what the commercial Realtor’s needs are, and then to go about creating committees or lobbying people, or whatever it takes.” Barden said.

By Nick Patterson
– Southern Living Magazine –

This family leaves its footprint all around Memphis. You see and feel it everywhere, from beloved Belvedere Boulevard to Ridgeway Center and other trademark office complexes to the fine homes and offices at Schilling Farms, River Oaks, and The Cloisters.

And that same family makes just as big an impression inside its firm’s own corporate headquarters. Here, young people come for summer jobs; decades later, they’re still here.

“My dad encouraged me to work different places to see what I wanted to do,” recalls Henry Morgan, Sr., president of Boyle Investment Company and son-in-law of the founder. “I was still in college. I got a summer job here, and they asked me to come back. That was 40 years ago.”

That’s a story repeated with slight variations over and over again at Boyle. It’s a lesson in the loyalty inspired by a firm where even new employees can develop ideas and are allowed to make mistakes, learn from them, and grow.

“It’s the only job I’ve had other than odd jobs in high school and college,” says executive vice president Mark Halperin. “Boyle employs a unique group of men and women who treat each other with great respect and thoughtfulness.”

Not a bad commentary on the internal workings of a development company known for its long heritage in this iconic Mississippi River town.

Russell E. “Rusty” Bloodworth, Jr., now executive vice president, recalls meeting founder Bayard Boyle, Sr. for the first time. “I walked in off the street; I was about to go into the military,” Rusty recalls. “They took me up to meet him, and he was just so gracious. They didn’t have a spot for me, but they asked me what I could do. I said I would do anything they asked me to do. They said, ‘You’re on.’” The company held his position while he served in the Marines.

“We have tremendous freedom to do the things we have a passion for,” Rusty continues. “The company trusts us to do good for both Boyle and the community.”

Through the years, the firm has frequently hired people before establishing clear-cut responsibilities for them, Mark says. “But they were perceived as people who would fit into our culture,” he explains.

“There’s an interesting lack of second guessing,” he adds. As a young employee, he made an error that cost the company a lot of money. He soon was summoned to a meeting with the then-retired Bayard Senior. “He invited me in and wanted to hear about the mistake. I thought I was going to have an opportunity for a new career,” Mark says.

Instead, the company elder listened to the young man’s explanation. “He said, ‘I can sort of see how you made that mistake,’” Mark recalls. “He said, ‘Would you do me a big favor? Would you try not to make that mistake again?’ I’ve made lots of mistakes over the 35 years,” Mark says. “But I’ve never made that one again.”

The Boyle Company Beginnings: A Boyle family ancestor, John Overton, founded Memphis in 1819 with Andrew Jackson. In 1906, Edward Boyle designed and developed Belvedere, a neighborhood regularly considered as a Memphis favorite for its spacious, tree-lined promenade and elegant manor homes.

The modern firm, established in 1933, took shape under the direction of Bayard Boyle, Sr. The company grew into a major proponent of mixed-use development, including massive office complexes and upscale residential areas around the city. It also incorporated elements of New Urbanism in its design philosophy. A map of Memphis could show nearly 60 Boyle developments, ranging from retail to industrial. Recent years have seen the Boyles expand into Nashville as well as in Mississippi and elsewhere.

Bayard Sr. knew his way around a piece of land, says his son, company chairman Bayard Boyle, Jr. “He had a gift for figuring out where the best stuff was going to go,” the junior Boyle remembers.

By Alexei Smirnov
– Business Tennessee –

If there is a vacant street corner anywhere in Tennessee, it’s probably because developers and real estate brokers have been too busy with their current workload.

Look in each major, and minor, market across the state, and you’ll see plenty of activity.

In Cleveland, Bradley County (pop. 100,000 souls), the value of new building permits shot up from $15 million to $29 million between January and September.

A couple of hours to the northwest, in Nashville, a class A office space happens to be in short supply (due to a seemingly endless stream of corporate relocations). In other words, there is plenty of money to be made.

And the 101 business people listed here – the most influential movers and shakers in Tennessee commercial real estate – are doing a large percentage of the work behind major commercial developments in the Volunteer State.

They might even teach you, but they’ll have to charge.

Rusty Bloodworth • Executive Vice President of Boyle Investment Co. in Memphis Builds large-scale multi-use communities he calls “new towns.” Studied community development in Scandinavia where he got enamored with European ideas of New Urbanism. Bloodworth’s firm Boyle built Farmington, one of the earliest New Urban communities.

Mark Halperin • Executive Vice President of Boyle Investment Co. in Memphis At Boyle since 1973, Halperin is responsible for leasing and management of all office properties at Boyle Memphis, overseeing some two million square feet of class A space. Built and now manages Ridgeway Center, which spans nearly one million square feet.

Jeff Haynes • Chief Manager of Boyle Investment Co. in Nashville Oversees Boyle’s Nashville operations, where he came after 17 years at Trammell Crow Co. In charge of Boyle’s aggressive build-out and acquisitions in the Nashville area, including 40 acres near I-65 in Cool Springs and Meridian business park.

– Boyle Report –

“Boyle continues to maintain its bulk distribution presence in all areas of the city,” says Joel Fulmer, vice president of commercial and industrial real estate for Boyle Investment Company. Three signature buildings ranging from 102,000 to 120,000 square feet are complete and available for occupancy.

Johns Creek Business Center is located on the west side of Mendenhall north of Raines Road. The exterior of the 102,500-square-foot building resembles an 18th Century loft warehouse and provides an unusually attractive work environment. The two-story glass windows at each end of the building allow for mezzanined offices and save on floor area.

Also available is a 117,000-square-foot freestanding, multiple-occupancy warehouse building in South Perkins Industrial Park. Boyle manages and leases the building for the ACEE Company. Approximately 27,000 square feet of land are available at the rear of the building for additional storage or parking.

The Raines Distribution Center, located at 5585 East Raines Road, contains a total of 120,000 square feet and also is expandable by an additional 120,000 square feet. Up to seven acres are available for outside storage.

In addition, Boyle has been retained by the Defense Depot Redevelopment Agency  provide appraisal and consulting services in their acquisition of the six-million-square-foot surplus facility from the Department of Defense.

Plans also are underway for a 63,000-square-foot office service building and a 120,000-square-foot distribution facility at Schilling Farms in Collierville. The facility will have an attractive brick-and-glass exterior, extensive landscaping and a large parking lot that will accommodate 300 cars.

By Amos Maki
– The Commercial Appeal –

As senior vice president to Boyle Investment Co, Joel Fulmer has worked on some pretty complicated real estate transactions.

But the most recent deal takes the cake: Boyle sold a 535,000 square-foot warehouse occupied by Hunter Fan Co., in Byhalia, Miss., along with the lease on a 400,000 square foot addition to First Industrial Realty Trust Inc., one of the largest publicly traded real estate investment trusts in the county.

Terms of the deal were not released.

Chicago-based First Industrial which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FR, will also develop the addition.

First Industrial leases, develops, buys, sells and manages industrial facilities in the nation’s top 25 industrial markets. It has an office in Nashville.

Hunter Fan cut a 10-year lease on the 535,000 Square-foot facility, along with the 400,000 square-foot addition.

“Isn’t it fun when things work?” Fulmer said. “Because of the demands and special needs of so many involved parties, it was an extremely complex transaction. We were able to achieve a solution that satisfied everyone.”

The 535,000 square-foot facility in Byhalia was purchased by Boyle in 1997 from Memphis-based Thomas & Betts when Boyle developed a build-to-suit headquarters building for Thomas & Betts at Southwind.

Boyle leased the facility to Hunter Fan, which uses the building as its international distribution headquarters.

Founded in 1886 and based in Memphis, Hunter Fan is a leading ceiling Fan manufacturer. The company also manufactures high-performance air purifiers, low maintenance humidifiers, vaporizers, portable fans and energy-saving thermostats. Hunter Fan is owned by Lehman Brothers.

“Our effort here is to get it consolidated into one site so we can maximize efficiency,” said Hunter Fan CFO Dave Wangsness. “We think that is the most efficient way to run the operation.”

Fulmer and Wangsness said it was a deal that worked for everybody involved.

“Boyle was able to make a profit on the purchase of the original building, Hunter Fan Co., got the space it needed at an attractive rent rate and FIRT got a new investment property and a long-term, credit-worthy tenant,” Fulmer said.

Henry Morgan, president of Boyle, said the transaction was remarkable because of the number of moving parts involved.

Boyle worked with Hunter Fan to design the 400,000 square-foot addition, entered into the extended lease agreement and negotiated the sale of the entire package to FIRT. Robert Milner of Colliers Wilkinson Snowden was involved in the negotiation of the lease.

At one point or another in the process, more that 50 people visited the site and were in some way involved in the deal.

“This is one of the most complicated real estate transactions I have ever witnessed,” Morgan said. “It was a amazingly creative process. It is a textbook case for the real estate world.”

By Laure Johnson
– The Daily News –

Construction is set to begin this week on the first office building planned for Collierville’s Schilling Farms development.

Collierville Business Center, designed as a one-story, flexible-use facility, will contain 62,000 square feet of office and light industrial space, said Cary Whitehead, senior vice president of Boyle Investment Co., the project’s developer.

For construction of the project, Schilling Business Center LLC financed $4.9 million through First American National Bank, securing the loan with 6.5 acres of Schilling Boulevard East, according to a trust deed filed May 26 in the Shelby County Register’s Office.

The building is scheduled for completion in early 2000, Whitehead said, and will be expandable to 84,000 square feet.

Increased demand in the area for this type of project prompted its construction, Whitehead said.

“We think that, with the FedEx technology campus and the substantial growth that Collierville has experienced in the last 10 years, there is demand for high-finish office space,” he said. “We think it ought to be a big success.”

Located at 1125 Schilling Boulevard, the Business Center is the first office project planned for the Schilling Farms development, and it will serve as a transitional building between the development’s office and light industrial sections, said Gary Thompson, director of planning for Boyle.

Most of the business center’s office space will be concentrated in the front of the building, which will have a high-finish, brick and glass exterior.

Its warehouse-type space, which will have truck access and docking, will be toward the back.

“As you go around the boulevard, the topography rises up to a kind of ridgeline on the east side,” Thompson said. “What we’re trying to do is keep that appearance very ‘officey’ from the street.”

Over the crest of the hill is the Carrier facility, which marks the beginning of the development’s industrial sector.

“So, we’re trying to kind of use that building as an endcap to set the stage so that, toward the heart of the project, it’s very high-finish, and as you get around towards the back it’s more industrial, with truck access.”

The flex-style building can accommodate several different types of users, Thompson said.

“It will really depend on the user,” Thompson said. “If you have some type of user who has some kind of expensive equipment they keep in their service vehicles, they can have a garage and park that vehicle inside at night.

“Or, they could have warehouse type space with a truck dock.”

The center’s office space will be ideal for general office users, such as medical, technical or sales enterprises, Whitehead said.

No leases have yet been signed for space in the he building, he said.

Tenants must lease a minimum of 3,600 square feet. No lease rates have been set for the building, which was designed by The Crump Firm.

The general contractor for the project is Mid-America Construction Co., Inc.

The Collierville Business Center is the first of several office buildings planned for Schilling Farms, Whitehead said.

“There will be other office buildings in the development, but right now we don’t know when they will be built or how big they will be,” he said.

Schilling Farms, located on 443 acres of former farmland, is being transformed into a $350 million mixed-use development.

The development, located on the south side of West Poplar Avenue on the western edge of Collierville, eventually will include 1.5 million square feet of office space, as well as a significant amount of retail space, 90 acres of distribution space, 700 homes and 700 apartment units.

Work on the development will be completed in phases, and it is estimated the project will take 20 years to finish.

Office space will be located in the northwest quadrant of the development, with the distribution and light industrial in the northeast quadrant. Most of the residential areas will be south of Winchester Road.

A number of projects are under construction or in the planning stages, Thompson said.

“There is a ton of activity out there right now,” he said.

Projects underway in Schilling Farms include:

• Schilling Farms Middle School, which will accommodate up to 1,000 students in grades six, seven and eight, will be completed this summer. • Homes in The Neighborhood, located between the new middle school and Winchester Road, are now under construction. The subdivision has been chosen as the site for this year’s Vesta Home Show. • South of Winchester, construction of Sterling Square, Patton, Taylor & Ryan’s 75-lot residential subdivision of single-family detached homes and townhouses is expected to start later this month. • The Collierville YMCA, located just north of Winchester near the business center site, opened Saturday. • The Kid Tech Child Care Center, located southeast of the new YMCA, is now under construction. • Patton, Taylor & Ryan has started construction on a 324-unit apartment complex located just south of the YMCA.

Methodist Hospital recently purchased a 7.5 acre site for a new primary care facility, Thompson said. Two banks, the BankTennessee and National Bank of Commerce, also have plans to build in the development.