Enlarge Photo

Davidson County Property Assessor

United Methodist Publishing House bought this MetroCenter building, and related property, on July 11 for $9.25 million. The transaction allows the publishing house to move from its current downtown location, which is under contract to Turnberry Associates.

Adam Sichko

Senior Reporter- Nashville Business Journal

Email  |  @NSHBIZSichko  |  LinkedIn

A new property sale clears the way for developer Turnberry Associates to bring a 450-room hotel, 250 condos and upscale restaurants to a site across from Nashville’s convention center.

On Friday, the United Methodist Publishing House paid $9.25 million for buildings in MetroCenter, just north of downtown.

According to the property deed, the seller was Lake Front Office Park LLC. Investors in the entity included the estate of Bud Adams, the deceased former owner of the Tennessee Titans football team, and Corner Partnership, comprised of three longtime Nashville real estate developers and investors.

That transaction was the first domino that had to fall in order for Turnberry to pursue its project — which is set to be built on the current home for the United Methodist Publishing House, at 201 Eighth Ave. South.

Turnberry is under contract for that site, but couldn’t close until the publishing house found and moved to a new headquarters.

Turnberry is majority owner of two downtown Nashville hotels, Union Station and the Hilton. The company’s hospitality division is run by lifelong Nashville resident Ray Waters, who previously ran those two hotels before being promoted to Turnberry’s Miami headquarters last year.

When I spoke with Waters last week, he declined to disclose what Turnberry will pay for the publishing house site. “They’re right where they need to be in the process, and we are right where we need to be, too,” Waters said.

Lately, there’s been a lot of attention paid to the deficit of full-service hotels close by to the Music City Center, which opened last April.

Nashville convention officials have said 16 conventions — representing some 90,000 room nights — have bypassed Nashville for that very reason.

Turnberry’s hotel would help close that gap. So would a Westin proposed nearby. If all stays on track, that hotel would open in 2017 with 430 rooms.

Adam covers commercial real estate and manufacturin

Enlarge Photo

Nikoncharly

Harvesting hemp.

Brandon Gee

Contributing Editor- Nashville Business Journal

Email

The Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s proposed rules for hemp farming include plenty of red tape.

Under the proposal, farers would have to obtain a $500 license, be subjected to random testing of THC levels (to ensure trace amounts compared to marijuana) and provide GPS coordinates for their fields, Nashville Public Radio reports.

State Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) told the station that strict rules were necessary to open Tennessee’s’ doors to industrial hemp, but that he hopes there will be fewer hoops to jump through in the future. Farmers wishing to grow hemp can submit applications to the state later this year to begin growing in 2015.

This article was found here please visit the http://www.bizjournals.com a great online news website.

Jun 17, 2014, 6:59am CDT

 

Brandon Gee

Contributing Editor- Nashville Business Journal

Email

Hendersonville’s Lewis B. James bought a Music Row office building and recording studio for $1 million.

James bought the 6,800-square-foot, three-story building from Fischer Enterprises LLC of Oklahoma, The Tennessean reports. It is located at 1204 17th Ave. South. James is not revealing his plans for the building, which houses the Safford Motley law firm, Little Louder Music and The Velvet Room.

Want Nashville news in your inbox? Click here to sign up for our email newsletters.

This article was found here please visit the http://www.bizjournals.com a great online news website.

Enlarge Photo

egdigital

Eric Snyder

Managing Editor- Nashville Business Journal

This story may not help your road rage.

A new analysis out this week from TomTom shows that Nashville’s traffic congestion is among the worst in the Western Hemisphere.

According to TomTom’s report, which uses anonymous data from its GPS devices, Nashville is the 33rd most-congested city in the Western Hemisphere, and the 23rd most-congested city in the U.S.

The report, TomTom’s Annual Traffic Index, compared travel times during non-congested hours with travel times during peak hours in 2013.

The most-congested cities in the Western Hemisphere are all international, with Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, coming in at No. 1, followed by Mexico City and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In the U.S., Los Angeles is the most congested city, coming in at No. 4 on TomTom’s list.

In Nashville, the study found the delay per hour driven in peak period is 26 minutes, and that drivers with a 30-minute commute are spending an average of 69 hours struck in traffic each year. According to TomTom, the most congested day in Nashville last year was March 29. On a weekly basis, Tuesday is Nashville’s worst day for congestion. Surprisingly, the report finds that Fridays are the least congested in Nashville.

When it comes to Nashville’s peer cities, only Austin has worse congestion, coming in at No. 16 in the U.S., according to the report.

This article was found here please visit the http://www.bizjournals.com a great online news website.