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Eakin locks down another Nashville office-building site

One of Nashville's most prolific office developers has snagged another development site — a deal he struck as he prepares to buy another downtown property.


An investment fund overseen by John Eakin, chairman and co-founder of Eakin Partners, paid $2.65 million for a parking lot in an office park near the Nashville Zoo, just south of Interstate 440.


Eakin's purchase happened to be revealed in public records just the day before the previously scheduled Oct. 31 closing of another parking lot. This one sits at the doorstep of SoBro, adjacent to the Trolley Barns development whose tenants include Pinewood Social and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Eakin is under contract to pay $9.4 million for a 2.8-acre property, where he plans a nine-story office building that is part of a broader mixed-use development surrounding the Trolley Barns.


Eakin Partners owns 1.6 million square feet of office buildings in Greater Nashville. By our research, that's second only to Raleigh-based giant Highwoods Properties Inc. (NYSE: HIW), which owns more than 4 million square feet.


"[We] love this convenient location," Eakin wrote in an email. His company owns four buildings in the Grassmere office park by the zoo.


Eakin said he expects to build a 63,000-square-foot office building. Construction of the three-story building would begin in 2019, after a lease with T-Mobile expires. Employees of that company's call center across the street park on the 3.5-acre surface lot. Eakin said the property already is zoned for the project he envisions.


Eakin bought the property from Houston-based The Richland Cos., at a price 25 percent higher than what that company paid a decade ago.


Public records show Eakin bought the site through his Fund III, which he has said involves "all local businesspeople in Nashville." Eakin is tapping the same fund (and also the money of billionaire Gaylon Lawrence) for the equity for his proposed $90 million Trolley Barns office building.