LifeWay to build headquarters tower in North Gulch

Company selects Capitol View for home after selling CBD campus

LifeWay Christian Resources has signed a purchase agreement for 2.7 acres in Capitol View and on which it plans a 10-story headquarters building for a early 2018 move-in date.

Terms of Lifeway’s pending deal with Northwestern Mutual Real Estate were not disclosed in a release.

The building will sit on a site bordered by Clinton Street on the north, 11th Avenue on the east and Jo Johnston Avenue on the south (see an image by clicking on View Gallery within the above rendering).

Northwestern is teaming with the Nashville office of Boyle Investment Co. on the Capitol View development, which will feature multiple buildings on a 32-acre site North Gulch site fronting Charlotte Avenue and through which 11th Avenue runs (see here courtesy of Google Maps).

The announcement follows LifeWay’s sale of its central business campus for $125 million. The company, which had considered a building to be located on Rolling Mill Hill, will have about 1,100 employees working from the building.

Gresham Smith & Partners, based in Nashville, will serve as architect. A general contractor has need been announced.

“We are very excited about LifeWay’s opportunity to remain in downtown Nashville, only a few blocks from our historic location, and the prospect of building LifeWay’s new 250,000 square foot headquarters building in Capitol View,” Thom S. Rainer, LifeWay president and CEO, said in the release. “We are conducting our due diligence, and if all goes well, I am hopeful we will move into the new facility late next year, or in early 2018.”

According to The Tennessean, Metro is expected to commit $3.5 million to update the streetscrape infrastructure at the headquarters building. Also, Metro will create “community open space” connecting to the city’s downtown greenway system, the morning daily reports.

Mayor Megan Barry joined Rainer to announce LifeWay’s decision to remain in downtown Nashville, saying in the release, “I know that LifeWay had many options, and we are excited that they have chosen to remain a part of the fabric of Nashville. The Capitol View project, now with the important addition of LifeWay, will be a great economic boost for this neighborhood, and the proposed investments by Nashville in parks and infrastructure will make for a safer, more walkable community.”

Currently, Capitol View features only the under-construction building to house HCA’s Parallon Business Solutions and Sarah Cannon Research Institute offices. The aforementioned Gresham Smith & Partners has designed that tower, too.

Originally published in the Nashville Post

By William Williams