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Investing in Industrial: Supply & Demand, Leasing Activity, Site-Selection and More

From the latest acquisitions to the newest players, how Nashville is planning for an influx of demand and vacancies, loans and finances, site selection, leasing activity and more.

Dusten Estes

Dusten Estes

Senior Vice President

Stonemont Financial Group

Mia Keller

Mia Keller

Vice President, Development

The Pizzuti Companies

Patrick Poole

Patrick Poole

VP, Nashville Market Leader

Al. Neyer

Ward Pickens
Moderator

Ward Pickens

Associate

Holland & Knight LLP

Dusten Estes

Senior Vice President

Stonemont Financial Group

Dusten Estes serves as Senior Vice President of Originations and National Director of Business

Development for Stonemont Financial Group. He joined Stonemont in 2016 and has taken on a

variety of roles and responsibilities during his time at the firm.

Mr. Estes has been heavily involved in the capital raising and development side of the business,

and has played an integral part in the phenomenal growth that Stonemont has experienced over

the last 7 years. He is primarily focused on deal origination for industrial development and helps

lead the national originations team through managing high-profile tenant relationships, working

to identify sites and executing agreements for tenants’ national development ventures. While at

Stonemont, he has originated over $1 billion in build-to-suit and speculative industrial

development projects.

Mr. Estes began his real estate career in the residential development business, where he oversaw

and managed the construction and development of over 600 single-family homes as a

construction manager. He then spent several years in site selection and development for retail

restaurants, and has franchised and owned over a dozen restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.

Additionally, Mr. Estes successfully repurposed 400,000 square feet of flex industrial buildings

in the Northeast U.S. into indoor trampoline parks during his time as owner and founder of Flight

Trampoline Parks, which he sold in 2015.

Mr. Estes and his wife currently reside in Alpharetta, GA with their four children.

Mia Keller

Vice President, Development

The Pizzuti Companies

Mia leads the development of all industrial, multifamily, and mixed-use projects in the Nashville market. Her responsibilities include site selection, contract negotiations, project due diligence, governmental approvals, and predevelopment budgets for land closing. Mia has completed $690 million in transactions in her career and is exclusively focused on growing Pizzuti’s presence in the Nashville market across multiple product types.

Patrick Poole

VP, Nashville Market Leader

Al. Neyer

Patrick leads Al. Neyer’s expanding presence in Middle Tennessee. As the Nashville Market Leader, he is responsible for site acquisitions, oversight of our projects through the entire development process, as well as serving our tenants, investment partners, and design-build construction clients. Patrick’s strategic perspective as a real estate attorney adept in the negotiation of purchase agreements and joint ventures, matched with his strong entrepreneurial drive and commitment to client service, make him a crucial asset to the company.

Ward Pickens

Moderator

Holland & Knight LLP

Ward Pickens is a real estate attorney in Holland & Knight's Nashville office. He assists real estate development companies, REITs, real estate owners, banks and other real estate lenders with transactional matters ranging from the acquisition of real property and development financing to leasing and the disposition of commercial property.

Analyzing Nashville's Industrial Development Pipeline

Learn Nashville's latest development strategies, tenant demand, design trends, and other opportunities.

Melissa Alexander

Melissa Alexander

Partner

Foundry Commercial

Ken Erickson

Ken Erickson

CDO

CA South

Shea Hopkins

Shea Hopkins

VP of Industrial Development

Clarksville-Montgomery Co. IDB

Brett Garrett

Brett Garrett

President

ARCO/Murray

Philip Head
Moderator

Philip Head

Partner

Holland & Knight LLP

Melissa Alexander

Partner

Foundry Commercial

Melissa Alexander, SIOR serves as Senior Vice President for Foundry Commercial. Considered one of the foremost industrial

brokers in Nashville, she leads the Foundry Industrial Brokerage team in her hometown of Nashville, TN. Melissa has more

than 16 years of real estate experience focusing on the leasing, sale and development of industrial properties in Tennessee as

well as across the US.

Melissa got her start in industrial in Memphis, TN where she previously served as Principal of the Cushman & Wakefield

(C&W) affiliate there. She served as the only female partner and only female broker in the firm.

Melissa has a strong business presence locally and online. She is consistently named one of the top Commercial Real Estate

Influencers to follow on Twitter and LinkedIn. In 2018, she launched #CREchat with colleague, Casey Flannery. The monthly

chat hosts Commercial Real Estate thought leaders from across the US and has garnered participation and praise from CRE

professionals, organizations such as CREW, SIOR, Bisnow and CoStar as two women bringing change and innovation to the

industry. The chats have since evolved into a podcast called CREchat Live. Melissa regularly serves as a speaker/panelist for

national conferences and media outlets such as GlobeSt.com, Bisnow, Nashville Business Journal, Arco Murray’s Women in

Construction, CREI, Drastic Summit and Counselors of Real Estate.

Outside of work, you will find Melissa hanging out by a fire pit, watching sports or traveling with her husband, John, and their

two children.

Ken Erickson

CDO

CA South

With more than 20 years of diverse, national experience in real estate acquisition and development, Ken Erickson serves as Chief Development Officer for CA South. With the ability to construct and facilitate cohesive teams, evaluate, and provide sound real estate development judgement, interface with public agencies, and liaise with key stakeholders, Ken is responsible for all things development related.

Ken has had a distinguished career in both the private and public sectors, most recently as Vice President at the publicly traded REIT Brixmor Property Group. Ken attained the office of Managing Director of a national real estate development platform with InSite Real Estate; and has served as Senior Director of Development with the national hotel and water park entity Great Wolf Resorts.

Ken holds several certifications and licenses including Project Management Professional (PMP), Professional Geologist (PG), a licensed real estate agent, and acted as Keynote Speaker for an international audience on the future of sustainable tourism.

Brett Garrett

President

ARCO/Murray

Brett has over 14 years of experience in the construction industry and focuses particularly on delivering projects via the design-build methodology. He established ARCO/Murray’s Nashville office in 2017 to better serve clients in Middle Tennessee and has managed the completion of millions of SF of warehouse and distribution space in the region to date.

Philip Head

Moderator

Holland & Knight LLP

Focused on booming multifamily real estate sector

Real estate private equity funds, syndicators, developers, investors, and owner-operators involved in the multifamily real estate sector rely on Philip Head for counsel in transactional matters. Negotiating the complex joint ventures and multi-tiered ownership structures necessary for sophisticated acquisition and financing vehicles, Philip has closed apartment acquisitions, dispositions, and re-financings with an aggregate value in excess of $9.5 billion.

Philip has guided borrowers through the intricacies of financing multifamily properties through the:

Freddie Mac Seller Services Program

Fannie Mae Delegated Underwriting and Servicing product line

HUD/FHA insurance program

In addition to his multifamily experience, Philip assists developers, owners, and tenants in the development and leasing of stand-alone and multi-tenant office, industrial, retail, and healthcare properties.

Remarks from the Mayor's Office

John Cooper
Keynote

John Cooper

Mayor

The City of Nashville

LaTanya Channel

LaTanya Channel

Director of Economic Growth and Small Business Dev.

City of Nashville

John Cooper

Mayor

The City of Nashville

John Cooper is the ninth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and

Davidson County.

Since taking office in 2019, he has achieved some historic results for residents –

including making Nashville’s teachers the best-paid in Tennessee.

The financial turnaround Mayor Cooper helped engineer has enabled record

neighborhood investments in schools, transportation, and parks.

Meanwhile, Oracle Corporation is investing $1.2 billion and creating 8,500 jobs in

Nashville; the economic development project is unrivaled in the state’s history.

After adopting a Metro Transportation Plan for the first time, Nashville now has a local

Department of Transportation, dedicated entirely to pedestrian safety, neighborhood

infrastructure improvements, and better traffic management.

The city has more than tripled its affordable housing resources, including a first-ever

Metro Housing Division.

Nashville is co-leading a private-public partnership to construct 100 megawatts of local,

utility-scale solar power. Meanwhile, the mayor’s latest capital spending plan creates

60-plus acres of public green space– including a city park in one of the last districts that

still has none.

John Cooper served as an At-Large Member of Metro Council from 2015 to 2019.

He brings more than 30 years of business and financial experience in retail, banking,

and real estate to his leadership. He is the founder of The Heritage at Brentwood, a

large, continuing-care senior living community, and Happy ReTales, a volunteer-

directed, pet products retail store where all profits benefit animal rescue.

Mayor Cooper holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s

degree in business from Vanderbilt University.

He was born in Nashville and raised in Shelbyville.

He and his wife, former Constitutional law professor Laura Fitzgerald Cooper, have

three teenage sons and three dogs. They attend Christ Church Cathedral.

What You'll Learn

  • How are developers and builders keeping up with high demand while still attracting tenants into these facilities? What are the current tenants’ needs and wants?

  • Site selection: Are there certain neighborhoods in Nashville getting more attention for industrial hubs than others? 

  • What types of material, technology and other innovations are being implemented into new industrial projects? What does this mean for the region's labor force if we implement more of this technology?

  • How is Nashville incentivizing construction workers, contractors and infrastructure workers? Are there certain initiatives or programs being put in place to help increase labor?

  • How does Nashville's industrial market compare to other southeast regions? What are the areas that the city can improve on?

How You'll Do More Business: How is the Nashville market keeping up with the latest supply and demand? In 2022 Q3, the region's industrial market had over 7 MSF under construction with about 5.5 MSF of positive absorption rate (Avison Young Nashville industrial real estate market reports). As we continue to see more demand than supply within this sector, developers, builders, and investors are needed to get creative on attracting tenants within the area. Join us as we discuss the latest developments, investments, innovations, warehouse types and more!

Who You’ll Meet: Top industrial owners and developers, investors, tenants and thought-leaders in the Greater Nashville industrial space.

Projects, Activity, and Achievements 

Foundry Commercial's Creekside Logistics: a 370,900-square-foot light industrial campus

Clarksville-Montgomery County: LG Chem's $3.2 billion cathode manufacturing plant in Clarksville, creating new jobs and growth opportunities for the county

Al Neyer raises $200 million fund to develop class A industrial projects in the Nashville market totaling $900 million

Stonemont Commerce Park 840: a 1.4-million-square-foot, two-building, 157-acre industrial park in the Nashville submarket

For questions, recommendations, comments, press inquiries, or interest in sponsoring, please email our Mid-Atlantic Event Producer, Katie Telder, at katie.telder@bisnow.com

Announcing Elevate: Bisnow's Executive Retreat Series is coming to Nashville. Elevate will bring together up-and-coming leaders across CRE on August 16 & 17 at the 1 Hotel Nashville. Learn more about the event and apply to attend here: bisnowelevate.com

Venue

Sonesta Nashville Airport
600 Marriott Drive
Nashville, TN 37214

Ballroom: Cumberland Ballroom


On-site parking $7

Get Directions

Agenda

Time Activity
1:00 PM
2:00 PM
Registration, Networking, and Breakfast
2:00 PM
2:05 PM
Opening Remarks with Mayor Cooper
2:05 PM
2:50 PM
Investing in Industrial: Supply & Demand, Leasing Activity, Site-Selection and More

From the latest acquisitions to the newest players, how Nashville is planning for an influx of demand and vacancies, loans and finances, site selection, leasing activity and more.

2:50 PM
3:00 PM
Networking Break!
3:00 PM
3:45 PM
Analyzing Nashville's Industrial Development Pipeline

Learn Nashville's latest development strategies, tenant demand, design trends, and other opportunities.

3:45 PM
3:50 PM
Closing Remarks with the City of Nashville's LaTanya Channel
3:50 PM
4:00 PM
Closing Networking

Sponsors