The Nashville Business Journal is reporting that the Midtown warehouse home to Chris-More Inc. on Church Street is under contract to real estate investor Ched Cooke. NBJ reports Cooke plans to redevelop the handsome vintage structure (seen below in an image courtesy of Google Streetview). Read more here.

Franklin-based developer Jim Creason is close to breaking ground on his high-end residential project Luxus Germantown, as a construction trailer and site fencing are in place on the site. In addition, Creason told the Post Monday he will move reservations to contracts by month's end and is considering multiple financing offers.

Luxus Germantown, “luxus” is German for “luxury”, will be an eight-unit "European-infused" row home development will anchor the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue North (one block north of Germantown Café) and Monroe Street.

Creason, who undertakes his infill projects as president of Trust Development, is known for incorporating major traditional exterior designs with his residential buildings. Examples include Fifth & Garfield, which is nearing completion, and The Clayton, on Sixth Avenue North. Both those projects are located in Salemtown.

Read more here.

The local office of Skanska USA Building Inc. has a secured a permit to demolish a small residential building on the Meharry Medical College campus. The razing, the cost for which has been priced at $20,000, will be the next step in Meharry’s efforts to redevelop the south portion of the campus with residential infill. Read more here.

Metro officials announced today the city will construct a $14 million ice rink in the parking lot of the former Hickory Hollow Mall. The announcement came during a groundbreaking ceremony for a library and community center set to be located at the northern corner of the Antioch retail space now known as The Global Mall at the Crossings.

The 86,000-square-foot, Metro-owned hockey center — on the left in the first rendering below — will be a two-story structure that holds two multi-purpose ice rinks, team rooms, meeting rooms and an observation mezzanine. The Nashville Predators will manage the facility, which will sit kitty-corner to the new library/community center space and adjacent to a park. Read more here.

In addition, the debt of the Metropolitan Sports Authority will be restructured with the realized savings from lower interest rates. The details of the financing plan will be released at the sports authority’s July 1 meeting.

Bottom image: Marcus Washington, NewsChannel 5

National real estate website Zillow released a study Thursday that showed inventory restraints eased nationwide in the first half of the year.

The Metro Nashville numbers followed the trend and were down 16.4 percent year-over-year earlier this month, a less severe crunch than the 21.2 percent shortfall recorded in January.

Inventory of for-sale homes on Zillow improved by 4.8 percentage points between January and June, making up for January’s shortfall, Zillow reported.

Overall, year-over-year inventory levels improved in June compared to January numbers in 70 metros and in the nation as a whole, according to the survey. The greatest declines in the inventory were among bottom-tier homes in Metro Nashville, which fell 21.3 percent year-over-year in June.

National foreclosure data company RealtyTrac reports that May foreclosures in Tennessee were 31 percent higher than the figure from the previous month and 21 percent lower than the number from the same time last year.

April home sales in the state rose 6 percent compared with the previous month's figure and were down 3 percent compared to the mark from April 2012, the company reported.

In May, the number of properties that received a foreclosure filing in Tennessee was 31 percent higher than the mark from the previous month and 21 percent lower than the figure from May 2012.

The median sales price of a non-distressed home in Tennessee was $115,900. The median sales price of a foreclosure home was $65,950, or 43 percent  lower than non-distressed home sales.