The Bank of Nashville has recruited two experienced lenders to help it build on a 2012 performance highlighted by 21 percent loan growth.

One of the areas the local division of Synovus Financial wants to build up is residential construction, which is poised to boom this year as builders who survived the housing bust look to rebound in earnest. To that end, The Bank of Nashville has lured Eric Parks away from Regions Financial to lead its residential construction division, focusing on Davidson, Williamson and Rutherford counties. Parks (on right in photo) is the son of veteran area developer and broker Bob Parks and had spent more than five years at Regions. He also has worked at SunTrust and the former GreenBank, among others.

"The timing of this is excellent," said Buzz Carter, director of commercial banking at The Bank of Nashville. "Very few of our competitors are deliberately getting back into that line of business."

Bringing on Parks dovetails with The Bank of Nashville's hiring last fall of a team of mortgage lenders who had been at Fifth Third Bank. It also comes after a year in which the inventory of available residential properties fell by 16 percent to just over 15,000, according to the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors.

Also coming on board is Senior Vice President Dale Royse, who is focusing on core business loans. Royse came to Nashville more than a decade ago with the former SouthTrust and subsequently has worked at Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and Red Mountain Bank out of Alabama, whose Brentwood office was acquired in mid-2010 by Clarksville-based Legends Bank. He has experience both in C&I lending as well as commercial real estate. Carter said Royse "has hit the ground running."

"There's so little loan growth out there that you have to take from others," Carter said. "The competition for talent is so tough, so for us to bring on these two guys is a real coup."

The Bank of Nashville runs 10 branches in the region and employs about 100 people. As of June 30, it controlled about $360 million in deposits across the MSA, ranking it 16th. Carter said the organization performed particularly well last year in treasury sales and private client service, where it ranked tops among Synovus' affiliates.