With Parmenter Realty Partners now fully underway with the excavation efforts on its below-grade parking garage to accommodate Nashville City Center (read more here and here), some locals continue to wonder if the Miami-based commercial real estate company might soon announce plans for a tower to rise on top of the garage.

“We don’t have any immediate plans to develop on top of the parking structure,” Michael Holmes, chief operating officer for the company’s Southeast Region, said when contacted via phone. “But it is designed to accommodate a 25-story structure that could be either office or multi-family.”

Holmes' “multi-family” reference is interesting for three reasons: 1. Parmenter’s website reveals a portfolio of exclusively office buildings; 2. Previous local media reports have mentioned a hypothetical office tower but not a hypothetical residential tower; and 3. A person with knowledge of the garage project recently told the Post (without speaking in certainties or predictions) a residential tower might prove successful.

This is not to say Parmenter will soon be announcing the next Viridian or Adelicia (in fact, no movement on a tower is far more likely), but it is worth noting.
 

Parmenter Realty, the owner of the Nashville City Center, has teamed up with Gresham Smith & Partners and R.C. Mathews Contractor to start work on the 475-space underground parking garage adjacent to the downtown office tower. Work on the five-story project is expected to wrap up late next year. The street-level plaza near Sixth Avenue North and Union Street also will look a little different by then.

BB&T officials on Monday said their Grandbridge Real Estate Capital division recently brokered a deal to help fund the construction of the 475-spot parking garage being built next to the Nashville City Center by Parmenter Realty. Miami-based Parmenter last year committed to build the underground garage — it could eventually have up to 25 stories built on top of it — to help convince law firm Waller to renew its City Center lease. The terms of the deal handled by Grandbridge: Five years, 6 percent and 18 months of interest-only payments.

The company that owns downtown’s Nashville City Center is still considering placing office space atop a structured parking garage it plans to build adjacent to the skyscraper.

At least according to its website.

Parmenter Realty Partners — which has offices in Atlanta, Dallas and Miami and owns some of the South’s most high-profile office towers — is looking to build what likely will be a multi-story parking garage (the firm previously noted a 570-car facility) that could be accessed, depending upon orientation, via Sixth Avenue North and/or Church Street.

The firm’s website notes under a “Value-Added Activities” header the following regarding the office component:

“May also construct build-to-suit above garage to fulfill expanding tenant needs.”

Adriana Cruz, Parmenter director of investor relations and corporate communications, said the company is not ready to offers details regarding the garage. As to an office element, Cruz said this: 

“We have no commitment to building office space at this time.”

Nashville’s central business district offers few structures that combine above-ground parking and office space. A well-recognized example of a “pedestal building” is Viridian (with residential space atop parking).

Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis announced in September it would renew its lease in Nashville City Center for 15 years, presumably giving Parmenter all the more incentive to move forward on the parking garage. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee Waller having some of its team work within a garage-top office.  

Parmenter bought Nashville City Center in July 2008 for $87.96 million.