Active Downtown developer Intrator sells on Knight Arnold, buys on Front
JACOB STEIMER | MEMPHIS BUSINESS JOURNAL
Companies Tom Intrator is invested in have continued to sell off local apartment buildings and purchase Downtown property.
Intrator and his partners have acquired most of the land between the Pyramid and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and announced plans to build 20-story buildings on it. He has also said he's going to build a hotel on top of the old Royal Furniture building and turn four other South Main buildings into apartments and commercial space.
Last month, the Memphis Business Journal reported that Intrator-related companies had bought 107 S. Main St. for $1.2 million and sold the 272-unit Briar Club Apartments in southeast Memphis for $15.8 million.
The same day as the Briar Club sale, Intrator and partners sold the nearby, 208-unit Cinnamon Trails complex for $12.4 million, to the same group that purchased Briar. The transaction was not included in the prior MBJ story because it took longer to appear on the Shelby County Register of Deeds website.
Both apartment complexes represent serve as an example of the old, suburban-style apartment properties Intrator has traditionally invested in. The Downtown projects he's now working on would be his first major developments.
About two weeks after purchasing Cinnamon Trails, Intrator purchased 324 S. Front St. and the vacant land next door for $3 million. Drapac Capital Partners, an Australian property investment and development company, had purchased the property in 2015 from Tower Ventures owner and local developer Billy Orgel for $840,000. At the time, Drapac's property director told the MBJ his company planned to "reposition" the building and lease it out, but it never pulled a building permit.
Drapac still owns the vacant, historic Nylon Net building at 7 Vance Ave., which it bought in 2015 for $575,000.
The Front Street property, which sits just south of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, is one of five South Main-area buildings Intrator was recently incentivized to redevelop. He is planning 165 apartments and 10,000 square feet of retail there, according to his incentive application. The project would include a new, five-story building on the vacant lot and a redevelopment of the c. 1900 three-story building.
CBRE Inc.'s Austin Ehrat represented Drapac in the sale.