How Tom Intrator is recruiting top-end brands to Memphis

JACOB STEIMER | MEMPHIS BUSINESS JOURNAL

In recent weeks, Tom Intrator's 18 Main LLC has dominated local news coverage — with $1.1 billion Pinch District plans and $95 million of investments on South Main Street.

About 500 days ago, though, Intrator was not known as a man reshaping the city but simply as someone spending $4 million to redevelop the long-blighted 18 S. Main St. And, as he's been laying plans for his much larger projects, his development of 18 S. Main has methodically moved along.

The building now has high ceilings; it will soon have a glass facade; and Intrator expects to select the primary restaurant operator within the next 60 days. He's been negotiating with groups out of Miami and New York and expects to finalize plans with one of them soon.

"That's been the holdup," Intrator said. "We need to pick a horse to run with … but, I think we're pretty close."

Intrator said he expects the restaurant to open in about a year. For either operator, Intrator and his partners would become investors, as he said the companies wouldn't come to Memphis otherwise.

Similarly, he and his partners recently bought a franchise of Los Angeles-based YogaSix, which they expect to place in 18 S. Main or a nearby building.

Whether through franchise agreements, management deals, or some other structure, Intrator will invest in all the restaurant and hotel operators filling his developments, he said.

"Instead of saying, 'I have a building. I want to lease it to you.' … What I'm saying is, 'I love what you're doing in London. Come do your next one in Memphis, and I'll invest in it,'" Intrator said.

This incentivizing of quality operators is why Intrator says he needs public incentives. Once restaurant, retail, and hotel groups from New York, Los Angeles, and Miami start noticing Memphis on their own, Intrator said incentives won't be necessary.

Intrator said this concept was proven on a small scale by the amount of calls he got from operators the day after he announced New York-based Dream Hotel Group would be opening a location at 122 S. Main.

While investing in the companies filling his buildings may seem risky to some, Intrator said it is less risky than signing leases with local restaurants.

"[Memphis operators] are not good enough to bring the city to where we think it should be," Intrator told the Downtown Memphis Commission's Center City Revenue Finance Corp. board Nov. 12.