Intrator's five South Main projects move forward — and he buys yet another building
JACOB STEIMER | MEMPHIS BUSINESS JOURNAL
Tom Intrator landed almost $20 million worth of tax breaks Tuesday — and revealed he had purchased another South Main property.
The PILOTs (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) that the Downtown Memphis Commission's Center City Revenue Finance Corp. (CCRFC) approved Tuesday, Nov. 12, are set to incentivize $95 million of investments by Intrator in the South Main neighborhood.
The New York-based developer plans to redevelop 386 S. Main St., 311 S. Main, 122 S. Main, 107 S. Main, and 324 S. Front St. into a mix of uses, including apartments, office space, retail, and a hotel.
Construction on each of the buildings is set to start next year. This en masse approach is necessary, Intrator told the CCRFC, because South Main needs to become a more active street. All five properties will feature some sort of retail or restaurant component, which he said is critical to this goal.
"If [Downtown workers] can have, across the street from their office, a place where they can go get coffee or go get lunch … you’ll start to have people crossing the street," Intrator said.
To fill these buildings, Intrator is recruiting out-of-town food-and-beverage operators because Memphis-area operators wouldn't pay high enough rents and "are not good enough to bring the city to where we think it should be," Intrator said during the meeting.
The CCRFC incentives were necessary, Intrator told the board, because he has to turn around and incentivize national operators to take a chance on Memphis.
The CCRFC passed the incentives unanimously.
After the meeting, Intrator told the Memphis Business Journal that he had closed on a $1.3 million purchase of 372 S. Main St. last week. Though not included in the bundle of properties seeking incentives, Intrator's plans for the 14,000-square-feet brick building are similar to his lifestyle-focused plans for the other buildings. Garland Co. Real Estate's Chris Garland represented Intrator in the 372 S. Main purchase. The owners of that building since 1990 have been Robert R. Johnson and Steven G. Cunningham, according to the Shelby County Assessor of Property.
Intrator is hoping to start construction on all the incentivized buildings in November 2020, except 386 S. Main St., which he hopes to start in April 2020.
At 324 S. Front, Intrator is planning 165 apartments and 10,000 square feet of retail. The project would include a new, five-story building on the vacant lot that sits between a three-story building that dates to 1900 and Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken.
Intrator plans to transform the long-vacant 107 S. Main into office space above retail. The skinny, four-story building, located catty-corner from Royal Furniture, contains 30,000 square feet.
As was previously announced, the Royal Furniture building at 122 S. Main is set to become a 178-key hotel, with a restaurant, coffee shop, and rooftop bar.
In its application, Intrator's firm said 311 S. Main “may include F&B [food and beverage], office, and lifestyle space” that would capitalize on the building’s location as “an opportune site for business and lifestyle hub programs that could support small businesses, creatives, and entrepreneurs.”
Intrator has a zero-lot-line, urban infill, multifamily outlook for a vacant lot and empty building at 386-390 S. Main. A renovation would produce 24 upscale multifamily units above 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and office.