Insurer leases 65,000 square feet of space to house more than 400 employees at south Franklin community.
Alfa Insurance will be an anchor tenant for the latest office building planned at the Berry Farms mixed-use community in south Franklin.
The Montgomery, Ala.-based insurer plans to relocate its regional office from Brentwood to 65,000 square feet of space with room for more than 400 employees. Overall, the four-story building planned in the Town Center at Berry Farms will have 105,000 square feet of space.
Alfa Insurance joins financial counselor Dave Ramsey’s Ramsey Solutions, specialty contractor Lee Co. and Tennessee Baptist Convention as the fourth major office user to commit to Berry Farms in the past six months.
Alfa Insurance’s lease leaves 40,000 square feet of speculative office space available at the 105,000-square-foot building to be completed at the master-planned Berry Farms community in late 2017. That should help to meet demand for space in the nearby Cool Springs submarket where office vacancy hovers around 1 percent.
John Pace, president of Alfa Vision & Alfa Specialty Insurance Corps., said Berry Farms rose to the top of the list as the insurer explored possible locations around the Midstate.
“We are very excited for our future corporate home at Berry Farms,” he said.
Alfa Insurance offers auto, home and life coverage.
The new mid-rise office building designed by Smith Gee Studio will be in the Offices at Town Center, between the Tennessee Baptist Convention and Lee Co. headquarters. Overall, The Offices at Town Center district at Berry Farms will include mid-rise office buildings totaling about 500,000 square feet.
A new 123-room Hampton Inn & Suites hotel that’s under construction and a Publix grocery store and retail buildings that should open before year-end are also coming to Berry Farms.
“South Franklin and the Berry Farms submarket is emerging as a unique destination and new economic engine for the city of Franklin,” said Phil Fawcett, partner at Berry Farm’s master developer Boyle Investment Co. “This unique, landmark community is one of the fastest-growing submarkets in the region and will serve as the southern gateway to Franklin.”
Berry Farms has more than 150 completed residences and 40,000 square feet of commercial retail space. Plans call for 1,100 residential units, 1.8 million square feet of retail space and million square feet of office space.
Originally published in The Tennessean
By Getahn Ward