More Details on New Cool Springs and Mack Hatcher Project

We reported last week that a new office project was coming to Cool Springs, called 101 Cool Springs, which is also its address.

More details came out after we spoke to its developer, Jason Ritzen, of the Ritzen Group, Inc, about the $37 million, five-story project that will overlook the western entrance to Cool Springs, from a 2.9 acre site on the southwestern corner of Cool Springs Boulevard and Mack Hatcher.

The 150,000 square- foot building will feature four 30,000 square- foot floors of Class A office space, not an accidental choice with vacancy rates in Cool Springs sunk below 1 percent. The first floor will house a 7,000 square foot restaurant and a 6,500 “amenity deck” with a beautiful view of the rolling hills and busy business center of the county, leaving about 20,000 square feet for additional office, or retail.

“Though it is not fully inked yet, we have level five handled,” said Ritzen, concerning future tenants. “Four, three and two we have just started advertising. Within the next two weeks we will determine who our brokers will be. There could be multiple tenants on each floor, but ideally you want single-floor tenants. You could possibly see some retail overlooking Mack Hatcher and Cool Springs, but time will tell.”

Dave Johnston, with STG Design, designed the project.

“He is brilliant,” said Ritzen. “One of my favorite architects in the entire world.”

ff0c9e_3e56d6349b084748a40bf3fe22fec08c

The project could break ground by March, with delivery best-case by the end of 2017.

“I am most excited about just getting started,” said Ritzen.

The project is a long-time coming.

After buying the land in 2005, Ritzen went through the approval process with a design that was as “extravagant as the financing at the time” allowed.

“Then the market crashed and we had to scrap it,” he said.

After considering a few other options over the years- at one point he considered a 200 unit multi-family condo project- the record-low vacancy rates for office space in Cool Springs presented a viable purpose for a project.

“We’ve got the typical permitting process to go through which entails the usual Planning Commission submissions,” said Ritzen. “But we have had preliminary meetings with the city and we did very well with them.”