Ground Broken at 71-Acre Green Mixed-Use Project Franklin Park

By Eliza Theiss, Associate Editor

Decades of sustained development continue in the Cool Springs market, a top destination for relocating Fortune 500 companies and other corporations with the groundbreaking of the unprecedented 71-acre mixed-use sustainable corporate community Franklin Park.

Located on the corner of McEwen Drive and Interstate 65 in Franklin, TN, Franklin Park is situated in one of metropolitan Nashville’s leading commercial hubs: Cool Springs. Franklin Park will feature up to five Class A office high-rises and a multifamily apartment element that includes retail. But what sets the project apart from all others is its central feature that also happens to be phase one of development: an 11-acre green parkland. But the communal parkland is anything but ordinary. It features ponds, waterways, walking paths and open fields large enough to host a range of outdoor activities, company gatherings and such. A 600-seat outdoor amphitheater will be the park’s centerpiece. The park will cost developing entity Spectrum | Emery $10 million. Design by HGOR Planners & Landscape Architects of Atlanta, GA and Duda Paine Architects of Durham, NC, it was one of the first project elements to be fleshed out.

The stunning natural and landscaped habitat isn’t Franklin Park’s only green feature. A storm water collection system will direct the water to the central pond, from where it will be fed to the grounds’ irrigation system. Water conservation will be achieved through the use of native landscaping. Rocks unearthed during development will be ground up and used in construction, while any trees that need to be taken down will be processed into mulch and used onsite.

The planned office towers will be designed to meet the needs of Fortune 500 companies and businesses from the financial, insurance, legal, healthcare and technology industries. Groundbreaking for the first tower is set for late 2012 and it’s expected to completed by early 2014.

Spectrum | Emery manages over 1.5 million square feet of Class A office space in Cool Springs and has a portfolio occupancy rate of 97 percent. The company’s Cool Springs properties comprise the largest LEED Existing Building certified campus in the South.

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Artist rendition courtesy of Business Wire