Warehouse Row is seen on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn.Where they are going?
PlayCore Moving corporate headquarters from 401 Chestnut St. to 535 Broad St.› FSG Moving from 535 Chestnut St. into the third floor of Warehouse Row as it adopts the name of its new parent, Atlantic Capital Bank.› Propex Moving corporate headquarters from the third floor of Warehouse Row to the company’s plants on Industrial Drive and its Ringgold, Ga., carpet backing facility.› Keller Williams downtown Moving from the North Shore to a new office to be developed at Washington and Rossville avenues on the Southside.
The new year will bring new corporate offices for four Chattanooga businesses, reshuffling the downtown office market as local companies implement new strategies in 2017.
Two of Chattanooga's biggest privately held manufacturers and a local bank are each relocating their corporate headquarters early next year, while one of Chattanooga's biggest real estate offices moves from the North Shore to the Southside by next fall.
Collectively, the changes will shift the work sites for nearly 500 downtown workers.
A new playground for PlayCore
PlayCore, the nation's biggest maker of playground equipment, is moving its Chattanooga headquarters a block to the south into the headquarters of FSG Bank at Broad and Sixth streets by next spring. The space is opening up due to the move by FSG, soon to be renamed Atlantic Capital Bank, to Warehouse Row in February.
The new headquarters for PlayCore will be bigger and add more visibility for the Chattanooga company, which has grown through a series of acquisitions over the past decade into a nationwide business with more than $400 million in annual sales.
"We are excited about the many opportunities to continue our growth and service in the future," said company President Roger Posacki, who will succeed Bob Farnsworth as CEO in January.
AnneMarie Spencer, corporate vice president of marketing for PlayCore, said the Broad Street office will serve as corporate headquarters for PlayCore, as well as the sales and marketing departments for several of the company's brands.
"With the rapid growth of our company, we have steadily outgrown our current space," she said. "As a play and recreation company, it's important to us to stay in Chattanooga; we love how the city and its residents embrace outdoor activity and create great places to go to get active."
Banking in new environment
Before PlayCore moves into its new digs in April, FSG expects to move out of the Broad Street structure and into a third-floor office at Warehouse Row by February.
FSG, which merged last year with Atlantic Capital, sold its 35,843,000-square-foot headquarters in October to a Birmingham real estate investment group. Harbert Realty Services paid nearly $5.4 million in October to acquire the headquarters of FSG, which has operated a retail branch and the corporate offices of First Security Group for the past decade in the downtown structure.
"This is a great asset to own, and we like the investment opportunity that the Chattanooga market provides," said David Williams, CEO of Harbert Realty. "We are excited to be part of the on-going revitalization of the downtown Chattanooga market."
Mike Kramer, the president of FSG Bank who negotiated the merger of FSG with Atlantic Capital two years ago, said the merged bank is focusing on merchant banking and targeting business clients. FSG once operated 37 bank offices in East Tennessee and Northwest Georgia, but the bank has cut that number to 16 through branch consolidations and sales.
FSG has a drive-through branch at 13th and Cowart streets downtown, and its new business office downtown will be located in 27,000 square feet of leased space on the third floor of Warehouse Row.
"Warehouse Row is an excellent location for our bank and is really better suited for the changes we are making," Kramer said.
Propex on the move
FSG is moving into offices currently occupied by Propex, which has been at Warehouse Row since 2012 when it moved its then 120-person headquarters staff into the third floor of both the North and South buildings of Warehouse Row.
"Over time, we have reorganized our company into business units - geotextiles, carpet backing and concrete fiber," said Mark Thomas, chief financial officer at Propex. "We determined it made more sense to move our central office staff closer to the plants and the divisions they operate or from which they sell our products."
Propex has already shifted some of its headquarters staff to Ringgold and Dalton, Ga., along with other plant sites. Thomas said the company tried unsuccessfully last year to sublease part of its Warehouse Row space.
When FSG approached Propex about assuming the last six years on Propex's entire lease at Warehouse Row, Propex officials decided to shift the remaining corporate headquarters staff out of Warehouse Row and into the company's Industry Drive facility in Chattanooga, just north of the airport.
Thomas said office renovation for the move is ongoing. Workers should shift from downtown to the Industry Drive facility in early 2017.
Realigning real estate
The downtown move that will involve the most Chattanooga workers will be made next year by the Keller Williams downtown office, which is moving from the North Shore to the Southside.
Nathan Brown, team leader for the Keller Williams downtown office, said KW franchise owners have purchased 1.8 acres at Washington and Rossville avenues on the Southside, just off Main Street. The current building on the site, which was once an auto body shop and previously housed a Ryder truck facility, will be expanded to accommodate the 252 agents who now work in about 10,000 square feet of office space at 202 Manufacturers Road, across from Two North Shore.
"Most likely we will do a total overhaul on the current building and add on to it for a total of 16,000 to 18,000 square feet," Brown said.
Brown said the downtown Chattanooga office is the fifth largest Keller Williams office in Tennessee.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepres.com or 423-757-6340.