Rick English, the Boston native who has helped develop and broker retail, office and residential projects across the country over the past half century, has purchased the University Tower office building near where he first came to Chattanooga in 1964 to play football for the University of Chattanooga.
English, the owner of Boston English Properties LLC in Franklin, Tenn., bought the six-story office building on East Fourth Street for $5.3 million from the original developers of the 28-year-old building – architect Vance Travis, engineer John Germ and accountant Dan Johnson.
“Chattanooga is a much better deal than Nashville right now,” the 72-year-old real estate developer and broker said. “And where else could you find a building where you have the designer and one of the developers staying as a tenant?”
Travis said the University Tower was built in 1989 by three local professionals – Travis of TWH Architects, Germ of Campbell & Associates Engineering and Johnson of Johnson, Hickey & Murchison CPAs.
“We built this the old-fashioned way with sweat equity and borrowed money – no venture capital, no industrial revenue bonds and no PILOT (tax breaks) from the city,” Travis recalled. “The three original partners each took a floor of the building, but we decided to do a six-story building to make room for some other tenants at a time when downtown was not nearly as hot of a market as it is today.”