From his transplanted business hub in the Nashville suburb of Franklin, Tenn., Hixson native Tim Downey has built his Southern Land Co. into a national home-building enterprise with more than $1.5 billion in apartments, subdivisions and commercial projects either on the drawing board or under construction.
“It’s a long way from when I started building Prestons Station on Cassandra Smith Road in Hixson,” Downey said, reflecting on the 30-year growth of his business. “I never imagined I would be building high-rise apartments in Philadelphia or major developments near Dallas. But I really think if I wouldn’t have had my start in Chattanooga during some really difficult times, I might not have been as successful as I am today.”
Downey, who began building homes in 1986 after starting and running an office cleaning business as a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga student, said his early years taught him to be wary about over-extending debt or getting too confident in any single project or economic cycle. It also taught him the value of picking the right location for a project, creating a distinctive product buyers will pay for and keeping the customer satisfied.
“There were some tough years, but those times taught me a lot about finding the right location and not getting too overconfident in myself and to recognize there are economic cycles that go up and down,” Downey said.
In his early days he would build a new project then move into the most recently completed one. He would marry revenues from his projects with borrowed money for the next development.
“I learned a lot in college and those early years from other builders and folks in business,” he said.
In his 20s, Downey lived at Cameron Hill apartments downtown next door to Bob Corker, who was then building Bencor Construction Co. into a multimillion-dollar commercial building enterprise. Corker, now Tennessee’s junior U.S. senator, later sold Bencor, and pursued a a career in real estate development then politics.
“Bob always seemed to be successful in whatever he did. I learned a lot from him,” Downey said.
After his early success at Prestons Station in Hixson, Downey developed othes local projects, including Rosemere, Emerald Valley and Legends in East Brainerd, and Arbor Creek, Arbor Landing and Ramsgate in Hixson.
Downey relocated Southern Land Co. to Franklin, Tenn., in the late 1990s to pursue more fertile markets in Middle Tennessee and ultimately around the country. But he has continued projects in Chattanooga. “I still would love to live there some day,” he said in a recent interview.
In 2014, Southern Land was named master developer of Black Creek Mountain in Lookout Valley just west of Chattanooga.
“I love Chattanooga, but in this business you have to build where the market is strongest,” he said. “We’re very selective in the sites we choose, so we have to look far and wide for them.”
Since rebounding from the Great Recession, Southern Land has expanded in recent years with projects in America’s hottest real estate markets: Denver and Boulder in Colorado, Dallas and Plano in Texas, and Philadelphia and New York in the Northeast. Other projects are also on the horizon, Downy said.
At Rittinhouse Square in downtown Philadelphia – the company’s second development in that city – Southern Land is now erecting a high-rise tower with 342 apartments, 64 condominiums and 55,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space
Downey has long tapped the luxury home market with unique and distinctive developments. One of the first employees Downey hired three decades ago when he began building homes in Chattanooga was an architect “because I have always recognized the value of good design.” In his recent urban developments, Downey is building more mixed-use developments to provide places where people can live, work and play without the long commutes typical in many congested major cities.
“Place-making is an important aspect of our projects,” he said.
Southern Land Co. is known for record-sales projects. In Nashville, the McEwen and Elliston Place projects recently sold for the highest per square foot price ever for office and residential projects, respectively.
The 4000 Hillsboro Project also is changing Nashville’s suburban Green Hills, with the first high-rise residential complex in the city’s most intense mixed-use commercial, retail and residential neighborhood. It includes plazas, green space, outdoor dining and lifestyle amenities such as yoga and fitness classes and facilities.
In Plano, Texas, Junction 15 is helping revive a historic neighborhood in the Dallas suburbs.
Downey has achieved his success, he says, by keeping control of most of his operations in a vertically integrated business where designers, architects, horticulturists, builders and maintenance staff all work under one roof.
Southern Land Co. has more than 300 employees and hires hundreds of other contractors on projects throughout the country.
“We’re having a lot of success right now, but I know it’s always important to not get too ambitious with your building growth and stick to what you know and do best,” he said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.