By Karen Kennedy
The Nash Building doesn’t even exist and yet it is experiencing active leasing.
Ground was broken July 11 to officially mark the beginning of the construction of The Nash, a European-inspired, three-story, $10-million mixed-use building with an underground parking garage. It will offer 31 one- to three-bedroom apartments on the second and third floors and 8,300 square feet of commercial space at street level. The project is just south of the existing City Center along Range Line Road.
Pedcor Companies President and CEO Bruce Cordingley said that the Nash building, whose construction is anticipated to be completed as early as the end of 2014, is already two-thirds pre-leased.
“Of the 8,300 square fee of retail space we have available, we are in negotiations to lease about 5,700 square feet of it,” Melissa Averitt, the senior vice president of marketing and sales at Pedcor, said.
Averitt would not comment on who exactly was planning to come to the site because nothing is a done deal, but she did say the majority of the negotiations are with “retailers and service-oriented businesses with a retail angle.” She said examples of service oriented types of businesses could be a financial-planning business, a bank or a Realtor.
Momentum also has ramped up with the apartments, according to Averitt.
“I’ve heard a lot of people express an interest in living in them,” Averitt said, adding that she doesn’t believe the apartments were being pre-leased at this time.
Mayor Jim Brainard, who attended the ground-breaking event with members of Pedcor and the Carmel Redevelopment Commission, said, “the Nash Building is a great way to finish the Range Line Road frontage (of City Center). Pedcor hires the best and the brightest, and understands the … long-term value of being a part of downtown Carmel.”
City Center is a public/private partnership and is one of the CRC’s largest projects to date. One of the most involved private partners in this venture has been Pedcor City Center Development Co. Ground was broken for Pedcor’s Phase I of City Center on March 23, 2006.
The CRC is responsible for the redevelopment efforts of both the City Center and Arts & Design District projects. In addition, the CRC manages other public-private partnerships where city land is being redeveloped to improve economic growth of targeted areas of Carmel.