Menlo Equities Spends $85M to buy Nashville Office Building

A California investor has acquired an office high-rise in downtown Nashville from its developer.

Menlo Equities bought the 13-story, 340,000-square-foot Truist Plaza, at 401 Commerce Street, for $84.5 million, the Nashville Business Journal reported. The sale comes to roughly $248 per square foot.

The seller, local firm Eakin Partners, is also the developer and manager of the building, which went under contract earlier this month. Truist Plaza opened in 2007.

“We are proud to have owned Truist Plaza for the past 16 years and the returns we achieved for our investors, and are pleased to be transferring its ownership to Menlo Equities, a highly respected owner/operator with multiple properties in the Nashville market,” Eakin Partners chairman John Eakin told the outlet.

The building, formerly known as SunTrust Plaza, is 94 percent leased, according to Cushman & Wakefield, which marketed the property. It serves as the regional headquarters for Truist Bank. Amazon is also a tenant.

The building has been “virtually 100 percent leased for much of its history,” according to Cushman. However, one of its tenants, Creative Artists Agency, will relocate to the highly-anticipated Nashville Yards development next year.

Menlo’s acquisition strategy is geared toward Class A and Class B buildings with “value-add” or renovation opportunities. Menlo’s Nashville-area portfolio includes two MetroCenter office buildings and a data center in Franklin, the outlet reported.

It’s unclear if the firm plans to make changes to Truist Plaza.

Eakin Partners, meanwhile, owns several high-profile assets in Nashville, including downtown’s Peabody Plaza, the Gulch neighborhood’s 1201 Demonbreun and Midtown’s Roundabout Plaza office building.

Nashville’s commercial real estate scene enjoyed a flurry of sales during the initial years of the pandemic. However, sales hit a 12-year low in 2023, with a total of 424 transactions.

—Quinn Donoghue