Bass, Berry & Sims will anchor the 5000 Poplar mixed-use development in East Memphis, leasing 39,258 square feet in a newly designed office space set to open in spring 2028.

The full-service law firm, based in Nashville, opened its Memphis office in 1999 and now has 43 lawyers. The office also has a support staff of about a dozen employees.

“Memphis is growing in every direction, and this new space will support the continued growth of our team and the way we serve clients today,” said Gil Uhlhorn, managing partner of the firm’s Memphis office. “It also puts us at the center of one of the most dynamic business corridors in Memphis. While our address may be changing, our dedication to Memphis and its future remains as strong as ever.”

Memphis developers Brown Gill and Darrell Horn started work in earnest on the $25 million project at Poplar Avenue and Mendenhall Road this summer.

They have been working with Bass, Berry & Sims to add the firm to the planned 55,000-square-foot development.

“The firm has deep roots in Memphis and has played a part in many of the projects that have helped shape our city,” said Gill, vice president of development at Gill Properties. “Their commitment to 5000 Poplar says a great deal about the strength of this location and our vision for a place where people can work, meet clients for lunch, enjoy dinner with friends and find more of what they need within a short walk.

“We want the offices, restaurants and retail to complement one another and create a place people enjoy spending time throughout the day and into the evening.”

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The law firm will move from a similarly sized space at the Peabody Place Office Tower.

“For more than 25 years, we’ve been proud to call Downtown home,” Uhlhorn said. “Our decision to leave was not made lightly. We involved all our constituencies. We involved our employees, our lawyers, our clients, our potential clients, our community partners, and talked to all of them and took all their insight and input into mind.”

The firm’s attorneys have worked on Downtown projects like Bass Pro at the Pyramid, Central Station Hotel and Centric Hotel, but they have also done work for Crosstown Concourse, Clark Tower and Overton Square among other projects across the city.

“We’re still going to come to Grizzlies games. We’re still going to support the Orpheum. You know those things are not going to change,” Uhlhorn said. “Our commitment to Memphis remains unchanged.”

Bass, Berry & Sims have had offices at the Peabody Place Tower in Downtown Memphis for more than 25 years, said Gil Uhlhorn, managing partner of the law firm’s Memphis office. (The Daily Memphian file)

The new East Memphis location represents the best long-term opportunity for its clients, its people and its continued growth in the market, Uhlhorn said.

The firm was drawn to 5000 Poplar in part by the chance to build a completely new office.

“We were able to have some input and really design our office space the way that we are using office space now, which you know we couldn’t do in an existing office building,” Uhlhorn said. “The way we work has changed since coming back from COVID, so we’re trying to be very thoughtful and proactive about how we design our office space so that it’s more welcoming for our clients.”

While lawyers still spend a lot of time in the office researching cases and drafting contracts, the firm also wanted to create space for collaboration, Uhlhorn said.

The new space will have a cafe area to invite clients to have more casual interactions with lawyers. It will also have a large conference room.

“At that location, it’s very near to where a lot of our clients are and where a lot of our potential clients are, and a lot of our community partners are, and we’d like to be able to invite them into our office and to be able to use our office and collaborate,” Uhlhorn said.

Another benefit could be visibility, as the firm will have its name atop the office building, visible from Poplar Avenue and its 30,658 daily traffic count.

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Kemp Conrad, a principal with Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Advisors, represented Bass, Berry & Sims in lease negotiations, while Gill and Emily Vanasek with Gill Properties represented the landlord, 5000 Poplar LLC.

LRK is the architect for the development, and Grinder, Taber & Grinder is the general contractor. Mark Levy is leading the landscape design, and FirstBank is the lender.

“We are excited about this transformative development and the connections it fosters between office, restaurant and retail spaces,” said Jason Weeks, a senior associate and architect with LRK. “The flexible, collaborative workplace strengthens the larger superblock while enhancing the employee experience, supporting exceptional client service, and contributing to the continued vitality of the Poplar corridor.”

A superblock is an urban planning area — typically an array of several standard city blocks — where motor vehicle through-traffic is redirected to the outer perimeter, leaving the interior streets and spaces prioritized for pedestrians, cyclists, green spaces and community life, according to Topos magazine, an urban design publication.

Plans for 5000 Poplar call for a mixed-use building, a retail building and a restaurant building with 57 basement parking spaces and 120 surface parking spaces.

First Horizon building next to former Houston’s sold

As anchor tenant, Bass, Berry & Sims will occupy the development’s main office space and have covered parking.

A rendering depicts the First Horizon Bank at 5000 Poplar Ave. in East Memphis. (Courtesy LRK)

Memphis-based First Horizon Bank will open a new 5,000-square-foot banking center in the development alongside The Tradition, a 6,300-square-foot, 170-seat restaurant.

The project’s office component is fully leased, with 6,000 square feet of retail space remaining.

Gill and Vanasek are working with fitness and experiential retail users to lease space.

“We’re bringing together a mix of businesses that will make 5000 Poplar a destination throughout the day,” Gill said. “We’re taking a thoughtful approach to finding retail businesses that complement our tenants and add to the overall experience.”

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Gill sees the 5000 Poplar development as part of a larger superblock bordered by Sanderlin and Poplar avenues and White Station and Mendenhall roads.

This area has more than 20 restaurants, two grocery stores, a Malco movie theater and millions of square feet of office space.

Gill has talked with city officials and nearby property owners about potentially creating a tax increment financing district to make the area more pedestrian-friendly and even more attractive.

“To me, it’s the most dynamic block in East Memphis and we need to continue to invest in it,” Gill said. “There’s a lot of opportunity to make this kind of the Buckhead of Memphis.”

Buckhead is an upscale commercial district in Atlanta, sometimes called the “Beverly Hills of the South.”

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East Memphis is considered by many to be the region’s top office market. Of the 15.3 million square feet of office space in the submarket, 3.5 million square feet is listed as four- and five-star properties, according to a CoStar report.

The overall Memphis metro area has 59 million square feet of office space.

The East Memphis office submarket has a current vacancy rate of 12.2%.

Average rents in East Memphis are $26 per square foot, compared to a wider Memphis market average of $23 per square foot, according to the report.

As a retail submarket, East Memphis also performs well compared to the overall metro area. It has 8.8 million square feet of rentable retail space with a vacancy rate of 4.5% and market rents of $23 per square foot, according to CoStar.

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Walkability is a key component of the 5000 Poplar development, a site where Houston’s restaurant was demolished and where a First Horizon building is slated for the wrecking ball.

“This is what I think of as ‘drive-to urbanism’ — making parts of suburbia more walkable and welcoming for pedestrians once people park their cars,” Gill said. “The idea is that someone could come for lunch at The Tradition, take a Pilates class, walk to Whole Foods, grab an ice cream and walk to a movie, all without moving the car between every stop.”

This summer, the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development published the third draft of its recommended zoning map as part of the Unified Development Code update.

The draft references drive-to urbanism and includes Suburban Main Street zoning districts, which promote walkability.

“Both this project and the nearby Oak Court Mall redevelopment are great examples of what can be done if we are creative with large commercial sites outside of the core of the city,” said Brett Ragsdale, the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development’s director. “While the car will be the predominant way to access these developments, they can still have strong, pedestrian-focused site designs for Memphians to enjoy after they park.

“The proposed UDC is intended to provide the flexibility needed to encourage this type of ‘drive-to urbanism’ redevelopments at similar sites throughout the city, not only in East Memphis.”

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