Memphis-based Mid-America Apartments LP has won approval from Germantown leaders of financial incentives for a new headquarters in the TraVure development in Germantown.

The Germantown Board of Mayor and Alderman approved the 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement Monday, Oct. 24, with Mid-America Apartments LP as the anchor of the $90 million project at Germantown’s western gateway.

The agreement means a break in property taxes for MAA over the 15-year term.

The PILOT was approved by the Germantown Industrial Development Board a week ago moving the matter to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

MAA executives said during the summer they were looking for 80,000 square feet of space to house 200 local employees with room to grow. The real estate investment trust is currently in 43,000 square feet at 6584 Poplar Ave., west of Kirby Parkway in East Memphis near the border with Germantown.

The site in the application approved by the Germantown board Monday evening is 6797 Poplar, just east of Kirby Parkway.

TraVure is a 10-acre project being developed by Gill Properties and is to include a parking garage, retail and a pair of hotels as well as the office building. MAA is expected to take 82 percent of the office space in the building in an operation that will have 250 MAA executives and office workers on the site.

“It’s a pretty big day for us,” Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo said. “That will spur the hotels to come on line as well as the retail. … It’s not live, work and play. It’s work, play, stay.”

Eric Bolton, CEO and chairman of MAA, said during the summer that the company was leaning toward a newly built multi-tenant office building with an open floor plan for its headquarters. And the search for a location ranged from Downtown to Collierville. That was after Bolton briefly considered but ruled out a move outside Shelby County.

As the search was underway, MAA bought Atlanta-based Post Properties Inc. in August for $4 billion to create the largest publicly-traded real estate investment trust in terms of the apartment units owned – nearly 105,000 multifamily units across 317 properties.