With two highly-anticipated developments already in the works, Gill Properties has announced plans for a new mixed-use development East Memphis.

(Gill Properties)

Known as The Grove at White Station, the new office/retail development will be located on South White Station Road just north of Poplar Avenue.

“If you can make the whole block pedestrian friendly, it’s the most dynamic mixed-use block in all of East Memphis,” Brown Gill said. “Somebody who lives on White Station could walk across the street to so many different uses – restaurant, office, grocery, movies, and food vendors. It’s a really neat block and I’m hoping to add cool users to this entire block.”

Currently, five residential properties sandwiched between an Orion Bank branch and the Girl Scouts Heart of the South Council Headquarters are located on the site, and Gill’s new development hopes to tie the area together with its walkable neighborhood-level retail components.

“I felt like there was still demand in East Memphis for office and retail,” he said. “I’ve had a couple of brokers reach out to me and say they have office users that are interested and I’ve had a couple brokers reach out to me and say they have retail users interested.”

However, he said he won’t be ready to put his project on the market until he obtains all of the necessary entitlements.

“I just don’t think that is fair anybody – the sellers, neighbors, users. If you don’t have the entitlements you shouldn’t be going after users at this point,” he said.

Victor Buchholz with LRK was tapped to design the one-story project, while Michael Rogers at Fisher Arnold handled the engineering.

“They produced just a beautiful one story office retail building,” Gill said. “I really like contemporary buildings with traditional elements, and I just think they nailed it.”

In order to preserve as many trees as possible, an arborist was brought in to survey the site.

“We have looked at every oak on site and have determined its health and age,” he said. “We’ve come down to four oaks – one red oak, one white oak and two pin oaks that we’re going to try to keep because they are of the right age and are healthy.”

Gill noted that he made a concerted effort to keep news of the project from getting out before he had a chance to talk to the surrounding neighbors face-to-face because he feels they are an integral part of the process and deserve the developer’s respect.

The Grove at White Station will be seeking its first approval from city officials next week when Gill officially submits the designs to the Office of Planning and Development.

“Basically these are the last five houses left (on the block),” Gill said. “Of the five parcels I have under contract four are currently zoned commercial.”