VOL. 127 | NO. 43 | Friday, March 2, 2012
Inked
Sarah Baker
CK’s Moves Into Jackson as Part of Expansion
By Sarah Baker
A longtime Memphis diner chain is expanding its presence into the Jackson, Tenn., market.
CK’s Coffee Shop has signed a five-year lease for 1,390 square feet of the existing 4,900-square-foot Old Medina Market Gas Station at 2800 Old Medina Road.
Barry D. Maynard with Trezevant Realty Corp. represented CK’s of Memphis Inc., made up of Chicago brothers-in-law Randy Gross and Jerry Vela, who started buying CK’s in early 2010.
Eden Smith, co-owner of the Old Medina Market Gas Station, handled the landlord’s side, including representation of Old Medina Associates NE LLC, in care of RMR Investments Co. LLC.
CK’s has 10 locations in Memphis, including seven that Gross and Vela own, and three that CK’s founder Gene Sullivan still owns.
The first Madison County CK’s Coffee Shop should open within the next two weeks, Maynard said, adding that the location on the highway at the highest trafficked intersection in Jackson was ideal real estate for the 24-7 restaurant user.
“It’s an upscale existing C-Store that has high volume that used to have a restaurant inside of it,” Maynard said. “We’re taking their old restaurant space and converting and rebranding it with CK’s.”
Gross and Vela’s goal is to elevate the CK’s brand, Maynard said, while also staying true to its Memphis history.
“CK’s is going to revamp and come back in the market with a little more metro, new-age, modern look to it, but at the same time, kind of have that ’50s casual diner type deal,” Maynard said. “Kind of like what the old Johnny Rockets used to have.”
And besides Gross and Vela, Maynard said up to five operators will open CK’s regionally as “basically a franchise.”
“I’ve found some pretty high-net worth people that have money to open up as many as long as they’re doing well,” he said. “I imagine counting Northeast Arkansas, North Mississippi and West Tennessee, you’ll see six to 10 of them in the next year.”
• In other Trezevant deals, Professional Driver’s of Georgia Inc. has signed a 38-month lease for 4,000 square feet at Stage Coach Collection, 7174 U.S. Highway 64, suite 111, in Bartlett.
Maynard represented the landlord, American Properties. Chris Mims, vice president with Dallas-based Swearingen Realty Group, represented the tenant.
The company started in Georgia as a temp agency for truck drivers, but now it’s a job hiring firm for “everything you can imagine job-wise,” Maynard said, with 35 locations in multiple states.
Professional Driver’s of Georgia already had a presence in Memphis, but the new Bartlett locale is a much larger space that will allow the tenant increased efficiencies for its operations, Maynard said.
“They’ll have people in there 24-7 on call because they’re also going to run the administrative and finance side of the whole company as well as the existing temp agency,” Maynard said. “It’s good for Bartlett to get them as an office filler. It’s a viable business, they’ve got strong financials. It’s good for Memphis that they want to expand and see opportunity here.”
• On the multifamily front, Samuel Adefeyisan has purchased the Ashley Manor Apartments – two separate buildings with a total of 16 one-bedroom condo units in Midtown – from John P. Waddell and Nancy S. Waddell for $1 million.
The purchase was financed with an $850,000 trust deed through Magna Bank.
The apartments at 129 and 137 N. Belvedere St. sold for $62,500 per unit. The 2011 appraisal from the Shelby County Assessor of Property was $72,200 per unit.
Steve Woodyard, president of Woodyard Realty Corp. who has sold Ashley Manor for five different owners since 1984, represented all parties.
The buildings were built in 1920 and were converted and renovated for sale as condominiums in 2007 and 2008 in the range of $119,900 per condo, according to a Woodyard Realty statement.
• And CB Richard Ellis Memphis brokered the sale of two Mid-South multifamily properties in February – Parkview Apartments in Memphis, and Sunset Village Apartments in Pine Bluff, Ark., for $2.6 million and $730,000, respectively.
Parkview Apartments, constructed in 1974, sold on Feb. 27. CBRE’s Blake Pera and Tommy Bronson III represented the seller, City National Bank, in the sale to local buyer Parkview Memphis Apartments LP.
Parkview Apartments is a 384-unit property in the Raleigh/Bartlett submarket at 4616 Scott Crossing Drive. It has two-bedroom floor plans that average 900 square feet, and amenities include a swimming pool and washer/dryer connections.
The 2011 appraisal of the Class C complex by the Shelby County Assessor of Property was $3 million.
Meanwhile, Sunset Village, constructed in 1971, sold Feb. 22. Bronson and Pera worked alongside Ted Bailey and Richard Cheek of The Multifamily Group LLC in Little Rock, Ark., to represent the seller, Tritex Real Estate Advisors II Inc., in the sale to RJN LLC.
Sunset Village is a 144-unit property that offers one-, two- and three-bedroom garden and townhouse style units.