Even with a renewed interest in the city’s core and two new office buildings under construction, Class A space in the East Submarket is about as hot as it gets right now, so it’s not a surprise that the soon-to-be-vacated space currently occupied by a Memphis-based MassMutual firm in Triad Centre III has already drawn serious interest.

After a recent merger with Nashville-based Capital Finance Group, the Memphis MassMutual office, operating under the name The Partners Group, executed a lease to move the combined operations to the 23rd floor of the Clark Tower.

The combined company will occupy approximately 17,000 square feet, multiple sources confirmed earlier this week, and will operate under the Capital Finance Group name.

Highwoods Properties is already close to backfilling 10,824 square feet MassMutual will vacate at Triad Centre III. (Daily News File/Andrew J. Breig)

This means it will be vacating more than 10,800 square feet at Highwoods Properties Inc.’s Triad Centre III located at 6070 Poplar Ave.

John Mercer, Highwoods’ director of leasing, said they would have liked to renew MassMutual’s lease, but the new company needed more space than Triad III currently had available.

Initially, MassMutual leased a 7,914-square-foot suite on the fifth floor in September of 2010, before eventually expanding into another 2,910 square foot on the same floor.

Mercer said his company is currently in negotiations with a potential tenant looking to take the entire 10,824 square feet vacated by MassMutual.

“I’m working a potential backfill right now for their entire space,” Mercer said. “We have agreed to terms and the customer is working on a test fit of a layout.”

Mercer said that even though the space wasn’t officially marketed, there was no shortage of interest from potential clients.

“Because the Class A market has been tight, even with the two new buildings coming up, the space was on quite a few folks’ radar,” he said. “We’re blessed to have such a nice building in a great location, so I’m not surprised something is happing.”

Mercer said that while the two companies have agreed to terms and everything is progressing as planned, there is no timetable for when a deal might be officially inked.