Hendersonville Real Estate is becoming very desirable

Six corporations looking to relocate to Middle Tennessee are considering making Hendersonville's $1 billion Indian Lake Village their new home as the retail, office and residential development heats up its push to be the next Cool Springs.
"We're talking with users from 20,000 square feet to 200,000 square feet so we're getting a broad range of interest," says Danny Hale, who is developing Indian Lake as managing partner of Halo Properties.
Indian Lake developers also are courting a high-end car dealership, Costco and trying to lure 10 stores from nearby Rivergate Mall - including department stores - to add to their list of high-end retail stores, which open in March.
Millions of dollars in parks and walking trails, a new library and the walkability of the mixed-use village have brought in out-of-state relocating companies with 100 to 1,800 employees, says Don Long, mayoral assistant and director of economic and community development for the city of Hendersonville. Long and Hale wouldn't name the companies looking to relocate to Hendersonville, but say they've landed a spot on the relocation map.
"A couple of years ago we were not even on the radar screen (for corporations). Now we're one of the first stops," Long says.
In October, the National Association of Office and Industrial Properties carted three bus loads of developers, site selectors, architects and real estate professionals to the site to tour the first office building.
Sumner County officials want to bring big business to the area, giving the 40 percent of people who commute to Nashville from Sumner County to work another option.
The retail component of the walkable mixed-use live, work, play development by Halo Properties is larger than the Nashville area's two newest lifestyle centers - The Avenues at Murfreesboro and Providence Marketplace in Mt. Juliet.
Those 810,000- and 830,000-square-foot developments will be dwarfed by the 1.5 million square feet of retail at Indian Lake, which includes high-end stores like Ann Taylor LOFT, Regal Cinema, Ann Taylor, Eddie Bauer, Talbot's, Aveda, Gymboree and Jos. A. Bank. That's also larger than retail space at Cool Springs Galleria and nearby Rivergate Mall.
Indian Lake's first office tenants are moving in now. R.W. Beck and Forward Sumner Economic Council are moving into Indian Lake's first completed office building.
Another benefit of Hendersonville, developers say, is that it offers housing for all pay ranges, from executives to secretaries, which is lacking in Cool Springs. High home prices there have kept many middle-income workers out.
Relocating companies are attracted to areas where all of their employees can afford to live, says Matt Largen, director of business recruitment at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.
And Indian Lake Village's addition to the menu of office offerings in Nashville means more enticements for business relocations.
"You have options outside of Davidson and Williamson counties now. It's better for the client to have options, especially when we're competing with other markets that do have options," Largen says.