The ringleaders of the group under contract to buy Nashville’s East Bank scrapyard are seeking to raise $350 million, and they’ve recruited multiple local investors to join the effort. Here’s what we know about the deal.

Local investors involved in the group under contract to buy the East Bank scrapyard are seeking to raise a massive fund. Veteran investor J. David Byerely and Samuel Lingo, former president of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, created a fund with the goal of raising $350million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Byerley and Lingo are leading the group that’s under contract to buy the 45-acre East Bank property. The two have recruited several local investors in the effort, according to multiple sources. Byerley and Lingo, as well as Rosemary Calcese who is an attorney at Transformation Title & Escrow, are listed as the executive officers of SRE Fund ILLC. That entity, with its total offering amount declared as $350 million, was established in September 2024, a few weeks before the Business Journal first reported that billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn was putting the site up for auction . The Form D filing, which is not explicitly tied to the East Bank property, outlines several key details surrounding the fund. The entity was created for real estate purposes, and the first sale had yet to occur when the LLC was established.

The minimum bid accepted from any outside investor is $250,000, and the fund may close with less than the full offering amount.

Byerley is a low-profile, locally based real estate investor who has been a central figure in several notable real estate transactions in recent years.

Nine years ago, he was involved in the deal for downtown’s 15-acre Life Way Christian Resources — now the site of the Nashville Yards development. In 2018,he was majority stakeholder in a group that acquired a prime 2.6-acre site at the roundabout by Music City Center for more than $21 million, later selling it to Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co.

In 2019, he led a group that included Lingo, pitching then-Mayor David Brileyon a revamp of downtown’s historic Morris Memorial Building (which since has been acquired by a different group). Among his business entities are South Rock Ventures LLC and Asset Revitalization & Retention Trust LLC, which goes by ARRT Global.

The sales price of the scrapyard is still unclear, but sources previously indicated that Icahn was aiming for a minimum price north of $200 million. Byran Fort and Frank Thomasson of the Nashville office of CBRE are handling the sale process.

The 45-acre riverfront operation has been watched by real estate professionals and Metro officials for years due to its prime location across the Cumberland River from downtown at the center of Metro’s expansive vision for a revitalized East Bank.

Mayors and governors have tried for the last quarter-century to figure out away to relocate the scrapyard and free that land for redevelopment. If the deal successfully closes, that dream may come to reality as the rest of the East Bank begins to take shape.

Original Article here: https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2025/02/02/east-bank-scrapyard-buyer-fund-david-byerley-formd.html