Investor Group Buying Carl Icahn’s Nashville Land Grows to 36

A crucial piece of Nashville’s urban core may soon trade hands.

The buyer group under contract to purchase Carl Icahn’s 45-acre East Bank property has swelled to 36 investors since it was created with one member last summer, according to state filings reported by the Nashville Business Journal.

The entity, SRE Fund I LLC, is led by J. David Byerley and Samuel Lingo, who have played roles in some of Nashville’s largest land transactions. A Form D filing from September indicated that outside investors were required to contribute at least $250,000, with a $350 million fundraising goal.

The deal is one of the most high-profile exit plays in recent memory for Icahn Enterprises, which is reportedly set to sell the property for $225 million, a steep climb from its prior $25 million book value. CBRE’s Bryan Fort and Frank Thomasson are marketing the site for Icahn.

The site, formerly operated as a PSC Metals scrapyard, sits along the Cumberland River near the future $2.1 billion Tennessee Titans stadium and Oracle’s 70-acre campus. It’s one of the most closely watched parcels in Nashville’s East Bank redevelopment push, and sources familiar with the deal say momentum is building.

In earnings reports earlier this year, Icahn’s firm indicated the deal was on track to close by the end of the first quarter, though the exact timeline now appears more fluid.

Even so, the growth in the fund’s investor roster suggests strong local appetite for the redevelopment potential of the site. Byerley previously played a role in the land deal that led to Nashville Yards and sold a prime Music City Center site to Lincoln Property Company in 2019.

The East Bank parcel’s location, across the river from downtown and on the doorstep of Metro’s multi-billion-dollar redevelopment plans, makes it a crown jewel for urban expansion. Plans for the site haven’t been made public, but sources have said the property is poised for large-scale mixed-use redevelopment in line with Nashville’s ongoing transformation.

— Judah Duke