Fifth Third Bank Moves Nashville Office to Neuhoff District

Downtown’s office slump is Germantown’s opportunity.

Fifth Third Bank is exiting its namesake downtown tower after nearly two decades, relocating its Nashville headquarters to Germantown’s Neuhoff District, the Nashville Business Journal reported. It’s the latest example of a marquee tenant leaving the central business district.

The move comes as Atlanta-based New City Properties fills out the first phase of its $550 million adaptive reuse of the former Neuhoff meatpacking plant. The project includes nearly 1 million square feet of office and retail space alongside apartments, restaurants and public space.

Fifth Third leased 20,000 square feet and joined a string of major tenants relocating to the district from downtown towers: Boston Consulting Group left One Nashville Place for Neuhoff last year, while law firm Butler Snow moved from SoBro’s Symphony Place.

The bank’s lease in Fifth Third Center, at 424 Church Street, expires next April. The building was listed for sale by owner Blackstone Real Estate at an undisclosed price earlier this month.

The lease, brokered by CBRE on the tenant side and jointly represented by Stream Realty and Cushman & Wakefield on the landlord side, will allow the bank to remain central while stepping into a mixed-use, amenity-rich environment.

Fifth Third has anchored its space at the 31-story Fifth Third Center since 2006, occupying two full floors in a building that has struggled to retain tenants. Last year, Sony Music Publishing also left the tower for Music Row, and earlier this year, the building’s assessed value dropped 24 percent, or $34 million, amid a broader office reappraisal.

New City, led by Atlanta’s Ponce City Market developer Jim Irwin, has framed the Neuhoff District as a lifestyle-forward urban campus with a cultural draw that appeals to creative and corporate tenants.

The development has been credited with catalyzing broader reinvestment in Germantown, once a residential pocket.

Fifth Third is the eighth-largest bank in Nashville by deposits, with more than $3.6 billion on record last year.

— Judah Duke