Knoxville’s commercial real estate market has recently seen a flurry of high profile apartment deals with three of the eight largest apartment communities in Knox County sold since January. Expect mutli-family housing to continue to be hot, as 2013’s largest new building projects open their doors. While housing isn’t the largest project represented, half of the projects in the top …

IRMINGHAM, Alabama – Regions Bank said today it is now approved as a Fannie Mae Delegated Underwriting Servicing, or DUS, lender, enhancing its financing capabilities in the hot multifamily real estate sector. Regions also said it has acquired a DUS servicing portfolio totaling approximately $1 billion in domestic, multifamily properties. In addition to apartments, the Fannie Mae multifamily products can be used to finance senior …

Coke brass, elected officials and Shepard residents broke ground this morning on Chattanooga Coca-Cola Bottling Company’s new distribution center off W. Shepard Road at the old Olan Mills property. The center will create 43 new jobs and preserve 270 which would have followed the center had it gone to another city. The 305,000-square-foot facility is slated to cost $62 million. …

A new manufacturing facility at the Port of Pensacola is expected to bring as many as 200 new jobs and $52 million in capital investment to the city, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward announced Thursday. The project, a partnership between existing port tenant Offshore Inland and Houston-based Deepflex, will make use of an existing warehouse and 3.5 acres of undeveloped land. …

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Developers are aiming to transform the former Merita Bakery next to Birmingham Railroad Park into restaurants and office space. LIV Development and Corporate Realty are partnering on the $5 million project to renovate the long-time bakery building at First Avenue South and 14th Street into an adaptive re-use project. Plans call for around 13,200 square feet to …

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Volkswagen plans to build a new seven-passenger SUV at its factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, adding about 2,000 factory jobs as it tries to reverse U.S. sales that have fallen for the past two years. The German automaker announced Monday that it will invest $600 million to expand the factory and set up a new research center …

The launch of a United Auto Workers local in Chattanooga is turbocharging reports that a production decision on Volkswagen’s new sport utility vehicle will come next week. VW isn’t commenting, but workers and media outlets are fueling buzz that the automaker will announce as early as Monday that the vehicle will be assembled at its Chattanooga plant. The UAW’s effort to organize VW’s …

A new multifamily residential complex with 387 units could soon rise on the site of a shuttered manufacturing plant on Riverside Drive. Developer Chris Senn will ask the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission on Tuesday for approval to rezone the nearly 18-acre swath of land at 950 Riverside Drive — the site of the old Cumberland Corp. and Cannon Equipment …

Apartment rents in the U.S. grew at a quicker pace in the second quarter as tenant demand rose faster than the growing supply of multifamily properties. Rents after any discounts such as a free month climbed 3.4% to an average $1,099 a month from $1,064 a year earlier, property-research firm Reis (NASDAQ:REIS) said in its quarterly report. Effective rents had …

At least once a month during the three years James Davis lived in his East Brainerd apartment complex, a moving truck would roll in in the middle of the night and a family would quietly pack up and head out under cover of darkness. “They realized they couldn’t afford things anymore,” Davis said. Davis watched them go, year after year, …