Lake Homes Realty, RealSource pick Meadow Brook Corporate Park for expansion

Lake Homes Realty today signed a lease for it and sister company RealSource Title Insurance and Real Estate Closing to take up 55,000 square feet in the 500 Building at Meadow Brook Corporate Park.

The two companies had been eyeing an office building off Inverness Center Parkway but chose Meadow Brook Corporate Park instead. Together, the companies plan to add 400 jobs over the next five years, including 300 jobs at Meadow Brook Corporate Park, Lake Homes Realty CEO Glenn Phillips said.

The plan is to take the top two floors of the 500 Building and another 6,000 square feet on the ground floor, said Steven Martin, the managing principal for SDM Partners, which owns the building.

Williams Blackstock Architects will completely redesign the space for Lake Homes and RealSource, and the goal is for them to move into the new space at the beginning of 2023, Martin said.

Currently, the two companies have about 75 direct employees, plus about 180 real estate agents who work exclusively for Lake Homes Realty across the country in 34 states on a contract basis, Phillips said.

About 55 of those direct employees now work out of the companies’ office in Southlake and 7,100 square feet of space they started subleasing in the 1200 Building at Meadow Brook Corporate Park in January, Phillips said.

They need extra space to greatly expand the scope of their business beyond lake homes across the country into the broader real estate market nationwide, Phillips said.

Lake Homes Realty’s headquarters in Hoover provides back-office support to agents across the country. Those agents don’t have offices but say they get better support from Lake Homes Realty than they did when they had their own offices, Phillips said.

Lake Homes Realty looks to contract with agents that are experienced but intentionally tries to keep its number of agents down and help maximize their sales, he said. The agents who join Lake Homes Realty on average have more than double the income of typical agents, he said.

Nationally, the average real estate agent closes 10 transactions valued at about $1 million a year, but Lake Homes agents average more than 20 sales valued at almost $9 million, Phillips said.

Phillips’ wife, Doris Phillips, is part-owner and chief operating officer for Lake Homes Realty and CEO of RealSource. RealSource now operates in 12 states but plans to expand to more states quickly.

The two companies plan to invest more than $1 million in capital on their relocation, abut that’s just the “tip of the iceberg” when you consider the investment they will be making in people, Glenn Phillips said.

The Hoover City Council on Feb. 7 approved tax rebates totaling an estimated $102,645 to help Lake Homes and RealSource expand. That includes abatements of an estimated $80,000 worth of construction-related sales taxes and about $23,000 in non-educational personal property taxes.

However, the 300 or so new jobs in Hoover, with an average wage of more than $52,000, should boost the companies’ payroll in Hoover by $15.3 million over the next four years, records filed with the city show.

The indirect sales tax revenues, increased property taxes and building permit fees should mean more than $500,000 in revenue to the city of Hoover government over the next 10 years and should boost property taxes paid to the school system by more than $200,000 over 10 years, said Greg Knighton, the city’s economic development manager.

Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato said he and the Hoover City Council since 2016 have emphasized helping grow and support technology companies in the city, particularly in the U.S. 280 corridor. He is pleased to assist Lake Homes Realty and RealSource as they create hundreds of “knowledge-based” jobs for Hoover and the surrounding area and will continue to assist companies in the U.S. 280 corridor and throughout Hoover, he said.

State Rep. Arnold Mooney, a Republican who has lived in Meadow Brook since 1985, said he is excited to see another great, growing company come to the community. “We’re excited about what we have to offer in Shelby County,” Mooney said.

He thanked the Phillipses for choosing to stay in Shelby County for their expansion and allowing people who live in Shelby County to pursue the dreams they have with good jobs.

U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer said he worked for Rust International in Meadow Brook Corporate Park years ago and is excited to see new investments being made in the park, particularly with “knowledge-based” companies.

“We don’t want our kids to finish high school and go to college and then have to go to Dallas or Atlanta or someplace else to get a job in a knowledge-based company,” Palmer said. “They’re making it possible for young people to have a great career here in one of the best places in the country to live. It’s a great quality of life. It’s a great environment to live in, and we’re building an economic and business base that will make us all proud and allow us to build out the type of industry we want to have and make the quality of life we want to have here in Hoover and in this metropolitan area.”

Martin said his company, SDM Partners, bought four of the buildings in Meadow Brook Corporate Park, totaling 509,000 square feet of office space, in November 2017.

His company immediately sold one of them, the 100 Building, to McLeod Software and still owns the other three: the 300 building (which has 101,000 square feet), the 500 Building (which has 135,000 square feet) and the 1200 Building (which has 128,000 square feet by the lake), he said.

The 500 Building, with Lake Homes Realty and Civitan International in it, is now at least 40% leased, and the 1200 Building is about 95% leased, Martin said. His company already has spent about $3 million renovating the 500 Building, he said.

The 300 Building is currently empty, he said. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama previously occupied both the 300 and 500 buildings, he said. When his company bought the buildings, Blue Cross already had consolidated into the 500 building and had two years left on its lease there but ended up buying out the last year of its lease, he said.

Renovation plans were in the works when the COVID-19 shutdown hit and delayed some of the work, he said.

“It’s been a grind. The past two years have been a challenge,” Martin said. “But we did not have a single tenant miss rent.”