Dreamscape is moving forward with its plan to convert the Fifth Third Center office tower in Nashville into a hotel after acquiring the property at a steep discount last year. The company bought the 33-story building in August for $55.25 million, according to reporting cited from the Atlanta Business Journal, representing a nearly 62% discount from the asset’s prior sale in 2019.
Since the acquisition, Dreamscape has been working on a comprehensive repositioning of the tower, which currently comprises a large block of office space. The redevelopment plan calls for transforming approximately 490,000 square feet of office space into a hotel program totaling 489 rooms. The scale of the project effectively shifts the building’s primary use from traditional office to hospitality.
Dreamscape has assembled a project team to execute the conversion. Hastings Architecture has been engaged to lead the design work, while J.E. Dunn has been selected as the construction lead for the transformation. Together, the firms are tasked with reconfiguring the existing office floor plates and common areas to accommodate hotel rooms, amenities and new ground-floor uses.
Planned features for the future hotel include an outdoor plaza that will offer a bar and food concept, along with patio seating connected to a hotel restaurant. The project is also expected to incorporate open public seating areas, positioning the plaza as an accessible gathering space rather than an exclusively private amenity. At street level, the plans call for ground-floor retail and restaurant space, adding new storefront activation around the base of the tower.
The conversion follows a significant shift in the building’s tenancy. Fifth Third Bank, the tower’s long-standing anchor tenant, announced last year that it would vacate the property. The bank is relocating its local headquarters to Germantown’s Neuhoff District, where it is expected to open this summer. Other tenants at Fifth Third Center have already moved out or are in the process of leaving, creating the vacancy conditions that support a full-building repositioning.
By reusing an existing downtown high-rise and redirecting it from office to hotel use, Dreamscape’s project reflects how some owners are responding to changing office demand and tenant behavior. The Fifth Third Center conversion will replace a largely empty office tower with a hospitality-driven use, new public space and additional retail and restaurant offerings once the redevelopment is completed.
