STARKVILLE — Castle Properties is about to grab ownership of the former Cadence Operations Center to create a professional development building.
The 40,000-square foot property west of Cannon Ford, will be turned into a multi-office space building for prospective tenants or purchasers, Castle Properties owner Mark Castleberry told members of the Starkville Rotary Club on Tuesday at Hilton Garden Inn.
“They’ve allowed us already to start doing some work on it,” Castleberry said. “You may have seen it’s actually being painted today. … We believe there’s a great need (for the office space).”
Castleberry told Rotarians the purchase of the building, which is slated to close next week, is part of a strategy by the commercial development company to purchase vacant buildings in Starkville and flip them to prospective tenants or buyers to promote economic growth in the region.
Since 2014, Castle Properties has invested about $140 million in Starkville properties, and through leasing to prospective businesses looking to locate there, helped to create more than 400 jobs. He believes looking forward, there will be more commercial and retail development.
“Think about how much growth has occurred in Starkville,” Castleberry said. “Apartments, student housing, single family, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of retail builds. I think you’re going to see a lot more commercial development. So the next five years is going to be continued good growth for Starkville.”
His first significant investment came to the Starkville area in 2014 with the Mill at MSU, a $40 million project to renovate and revitalize an old cotton mill building last operated in 1964. That project was completed in 2015 and is a commercial-use property for businesses including current tenants such as Alfa Insurance, Gum Tree, Schilling Law Firm and a conference center. The property also houses a Courtyard by Marriott hotel.
Since then, Castleberry has renovated other properties around Starkville like the Rex Theatre downtown, which was done in 2021 for Abert Masonic Lodge and Glo, a light-up ice cube and toy company, and across the street at the Spring Street Cigars building — the old Mugshots.
Most recently, Castle Properties completed a year-long renovation of the former Garan Manufacturing plant at 601 Hwy. 12 W., a 92,000-square foot property, converting it to the Triangle Crossing Shopping Center, which now houses notable tenants such as Aldi, PetSmart and Marshalls, among others.
“This is just our perspective of how to build a community and our contribution to it,” Castleberry said. “People are really looking for a quality of life.”
But Castleberry isn’t sitting on his victories. In January, he sold his company’s interest in the Mill at MSU, Courtyard Marriott and the Hampton Inn Starkville to the Mississippi State University Foundation. With that money, he plans to continue purchasing and revitalizing other properties in Starkville.
“We saw an ability to liquidate that asset to somebody that’s going to reuse it in a very positive way,” he said. “The foundation has some great plans for the Mill, and it allowed us to reduce our debt and then go on to invest in other developments, which we’re looking heavily at here in Starkville.”
Castleberry also is closing a deal soon with the Starkville Korean Presbyterian Church to trade its current building at 115 S. Lafayette St. in exchange for the former Oktibbeha Family Medical Center at 105 Felix Long Drive, which Castle properties has been renovating since December.
That deal came about when the church was looking for a new building to house its congregation and Castle Properties was looking to buy its current location on Lafayette Street to renovate and then market it for a commercial tenant.
“There’s going to be kind of a very light, airy look,” he said. “We would just like to encourage retail in downtown Starkville. I can also see an office or some professional space. But we’re going to try to target retail.”
The deeds for those two buildings are set to change hands Wednesday.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
