More than two decades after buying it, Cumulus Media has sold its Nashville headquarters. For the fiscally challenged company, it is a good decision, based on the sale price and the amount the company led by Mary Berner paid for the Music Row-adjacent property.
Texas-based Endeavor Real Estate Group purchased the 1.13-acre site at 10 Music Circle East for $10.5 million.
To illustrate just how hot Music City USA is, the amount is more than six times the $1.6 million Cumulus paid in 2002.
And, as is becoming more common in building sales, Cumulus immediately initiated a lease-back agreement, ensuring the company’s headquarters remains in Nashville “for the foreseeable future.”
Details of the deal were disclosed by the Nashville Post, an online alternative to Gannett’s daily, The Tennessean. Lease terms were not disclosed.
For Cumulus, the sale represents the latest reassessment and monetization of its Music City real estate. In 2021, the broadcaster completed a $34 million sale of non-core Nashville properties to a partnership of Centrum Realty and Development and Nashville Capital Group, part of a broader effort to strengthen its balance sheet.
The money from the sale will undoubtedly be welcome revenue. Cumulus reported a $20.5 million net loss in Q3, nearly double last year’s $10.3 million loss, as national advertising softness persisted. The company expects Q4 revenue to decline mid-single digits.
Other broadcasters have made similar moves lately. In 2024, Salem Media Group spun its Camarillo, Calif., headquarters for approximately $5.5 million while signing a five-year leaseback deal with annual rent of about $400,000.
Audacy Inc. also reshaped its real estate strategy, earlier this year, by scaling back its Philadelphia corporate footprint and listing part of its 2400 Market Street headquarters for sublease while keeping its station studios intact.
