McClinton & Company is a real estate development and brokerage firm, based in Montgomery, Ala., specializing in retail properties. Founded in 1990, McClinton & Company has developed properties throughout Alabama and its border states.

The company is heavily focused on developing real estate, with 80% of its transactions in development and 20% in brokerage. Long-range goals are to grow the brokerage side of the business while continuing to strengthen its position as a retail developer.

The McClinton & Co. management team includes J.D. "Buddy" McClinton, president and founder of the company, as well as a former All-American football player at Auburn University. Buddy McClinton had two decades of experience in shopping center development and redevelopment, including direct involvement in the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, Ala. and the remodeling of Montgomery Mall in Montgomery, Ala., before founding the company. Joel "David" McClinton, Jr., senior vice president of development and brokerage, is the force behind pushing the company’s surge in both new developments and the brokerage field. Joan J. Surles, senior vice president in charge of operations, assisted in the formation of McClinton & Company and oversees the daily operations, property management, legal document preparation and financial document preparation. John J. Mottram, III, vice president in charge of leasing and development, oversees the leasing of all company-owned properties.

McClinton & Company is in the process of completing its largest project to date, the High Point Town Center located in Prattville, Ala. The project is a joint venture with AIG Baker, based in Birmingham, Ala. Prattville is a bedroom community of Montgomery, Ala. The location was key to McClinton & Company as Montgomery’s market is growing with the addition of the Hyundai manufacturing plant and increased tourism to attractions such as Alabama’s Gulf Coast and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. The High Point location sits along the primary commuter thoroughfare to Montgomery and Interstate 65, the main artery of access for residents of the Southeast to the Gulf Coast resort towns of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Ala. and Pensacola and Destin, Fla. Directly across from the High Point Town Center is Capitol Hill Golf Club, a 54-hole golf complex that serves as a cornerstone of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, and the Marriott at Capitol Hill.

McClinton & Company is developing the four-anchor High Point Town Center to complement a Bass Pro Shop, the first in the state and the center’s main attraction. The $150 million 140-acre development was facilitated largely by a tax incentive package derived from the city of Prattville. Tax benefit packages had previously been used to lure automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Hyundai to the state. McClinton & Company worked with city officials to land the first of these packages to be used to fund a strictly retail-oriented commercial endeavor in Prattville.

The state also played a role in securing Bass Pro’s location in the Prattville area. McClinton & Company first learned of Bass’s inquiries in Alabama at a state-sponsored "Governor’s One-Shot Turkey Hunt and Dinner." The hunt brought real estate developers, among others, in contact with national and international business leaders as teams sought to bag turkeys and business deals. Following the Prattville deal, Bass Pro agreed to open two more stores in the state; one in Spanish Fort and one outside of Birmingham.

Bass Pro Shops, long known as a mail-order catalog giant, operates freestanding stores at more than 20 locations in 17 states and Canada. By the end of the decade, the company plans to have upwards of 50 locations. The stores specialize in gear and apparel for wildlife enthusiasts, hunters and anglers. Many of the stores feature large aquariums for sport fish displays, wildlife mounts and Bass’s own in-house restaurant, the Islamorada Fish Camp. In addition, every Bass Pro Shop maintains a boat dealership on the premises, carrying a full range of sport and recreation vessels and equipment.

The 130,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shop will occupy the entirety of phase one at High Point and is scheduled to open during August 2007. Phase two of the project, consisting of additional retailers and anchored by Belk and JCPenney, is scheduled for a Fall 2008 opening. McClinton & Company plans to introduce phase three once the first two phases are operational. Phase three will tentatively involve both single- and multi-family housing units. High Point Town Center is the first hybrid development for McClinton & Company, a mix of a traditional power center with junior anchors, lifestyle tenants and mall-type department stores.

The past two years have been the busiest so far for McClinton & Company. They embarked on the High Point Town Center, developed three Wal*Mart Supercenter-anchored shopping centers and completed two projects anchored by Rave Motion Pictures movie theaters in Huntsville, Ala. and Pensacola, Fla. The company’s preferred business model is to develop one shopping center in a B market every 18 months. McClinton & Company defines a "B" market as a trade area with a population between 200,000 and 800,000.

Wal*Mart and Rave Motion Pictures are two major clients for the company. Buddy McClinton had a working relationship with Wal*Mart prior to the company’s formation, and the first project completed under the McClinton & Company banner was a Sam’s Club and Wal*Mart-anchored power center in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Additional Wal*Mart centers that had involvement from McClinton are Premiere Place in Prattville, Montgomery Commons, Midtown Plaza and the Chantilly Plaza in Montgomery and the Hillcrest Center in Millbrook, Ala. Rave Motion Pictures chose McClinton & Company to develop its first location, a 16-screen theater for McClinton & Company’s 130,000-square-foot Festival Plaza project in Montgomery. Since then, McClinton & Company has worked with Rave Motion Pictures for theaters across the United States, including the company’s developments of Bayou Plaza in Pensacola, Rave at Valley Bend at Jones Farm in Huntsville, Ala. and Rave at South Terrace in Chattanooga, Tenn. All totaled, McClinton & Company has overseen more than four million square feet of development since its formation in 1990.

McClinton & Company’s brokerage business has a small portfolio of commercial and office properties centered in Montgomery. In addition to the improved properties, the company also deals in raw dirt throughout the Montgomery metropolitan area as well as adjacent to some of its developments in Alabama and Florida.

For more information, contact McClinton & Company, 2777 Zelda Road, Montgomery, AL 36106; 334-270-9653, Fax 334-270-9811;
Web site: www.mcclintonco.com. At ICSC: C1804 18^th Street.