Andy Ashby
Andy Ashby follows how specific commercial real estate deals change corners, corridors and buildings, tying individual projects to the broader story of local economic development. He is a commercial real estate reporter at The Daily Memphian, where he covers commercial real estate and economic development for the masthead’s business desk. His work concentrates on what is being bought, built or reimagined, and what that means for nearby streets, tenants and investors.
Commercial redevelopment and property sales
Ashby’s core coverage tracks the lifecycle of significant commercial and multifamily properties, from sale to renovation to re‑tenanting. In his reporting on the Marine Residence apartments, he details the purchase of the 71‑unit building, the per‑unit pricing and the planned upgrades, framing the deal as both a transaction and an early marker of how the property will be repositioned. His feature on Memphis Public Market, located in the shadow of the Sterick Building, uses a long‑vacant corner as a starting point to explain how a new market concept can revive a prominent Downtown intersection and draw new foot traffic. Across these stories, he consistently anchors the narrative in the building’s history, who now owns it, what is scheduled to change and how those changes align with surrounding development patterns.
Many of his pieces sit squarely in the business news tradition: they identify the buyer or developer, document key deal terms such as unit counts or square footage, and then connect those details to neighborhood‑level implications. Rather than focusing on personality profiles, he keeps attention on the property and the project, giving readers clear facts about timelines, planned renovations and the types of tenants or residents a redevelopment is designed to attract. The cumulative effect of this work is a running record of which buildings are trading hands, which long‑dormant sites are finally seeing investment and how those moves may reshape prominent corridors over time.
Retail, restaurant and mixed‑use corridors
Ashby spends significant time on retail and restaurant projects, tracking both national brands and local concepts as they enter or expand in the market. In coverage highlighted on The Daily Memphian’s social channels, he reports on new Dunkin’ Donuts and Buffalo Wild Wings locations, pairing the story with his own photography to show where and how these chains are being built into existing commercial strips. He has also reported on changes at area Wendy’s locations, treating fast‑food and quick‑service chains as part of the broader real estate landscape rather than as isolated consumer stories.
His work is not limited to national brands. When a creative tenant such as The Art Project Memphis joins a development like Stomping Grounds, his coverage explains how that addition changes the mix of uses and the feel of the center. He highlights the positioning of concepts like Memphis Public Market and similar projects as efforts to bring new life to corners that have sat empty, often emphasizing the mix of small businesses that will occupy those spaces. By moving between chain restaurant pads, coffee shops, galleries and multi‑tenant markets, he shows how retail and food‑and‑beverage uses interlock to reshape commercial nodes.
Within these stories, Ashby’s distinguishing trait is his focus on the physical and economic context of each opening or expansion. He notes when a new tenant fills a long‑vacant space, when a familiar brand re‑enters a corridor, and when a center’s tenant mix shifts toward more experiential or locally owned concepts. For communications teams working on retail, restaurant or mixed‑use projects, his coverage indicates a particular interest in how site selection, co‑tenancy and design choices play into the evolution of established commercial areas.
Industrial real estate and emerging asset types
Ashby also covers industrial projects and newer asset types that sit at the intersection of logistics and land use. On The Daily Memphian’s AM/DM podcast, he discusses a trend in industrial outdoor storage, translating what might seem like a niche segment into an accessible explanation of why these sites matter for the regional real estate market. His commentary in that format mirrors his written work: he starts with specific projects and companies, then walks through how they use land, what kinds of operations they run and why developers and landlords are investing in that niche.
Beyond outdoor storage, he profiles large‑scale industrial facilities, including buildings sized and equipped for major logistics operations, highlighting their capacity and how they fit into broader industrial development patterns. These stories tend to include technical details—such as building size or functional capacity—alongside the names of the owners and tenants, giving readers both a sense of scale and a clear view of who is driving the activity. His attention to these emerging and often utilitarian property types shows that his beat extends well past high‑visibility retail or residential projects and into the infrastructure that supports freight, warehousing and service businesses.
Output, formats and approach
Ashby is a high‑volume contributor to The Daily Memphian’s real estate coverage, with more than one hundred articles under his byline for the masthead. Most of his work takes the form of straight news and reported features on specific projects, rather than columns or opinion pieces, with headlines that foreground the property, the project and its location. His stories frequently combine transaction details, project descriptions and quotes from developers or business owners, creating concise narratives that are easy to place within the broader map of local development.
In addition to his written reporting, he extends his beat into audio by appearing on The Daily Memphian’s AM/DM podcast to unpack trends he has been covering in print. Those appearances underline his role as a subject‑matter reporter on commercial real estate, capable of explaining both the mechanics of individual deals and the patterns they contribute to over time. Away from the newsroom, he maintains a professional profile that emphasizes writing, editing and storytelling, reflecting a broader background in business and community‑focused narratives that informs his coverage of real estate projects. For sources and communications professionals working on development, retail or industrial stories, his body of work shows a consistent interest in clear deal information, site‑specific detail and the incremental ways projects reshape the commercial landscape.
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Abbey Ferguson
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Alcynna Lloyd
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Aldo Svaldi
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