Spotlight On: Alex Sanders, President & CEO, Pinnacle Construction Partners
July 2025 — Partnerships are paramount for Alex Sanders and his team at Pinnacle Construction Partners. Invest: sat down with Sanders, president and CEO of the Nashville-based company, to hear about the latest trends in the construction and real estate development industry, and how they build meaningful relationships and projects. “We just want to do good work and make people happy, and this is a perfect market for that,” he said.
What is your overview of the commercial construction industry in Nashville at the moment?
I would say the construction and real estate development market right now is steady and starting to gain more energy. People like to say that Nashville is the last place to feel a recession. We’re in multiple markets, and Nashville seems to be the one turning the heat up a little bit faster.
Before, people were staying out of the market, waiting for rate cuts or more activity. Now you’re seeing locals doing more deals because they know when the Nashville market heats up, they’ll be in a prime position.
Surrounding markets like Murfreesboro are still seeing strong valuations, often driven by local buyers who understand the long-term upside in Middle Tennessee, as opposed to people from other communities coming in to purchase.
The next few years will be a strong window for smart developers and investors to move. Those who position themselves early will benefit the most.
What makes Nashville ideal for Pinnacle Construction?
Pinnacle was founded here. Because of Michael Carter and his relationships and the work he does in the community, it makes it prime for us to be here. A lot of times when we have to compete with other groups, it’s the relationships that set us apart. Because of the relationships he has and has passed along to our group, it’s better here than it would be in any other market, for us in particular.
If you take that a step further and look at people who aren’t from here or don’t have those relationships, here in Nashville, people work with people they like and you have a better opportunity to get in front of the people you want and the decision-makers you need.
For Pinnacle, that’s great because our leaders are personable people. We just want to do good work and make people happy, and this is a perfect market for that.
How are you building partnerships in the construction industry?
At Pinnacle, we partner with a lot of other firms like Mortenson, JE Dunn, Turner, and other groups, and we can bring our workers in and make that partnership work.
It’s really in the partnership realm, where we don’t have to do as much business development because we can negotiate work based on the relationships I mentioned earlier. We also support other contractors who may need skilled trades on short notice, whether it’s painting, drywall, or finishing work. Our flexibility is one of our strengths. So the opportunities for us aren’t so much about location, it’s more about relationships. That’s what makes Nashville great, and Pinnacle great.
Which industries do you see driving the most demand?
At Pinnacle Construction Partners, we focus on delivering construction. Our sister company, Sanders Carter, leads our development efforts. Together, we operate as a fully integrated team that can source, design, build, and invest in the projects we believe in. With our real estate development arm, Sanders Carter, we’re able to tell what the market is based on where our investors are coming from. Most of our investors are looking for industrial sites, just because it’s so close to Atlanta and the Midwest, which has been the same story for the last few years.
I still have some hospitality groups that are interested in being in Nashville. There’s a lot of opportunity for investors to come in for hospitality and industrial.
Healthcare is still big, but to me, most of the healthcare companies are headquartered here but working in other areas. They’re building facilities in smaller, secondary markets.
Multifamily is starting to heat up again after slowing down over the last two years. Because of how the market was, there weren’t as many construction starts. I’m guessing by 2027, you’re going to see a housing shortage both because people stopped building and because more people are moving into the area.
What challenges have you seen impacting the market and your company?
It’s not a lack of capital at all, it’s more of, “If I invest today, what’s going to happen tomorrow?” For the last year or so, it’s been about the fear of investing in case the market changes. That was the same with tariffs.
Investors are tuning out the noise and realizing that staying on the sidelines too long can be a risk in itself. We believe in putting capital to work. Sitting on the sidelines is not a strategy. Although you still have the everyday issues, from tariffs to workforce challenges, that are slowing down investment, investors are at the point where they have to invest or they won’t have a business.
What differentiates Pinnacle from other companies?
Luckily for us, Pinnacle is vertically integrated. My background is in real estate development, so I’m used to finding deals, hiring architects and engineers, bringing in investors to add equity, and getting it built.
It’s been interesting how we’ve transformed over the last year or so. While the rest of the market has slowed down, we have our own deals that we can develop to keep us going, instead of waiting on other developers or users to figure out where their money is coming from.
We can maintain by generating our own deal flow and taking on a deal here and there, which is a little different from most construction arms.
For instance, if we have a client and a deal dies, most construction companies would just wait for it to come back. In our case, if that happens, we’ll just find our own investors and that’s helped us out.
We’re building our own path. While construction is our core, creativity and ownership in the development process have helped us sidestep many of the challenges others are facing.
What role does technology like AI play in how you plan, build, and communicate across some of your most complex projects?
It’s playing more of a role in staffing and education for our team. We’re not hiring less because of AI. We’re hiring better because of it. Our employees are evolving at a faster rate.
For instance, we just got this estimating program, and something that normally would take our estimators hours can get it done in a much shorter time.
Because of that, we’re able to go after more deals. We’re not spending as much time on each one. Time is everything for us. So if I’m looking at a deal, the faster I can get to a yes or no, the more time and money I save. If AI can help me get there faster, it’s helping out.
Also with marketing, it helps us be more specific about who we’re targeting, who our audience is. Yes, we still have a marketing person on the team, but we don’t use AI like a Google search.
We use AI more like a consultant to help us vet our ideas. It’s like having a vision you can’t fully articulate, AI helps us connect the dots faster and move from concept to execution. Or you have an idea but don’t know how to flesh it out.
We’ll use AI and say, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking. Help me fill in some of the puzzle pieces to get the full vision out.”
We’re not using AI to be creative. It’s more about helping us execute, and it’s helping us save time.
How do you see Pinnacle Construction’s role in helping shape the future of Nashville over the next two to three years?
I see Pinnacle as a trusted execution partner for people with big ideas. We meet them where they are and help turn that vision into something real, everything from finding the site to handing over the keys. For instance, you might have a company that’s growing rapidly and needs more space because they’re hiring people, but they’re not real estate experts. We’ll be the real estate arm, handling everything from site search to entitlement to hiring an architect and engineer, helping you find financing, building the space, and handing over the keys. If you need property management, we’ll partner with another group to handle that, too.
That’s easier for someone who’s focused on their own business. They don’t have to hire a real estate team. They just hire us to take care of it all.
I’m big on partnerships. I see us partnering with people to help them execute their vision. In the next few years, we plan to grow with a purpose focused on strong partnerships, building great teams, and helping shape what comes next for Nashville.
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