solomon builders

Despite Nashville’s booming population growth over the recent past, the city has managed to preserve many of the qualities of a much smaller, tight-knit community than anyone new in town might be led to believe. 

Those qualities endure, in large part, because of a shared sense of stewardship among long-time residents who are working hard to preserve the values that have made Nashville a world-class community to visit and call home.

For more than 30 years, Solomon Builders has earned its unwavering reputation for building people, relationships, communities, and great buildings, in that order. And Charter Construction has had the privilege of working with the talented team at Solomon on multiple projects over the past three decades, including the Nashville Zoo, the Ramsey Solutions corporate headquarters, and the Seven Springs mixed-use development in Brentwood, Tennessee.

We recently visited with Jake Birkofer, a partner and project executive at Solomon Builders, to shine a light on their organization and our long-standing partnership.

Solomon Builders was founded in 1992 by local businessman Ty Osman and his partner and real estate agent, Gregg Turner, as a commercial construction firm that was dedicated to doing business differently. Both founders were committed to the idea that investing in people and relationships was not a means to an end but the true purpose of work itself.

“I wanted to learn and be mentored by a guy like Ty, who was a savvy businessman but was a good man,” said Jake regarding his decision to leave a position at a larger construction firm to join Solomon Builders in 2017. “I wanted to learn from his value system and the way he led his family and his business and how he treated people.”

In 2023, Solomon Builders and Charter Construction teamed up to build a two-story parking garage at the Nashville Zoo, which has expanded the property’s parking capacity by 62 percent to help alleviate congested lots and traffic jams resulting from year-over-year record attendance.

“Even before I joined Solomon Builders, Charter’s reputation was the best,” said Jake, who worked with several Charter Construction employees at his previous job. “If you were going to do anything big, difficult, or complex, you wanted Charter to be involved. 

“You can always trust what they’re telling you; because they’re still relationship guys,” Jake added. “They’re looking out for their clients and their people because they’re here for the long haul. They are so sharp and committed to the team, to the project, and to doing the right thing.”

Jake credited Charter Construction CEO Turner Talley for building a company that reliably demonstrates those positive qualities. 

“That all trickles down from Turner, who really instilled a lot of the same values at Charter that Ty did at Solomon,” Jake explained. “Turner and Ty knew each other and both men had a tremendous amount of respect for each other, especially as business owners in the same industry.”

Before Ty Osmon’s unexpected death in 2020, he held regular meetings with the company’s partners to reflect on the future of Solomon Builders under a new generation of leadership.

“As we approached 30 years, we decided to start by revisiting our mission, vision, and core values and determine what they would look like for the next 30 years of the business,” Jake reflected. “What we landed on was that we build people, relationships, communities, and great buildings. That is our purpose.”

Charter Construction is grateful to have a relationship with Jake and all his colleagues at Solomon Builders, and we look forward to our next opportunity to work together.

“What’s funny is that they’re bigger than we are now,” he added about Charter’s size. “In terms of big clients for them, we can’t be at the top of their list. But we’re always looking to do work with Charter. We’re always looking for ways to do business with them.”