Former Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver has filed a federal lawsuit against his longtime real-estate business partners, Mark Schlossberg and Cary Mack, accusing them of using his NBA misconduct scandal as cover to permanently cut him out of a Nashville development worth more than $1 billion. Sarver alleges the pair dissolved a business entity that held his interests in Southwest Value Partners' mixed-use Nashville project, then transferred those ownership rights to themselves.
According to the lawsuit, as reported by Axios, Schlossberg and Mack asked Sarver to temporarily resign from Southwest Value Partners' investment advisory board, and Sarver agreed to step down with the understanding that he could eventually return. All three men reportedly signed an agreement affirming Sarver's right to participate in future fundraising rounds. Sarver claims his former partners later worried that the misconduct allegations against him would harm the firm's ability to raise money and maintain investor relationships, according to the lawsuit.
Sarver alleges that dissolving the entity violated his contractual rights and was designed to sideline him from the venture altogether, with the lawsuit describing the corporate maneuver as one meant to sever his contractual claims entirely. He says he no longer receives his rightful share of the enterprise, according to the lawsuit, and is seeking to recoup the money he claims he was unfairly deprived of.
Southwest Value Partners Pushes Back
Southwest Value Partners has called Sarver's lawsuit groundless, saying his claims are without merit and that the firm believes it acted properly and in the best interests of its investors and partners. No defendants have filed a response to the lawsuit, and no court dates have yet been set in the case, the same report notes.
The dispute centers on Nashville Yards, the 19-acre downtown Nashville development that Southwest Value Partners has built out with more than 2 million square feet of office space, Amazon's Operations Center of Excellence, the Grand Hyatt Nashville, and a 4,500-capacity venue co-developed with AEG, according to NashvilleYards.com. Southwest Value Partners has continued advancing the project this year, including plans for a 35-story office tower and the opening of a California taco chain's first out-of-state location there this month.
A Firm Sarver Co-Founded Decades Ago
Sarver co-founded Southwest Value Partners in 1990, originally alongside Paradise Valley developer Millard Seldin, who died in January 2020 at age 93, according to his Wikipedia biography. The firm has expanded well beyond its Scottsdale roots since then. In August, it paid $86 million for Esplanade III, a 10-story office tower in the Camelback Corridor; the purchase was Phoenix's largest single-building office transaction.
Sarver's exit from the Suns traces back to 2021, when the NBA began investigating workplace misconduct allegations against him that included racism, misogyny and sexual harassment. The league substantiated those allegations following an investigation by law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and fined Sarver $10 million while suspending him for one year in September 2022, according to Defector. Sarver then sold the Suns and the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury to current owner Mat Ishbia, with the sale finalized in early 2023 at a $4 billion valuation that netted Sarver roughly $1.48 billion for his 37% controlling stake, per a report cited on Reddit from ESPN.
A New Fortune, Built on Distressed Towers
That payout has fueled an entirely separate real-estate campaign. In 2023, Sarver launched Phoenix-based investment firm 3Edgewood LLC to buy discounted, out-of-favor Class A office and life-science buildings across the country, according to CoStar. The strategy has produced some striking bargains: in January 2025, 3Edgewood acquired Chicago's 1.6-million-square-foot former Groupon headquarters for $88.7 million, a steep drop from the tower's $510 million sale price in 2018, as reported by The Real Deal.
A sale of 222 Fifth was reported at $50 million, below its $172 million tax-assessed value, the Phoenix Business Journal reported.
For now, Sarver's new suit against Schlossberg and Mack remains in its early stages, with no response filed by the defendants and no court dates yet set.
