WSTB

http://www.gsabusiness.com/news/52175-a ... s-west-end
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/n ... /14066989/
http://upstatebusinessjournal.com/news/ ... -building/
http://www.greenvillesc.gov/PlanningZon ... Street.pdf

Just a few of the projects planned for downtown Greenville, SC. A 11-floor Aloft Hotel and parking garage (part of the One development that includes a 9-floor and a 11-floor office building with ground floor retail/restaurant space that houses Anthropologie, Brooks Brothers, Tupelo Honey Cafe, Orvis and others that just opened a few months ago), is under construction. Rivers Edge, a 8-floor apartment building, is nearing completion near the Riverplace development at the Reedy River. Several other apartment projects are under construction throughout downtown and the West End area. It's amazing to see all of the development taking place there. Three of the above projects with links were just announced within the past week or two, including Grubb Properties' Link Apartments.

Per news reports coming out of South Carolina, Greenville is on the short list for the North American HQ of Transcom, a global customer and technical support provider, based in Stockholm Sweden. The search started in the Spring and Greenville was among 125 potential sites considered. (Which begs the question as to whether Camel City & its Triad brethren were on that initial list?) The company has 30,000 employees world wide and offers a range of remote business services, including customer interaction, technical support, sales and credit management. It currently has about 150 clients and claims 1.5 million customer interactions per day in up to 33 languages.

The company said the finalists shared two primary attributes-an existing pool of prospective employees and a convenient and attractive area for clients to visit. (Seems like Camel City would make that short list!) About 300 employees will be hired to open the center, increasing to 500 within 12 to 18 months. Long term vision could expand the facility to 1,000 employees at multiple sites within a single business park. Its their intention not to move from community to community, but to stay in place and grow their needs at a single site long term. The company will use a hybrid model for the new center with employees working from home as well as the office. While some of the catalysts for that plan are related to the pandemic, the model fits with the company's remote client and customer service roles. They currently have 3000 employees working from home across the US and Canada. Opening up a brick and mortar in a hybrid fashion allows us to have the best of both worlds according to company officials. Its anticipated that the new location will work on a 80/20 or 70/30 split between home and office.

This is Exhibit A as the type of company that should be a natural for Winston and one that the City should be able to be competitive with. This operation would be the perfect fit for the old Inmar buildings up on Coliseum. Damn, I want a win like this so bad!

Went to Greenville for the first time in years this weekend for a wedding downtown. All I have to say is WOW! That downtown is awesome. The mix of buildings is old and new is terrific. The streetscape was very urban and pedestrian oriented. There was the perfect mix of retail & restaurants. Unsure if there was an special event going on in the CBD but the crowds of people were plentiful.

Stayed at the Aloft and was just steps from everything D.T.G. had to offer. There was a new development that included an AC Hotel and what look to be a 10 plus story apartment or condo building with a public plaza in between. Lots of restaurants with outdoor seating was throughout the area. Hands down, Greenville has the downtown which should be the template for any other mid/small sized metro should strive for.

By toggling between Google Street View images from 2008 & 2022 one can clearly see the remarkable transformation which has occurred there in just the past 14 years.

Not a lot of vacant lots, blank walls, or dirt piles interrupting the streetscapes. Most newer multi-use buildings appear to have ground floor commercial space.

Greenville's success is mainly due to BMW, right? I would imagine they have money pouring into the area, growing their tax base, etc.

That is one of the main issues with relying on health systems, universities and other nonprofit organizations for growth. I don't believe Forsyth County collects on property taxes on most of Wake's buildings.

BMW and the airport are both side-by-side in the Spartanburg County town of Greer, along with a major intermodal port. If Greer sounds familiar, it could be because Greater Winston-Salem's Mark Owens is from Greer / Greer Chamber of Commerce. Greer is booming. It's about three or four times larger than it was before BMW. If you live in Winston-Salem, you should find it interesting that Greenville's airport, major auto factory, and major port are in a neighboring county. Clemson University has an automotive research center in Greenville, which shows how neighboring communities can get-in on the action. Imagine a Wake Forest University Battery Research Center in the Innovation Quarter or a Wake Forest University supersonic flight research center at Smith Reynolds Airport, as examples. I can remember when they won BMW, since Asheville is in Greenville's media market. I think I was around 8 or 9, but it was big.

Growing-up in Henderson County, we would go to Greenville in neighboring Greenville County for shopping, to try noteworthy chain restaurants we didn't have in Asheville/Hendersonville, to use their airport, and for entertainment. Their downtown was nice when I was still in high school and I think they won an award or two back then?

GREER, SC

Census Pop. %±
1880 97 —
1890 320 229.9%
1900 648 102.5%
1910 1,673 158.2%
1920 2,292 37.0%
1930 2,419 5.5%
1940 2,940 21.5%
1950 5,050 71.8%
1960 8,967 77.6%
1970 10,642 18.7%
1980 10,525 −1.1%
1990 10,322 −1.9%
2000 16,843 63.2%
2010 25,515 51.5%
2020 35,308 38.4%
2021 38,865 10.1%

Well there you have it. Winston-Salem just needs to replace thousands of blue-collar manufacturing jobs. (RJR alone had a workforce of some 14,000 when I first moved here.) Do that and poof - problems solved. If little Greer (of all places) could do it, so can we.

And has Reedy River running through it though (to me) it’s hardly a river (there is no official definition anywhere of the difference between a river and a creek - in fact, there are samples of named “rivers” flowing into named “creeks”). Anyway, Reedy River is nice with some minor riffles and ripples actually about the same width as Salem Creek, the latter of which is not that far from downtown and could and still should be developed.

The fact is that Greenville geographically is a very small city in land area. BMW, Michelin and many of the other businesses that make up Greenville's corporate base lie outside the city limits, which makes what has been accomplished even more impressive. It would seem that the ability utilize Tax Increment Districts is what allowed such a small city to create such an outsized impact in developing their city center.

Here's info from the City's website that describes the evolution of downtown:

http://www.citygis.greenvillesc.gov/dow ... index.html

"This site can't be reached"

The link worked for me . . .

https://citygis.greenvillesc.gov/downto ... index.html

Thanks - working now???

I didn't realize the Greenville MSA population was over 30% larger than Winston (941,000 to 681,000). I used their report generator to build this report: http://www.greenvillescbusiness.com/gen ... /slide1617

Also, this quote from the report was extremely interesting: "Downtown Greenville as we know it today is the result of the thankless work of many individuals over the past 50 years. With 2.5 million unique visitors every year, it is obvious that people have taken notice." That level of visitation will bring in enormous amounts of money to the city.