Big news today and a great win for the City of Greenville. I believe this is the first big one for Sam Konduros, CEO of the Greenville City Economic Development Corp (GCEDC) who recently took on this position and will no doubt do some great things!
300 East McBee is one very large building for downtown Greenville. The fact that Prisma is going to keep its HQ’s here is a very big deal indead. The deal includes the City of Greenville investing $650,000 in public improvements at Falls Street and East McBee Avenue. Private investors have $38MM in the building and other investments there. There will be new tenants and other very nice improvements to the space. The outside street scape will see some very notable improvements according to this post by the City of Greenville on LinkedIn.
There have been many times that I will park in the public parking garage behind this building and this is the view I see on the 3rd level of the parking garage. I think this is such a cool looking building. It reminds me of a spaceship. I can’t wait to see the improvements they are doing on the back side of this as well.
We’ve all heard things are booming in Greenville, SC and they certainly are. New subdivisions are popping up everywhere as we prepare for the great emptying of blue cities and states to the north as they make their way to the South. There are some signs that the new home construction maybe getting ahead of itself with new builds, but that cannot be said when it comes to commercial construction.
There are some large empty spec warehouses along I-85 but no doubt those will become occupied within the next 12-18 months. What I find more interesting though is the dramatic drop in new construction for commercial buildings in Greenville County. Through July 2024, there have only been 44 permits issued for commercial new construction. Let’s say this number doubles between now and the end of the year. That will still put us down about 70% compared to 2023 which was down significantly from 2022. Pretty amazing to see this data.
Commercial renovations are plugging along at a decent rate although down from 2023 by probably 15-20%. Things got kind of crazy down here with Covid and now we are digesting those gains or in some cases resetting.
Greenville is still a fabulous place to live and work. We will get through this slowdown and once again ramp up to new heights I suspect in the not too distant future.
