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John Murphy
Greenville County Schools has done a nice job of communicating and surveying parents as to the level of interest and comfort with coming back to school in the fall of 2020. The past 3-4 weeks has made the decision about schools even more complicated, however.
If one thought it might be difficult to open the schools for 5 days of in classroom instruction given the requirements for social distancing, sanitation and general rule following prior to the recent surge in coronavirus cases, can you imagine the odds now given South Carolina and Greenville County are considered “hot spots?”
Greenville County Schools tweeted this message below out yesterday. They are going to do a Facebook Live on Thursday at 2pm to discuss the upcoming school year. Local news station, WYFF, ran a story about how time is running out to make a decision on opening the schools.
Based upon a Greenville County Schools employee survey they just conducted, a significant majority have concerns about coming back to school.
If you recall at the end of June, Greenville County Schools Athletics called off all summer training / practices that were going on. They’ve been called off until at least July 20th. If we are going to have a high school football season, normal practice is slated to start at the end of July. We’ll have to see what happens with that.
Here’s the latest positives cases of coronavirus in the state of South Carolina. You can see we’ve had a big run over the past 4-5 weeks.
Most parents I’ve spoken with want their kids to go back to school 5 days per week. The virtual Zoom learning generally did not work out so well. It’s estimated that the South Carolina public school system lost track of nearly 16,000 students. If we do this another year like this, we are doing our children a massive disservice.
The City of Greenville has been working on plans for a number of years to revitalize a 60+ acre park on the west side of town that has been allowed to deteriorate. The revitalization project is just part of a number of efforts by the City of Greenville to continue to make this city such a great place to live.
The Greenville City Council just approved the Unity Park contract with Harper General Contractors to build the 262 unit apartment building. The contract is for just over $38,000,000.
Check out a Google Image Search for Unity Park Greenville, SC. There are many terrific renderings of what the city envisions the park and surrounding area will become in the near future.
For more information on this amazing redevelopment effort, the City of Greenville has a dedicated site for Unity Park Greenville.
South Carolina has become a “hot spot” for coronavirus cases and the government officials are concerned that we are going to see an explosion in hospitalizations and deaths. Mind you at this point, there have been 691 recorded deaths from the coronavirus in South Carolina which has a population of 5.2 million people. Local officials in Greenville are jumping in to action as seen by the City of Greenville issuing a mask mandate for all grocery stores and pharmacies within the city limits. Now Greenville County School is suspending all sports practices and training through July 20th.
Greenville County Schools athletics is a massive operation. There are 16 high schools in the county. Summer workouts and training is a huge part of all sports programs here in the state of South Carolina. This news yesterday came as quite a shock and surprise to many in the sports community.
There is no guidance yet as to what might happen after July 20th. Most high school football programs are slated to begin official practices at the end of July. That doesn’t give them much time to adjust if they need to. The first games are supposed to kick off on August 20, 2020.
The South Carolina High School League had a meeting yesterday and a Zoom conference with the commissioner. They are very cautious about committing to any start to fall sports.
The greater Greenville area housing market has seen a slowing in its housing market due to COVID-19 especially during the month of April. Given the peak of the crisis has now come and gone, it’s expected that things should pick up quite nicely during the month of May.
Some key data points for the month of April 2020 according to the report released from the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors:
- New listings were down 17.6% compared to a year ago
- Pending sales were down 59.8% compared to a year ago
- Closed sales were down 12.6% compared to a year ago
- Inventory of homes for sale increased by 22.2%
- Months supply of homes for sale increased by 20.6% to 4.1 months
- Median Home prices increased by 3.8% to $225,000
- Days on Market until Sale 54 days
Photo Credit: John Murphy, Greenville Real Estate News
Last week, Governor McMaster announced the relaxation of restrictions on restaurants are will allow them to operate at 50% capacity but still requiring proper social distancing and cleaning protocols.
50% is better than just curbside but this won’t work long term. Given what we are seeing in the state of Georgia and hopefully in South Carolina as well, the Governor will consider further relaxing the current guidelines.
Molly Hulsey of the GSA Business Report has written an excellent story about the opening up of downtown Greenville.
Downtown Greenville is such a terrific place to go out for lunch or dinner. We are hopeful these restaurant owners as well as the other shopkeepers can stay afloat long enough for the public to come back.
We are heading to Smoke on the Water Friday night for the anti-climatic celebration of our daughter graduating from college. We’ll still have fun given the ceremony has been delayed until May 2021 believe it or not. We’re expecting LOTS of people in downtown Greenville tomorrow night. The weather is supposed to be in the low 80’s. It should be fabulous!
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage through the planet, it’s effects are certainly hitting home. BMW has shut down and just announced that it will extend the shut down until April 30, 2020 at this point.
BMW is an enormous employer here in the Upstate employing more than 11,000 people. They are a huge driver to economic development, growth and prosperity to the area. According to the Upstate Business Journal article about BMW, they quote BMW as stating, “we continue to be concerned about the health and safety of the entire BMW workforce. During this time, additional cleaning and disinfecting will be performed at work stations throughout the plant.” Thank you BMW for all that you do for our community and for working hard to keep your employees safe especially at this time.
Let’s hope we can all get back to work safely and soon!
Downtown Greenville on the historic Reedy River
Opportunity Zones are the latest hot trend in investment real estate and big dollars are starting to be poured in to these zones. They were created with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Greenville, SC stands to benefit significantly from the new tax plan beyond the Opportunity Zones created. We’ll have more commentary on that as it will likely be a theme that will continue to be played out over the next 20-30 years.
The South Carolina Department of Commerce has built an excellent resource for the entire state. Be sure to check out South Carolina Opportunity Zones for maps and specific information you’ll need to help with understand what might be possible here in the palmetto state.
The Greenville Area Development Corporation (GADC) has a helpful article about how Greenville can benefit from Opportunity Zone investments and Greenville Business Magazine covered the topic earlier this year after the Opportunity Zones Summit in Columbia.
Here’s Greenville County’s Opportunity Zone information along with an FAQ from the IRS.
There are already projects in the works where we’ll see tens of millions of dollars invested in to Greenville as part of this new program.
TEDxGreenville has released its list of exciting speakers coming to Greenville on March 28, 2020 for a day of what should be inspiring, motivating and educational TedTalks.
The event will be held at the Greenville One Center. The theme is called “Brain Candy.” The event is being organized by Russell Stall. You can view many of the TEDxGreenville presentations on YouTube.
Below is what looks to be the most popular presentation ever from TEDxGreenville with an incredible 5 million views on YouTube. It was a talk given by Cynthia Thurlow on intermittent fasting at last year’s event.
Tickets go on sale later this month for TEDxGreenville 2020 slated for March 28, 2020.