The Greenville City Council recently approved for the building of a much needed parking structure in Greenville’s fast growing West End. According to the article in the Greenville Journal, “the council approved $5.6 million for a mixed-use facility in Greenville’s West End — an area that has long been lacking in adequate parking, according to council members — that would include 560 parking spaces to be leased to the city over 30 years.”
Additional development will also take place at this location with 250 apartment units and 15,000 SF of retail space. The Post and Courier published a story about this development back in February and has a few more details. Apparently there are plans to have a roof top plaza on top of the parking garage. I can’t quite visualize how all of this will come together but Seamon Whiteside is the architect. They do amazing work so I’m sure this will also be quite remarkable.
The garage will be located next to the Eggs Up Grill on Augusta St.
The City of Greenville, SC has been updating its zoning and land use regulations to help achieve a more livable city as part of the GVL2040 Comprehensive Plan.
The city held a public meeting recently to provide an update with where they are at with the thinking. Upstate Business Journal has a good synopsis.
The main points are:
- Limit the amount of land that can be developed
- City to purchase vacant land as it tries to keep a significant amount of greenspace
- Maintain the character of existing neighborhoods
- Make development more walkable – less reliance on cars
- Create more affordable housing
The city has hired CZB of Maine to help them with this planning update.
Take a look at just about any Facebook Page about Greenville, SC and you’ll see that lots of people are moving here. There are plenty of vocal residents here who are always complaining about the outsiders moving to Greenville. What cracks me up is that most of those who express that attitude themselves moved here from somewhere else. It’s pretty rare to run in to true Greenvillians these days. They are here but they are outnumbered by those who have arrived from elsewhere.
For me this fact that there are so many people who have moved here from around the country and around the world make this such an interesting place. You have the mix on the incredible charm and history of South Carolina combined with a growing and robust economy attracting all kinds of companies and people to the state and specifically here to the Upstate.
According to this article in the Greenville Journal, “Greenville County‘s population is expected to grow by 222,000 residents and 86,000 new jobs by 2040, according to a recent county report. The population today stands at 514,000. Already the county is planning a number of community meetings to address the current plans to handle the continued population boom.”
Our family moved here from Minnesota July 2019. We’ve been here three years and there continues to be great change here to the Upstate. The building that has gone on both in terms of commercial / industrial as well as residential has been great to see. The road remain an issue here and probably always will be. But as America starts to bail out of the northern and NE states along with CA, OR, and WA, South Carolina is an excellent option. I know Florida gets all the headlines, but people should really consider the great state of South Carolina.
If you’d like to explore your real estate options here in the Upstate of South Carolina, please don’t hesitate to reach out as I’m a broker associate / Realtor with eXp Realty.
What a gorgeous evening for the Greenville Poinsettia Christmas Parade last night! Thousands showed up to celebrate this wonderful tradition. Very few maskers were seen in the crowd. Most of those walking, riding or performing in the parade also were not wearing masks either, thank God.
Last year’s event was cancelled of course because of all the Covid hysteria. It was great to see that the City of Greenville has mostly come to its senses when it comes to allowing large public events. This comes on the heels of a MASSIVE turnout for Fall for Greenville just a few weeks ago. BTW, I have not heard of a single case of COVID, DELTA or some other cold variant being transmitted due to that event.
It was a wondering parade starting promptly at 6pm and ending at 6:55pm. The Furman marching band was terrific and led the parade through Main Street. There were lots of other high school marching bands, dance schools, local media, roofing contractors and musical groups among the floats. Thousands lined both sides of Main Street in a wonderful, peaceful community event. I’ve said it’s the best Christmas parade I’ve ever attended. Some have laughed at me saying I haven’t been to much then, but I have to disagree. Sure there are other events where they have more spectacular floats and probably bigger crowds, but to experience this in the gorgeous setting of downtown Greenville on a beautiful evening is hard to beat. BTW, it was 70 degrees at 5:30pm as we were waiting for the parade to start.
If you haven’t attended one of these parades, put it on your list to go next year!
On Tuesday this week, South Carolina Governor, Henry McMaster issued a new executive order. He cut the legs out from the tyrannical city mayors and councils and school districts across the state with their silly mask mandates. It literally was CHECKMATE on the tyrannical actions of local schools and cities. It was brilliant.
There was immediate pushback from some places as seen on various posts on Facebook. Greenville County Schools which has been a huge proponent of the mask, was not going to give up their masks quietly. They issued a statement to the effect that they weren’t sure if McMaster’s EO was legal and their lawyers were taking a look. I believe it was then the next day that South Carolina’s School Superintendent issued her own statement saying they would drop the mask mandate due to to the Governor’s EO. I believe it was after that that Greenville County Schools succumbed to the dropping of the mask. However, I believe students need written permission on the specific state form in order to show up maskless. Then one by one, the mask mandates were dropped…cities and schools started to fall in line. The biggest one was the City of Greenville had to finally cave as they had no standing any longer.
All of this just shows me that this was all theater and there was no benefit to the mask. It just finally took political courage and leadership from our Governor to finally stand up to this nonsense. The maskers are ticked off of course. I’m sure the school districts are besides themselves and panicked as to what to do now. I like to say that Greenville became the Mask Capitol of the South. Good riddance to the mask but something tells me this isn’t over yet.
Apparently it’s still a Federal rule that school children must wear masks on buses. Good luck enforcing that. Businesses can still require masks so I’m sure there are plenty of restaurants in downtown Greenville who will leave their mask signs up and require their employees to be masked. But really, how silly is it at this point to require masks? Costco won’t give them up, that’s for sure. Put Best Buy in to that crowd as well. If they ever do give them up, you will know that the “pandemic” is truly over.
Earlier this week, a crowd of parents and students gathered outside of where the Greenville County Schools Trustees were having their meeting. They were calling for an end to the mask. Many of the maskers on Facebook were ridiculing these parents and kids for their efforts. However, the next day, the Governor dropped his Executive Order.
Now it’s on to continually reminding the voting public that these people put in the mask mandate. Every mayor, council member or school board member who voted for the mask must be voted out. Oh, and particularly for those in leadership at Greenville County Schools who are making it difficult just to drop the masks, I do hope you will continue to wear your mask until the last mask on a child is still showing up to school.
The City of Greenville, SC City Council has once again extended the ridiculous mask mandate for all public spaces and retail establishments within the city limit. The mask has been in place for months now with no end in sight. The council has once again demonstrated that they are against the people and prefer the heavy hand of government. This is yet another outrageous overreach by the Greenville City Council including the much loved Mayor Knox. They all need to go. None of them should be re-elected. It’s time to clean house in Greenville.
Here’s the link to the Greenville City Mask Mandate signed 4-8-21 document they all apparently agreed to unanimously. Remember, the City Council is supposed to be mostly “conservative” but that is not the case. While the Upstate is generally a conservative area, the City of Greenville has moved more leftward in recent years and appears to be well on it’s way to becoming a Democrat city just like Columbia and Charleston. The unfortunate thing for the rest of us in the Upstate is that the City of Greenville has a pretty significant impact on the rest of the cities and counties. It’s just comical at this point that these elected representatives and their health advisors whom they do not name, besides the CDC and the dreadful SC DHEC, believe that masks are going to save us from a virus which has a 99.97% survival rate.
It’s my opinion that if an elected official was involved in voting in a mask mandate anywhere in the country, they should not be allowed to hold elected office ever again. They also should not be allowed to be hired in any kind of government job as well. If city managers and staff are also on record as having supported the mask mandates, they should be replaced. I realize it’s not that easy to fire people and most of the people who work in government likely support the masks but if we ever get elected officials again who believe in the US Constitution and individual liberty, they need to make a point to clean out the leadership and ranks of those who wish to subvert our freedoms.
The City of Greenville, while a spectacular place to live work and recreate, has elected officials that continue to disappoint in a big way. All of you moving to the Upstate, you have been forewarned.
The City of Greenville has a new Economic Director – Merle Johnson. Mr. Johnson comes to Greenville most recently from being the Economic Director for Charleston County, SC. He is replacing Nancy Whitworth who has been doing the work for the past 40 years. The Upstate Business Journal has an excellent story on our new Economic Director. Welcome Mr. Johnson!
This week I had a chance to attend an event at the Greenville Convention Center for the Home Builders Association of Greenville. It’s located in a warehouse district area close to the downtown airport in Greenville. The building itself is fine, however, the location is not particularly appealing for the kinds of bigtime events that I think could be attracted to Greenville. There are no other venues near by such as bars or restaurants. Greenville is evaluating building a new convention center in downtown Greenville along the Reedy River. This is something that we need to do. We need to work with the state and find the money.
What to do then about the existing space? I’m not sure. Maybe it becomes a big warehouse. I don’t know. But when you think about how cool downtown Greenville is and how beautiful Greenville-Spartanburg International (GSP) is, I think it’s time they build a gorgeous new convention center.
