Greenville, SC has been hitting the radars of many companies especially in manufacturing, distribution and supplychain. Located 90 minutes southwest of Charlotte and two and a half hours north of Atlanta, Greenville is right in the flow of goods up and down the East Coast. On top of that, there is the Inland Port Greer which is an extension of the Port of Charleston. This is a direct train line that runs from the coast up to Greer, SC (Upstate South Carolina and a city neighboring Greenville). The Inland Port is just three and a half hours away from Charleston. This is an unparalled combining of relatively easy access to freeways for trucking, trains delivering direct access from a major port city and comparatively cheaper pricing for land and buildings.
Take a couple of minutes and listen to area expert with a long history here, Randall Bentley of Lee & Associates. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Randall and he is a real professional and is a wealth of knowledge and expertise on the market here in the Upstate. In fact he has a great team of commercial real estate brokers providing services, advice and counsel throughout the Upstate.
Dustin Tenney, a local commercial real estate agent with SVN Blackstream, posted on the Simpsonville, SC Facebook Group basically asking the 25,000 members what would they like to see developed at the 3 sites in the pictures he posted. (Update: here’s a link to one of their Simpsonville Retail Listings ).
In less than about 12 hours, there were already over 500 comments to his post. I also live in Simpsonville as does Dustin. We have seen lots of new commercial development as the city of one of the most desirable places to live in the country right now. The joke is that if something new is being developed, it’s either a dental office, a Waffle House, a car wash or an oil change station. But Dustin Tenney and his business partner, Daniel Holloway, are looking for perhaps something that the city doesn’t have yet and he solicited the public’s opinion on it. What ensued was a lot of fun and craziness and the mentioning of an incredible amount of companies and brands. I tried to go through the post and identify the companies, stores, brands, services that people wanted to see. Frankly, it was a bit mind numbing and I only made it through maybe the first 35-40% of the comments. So my analysis below is by no means scientific and I don’t vouch that it’s 100% accurate but directionally it gives you some idea what people are looking for in terms of new development in Simpsonville, SC.
Below is Dustin Tenney’s post in the Simpsonville Residents Facebook Group:
“Simpsonville! I would love for ya’ll to provide input on these three sites and “play broker/developer”. I’m serious in my interest to hear from you – I am a resident of Simpsonville as well and do a good amount of work in our city. My business partner and I know what what we don’t need any more of, as ya’ll are very vocal about that. But sometimes we don’t always think of everything we do need.
Back story, because of the cost of the dirt, we really need national tenants here, and because it’s a major thoroughfare, national tenants are what make sense anyways. The mom and pop and regional tenants are better suited with what we have going on along Main Street around Burdette.
With that said, feel free to drop me a line here, shoot me a DM or send me an email at dustin.tenney@svn.com.
SVN Blackstream Reedy River Retail
Here’s what I came up with after combing through the post comments. If a company was mentioned, I noted how many Likes / Loves it had and have attempted to add them up on a spreadsheet. As noted above, I did not get through the entire post given the number of comments. I don’t even know if this is helpful, but clearly people want a Trader Joe’s grocery store and a Texas Roadhouse. There was also lots of interesting comments about areas needed for families and kids….skate parks, ice rinks, trampoline parks, arcades, roller skating, bounce houses, mini-golf, movie theater…but the overwhelming responses where geared toward restaurants and grocery stores. There were several comments asking for coffee shops (not Starbucks) and bookstores.
Wants Likes / Loves
7Brew 4
Academy 5
Aquatic Center 5
Barnes & Noble 22
Bingo Hall 2
BJ’s 4
Buc-ees 2
California Pizza Kitchen 2
Carrabbas 3
Cheddars 1
Chicken Salad Chick 16
Chipotle 5
Clean Eatz 5
Container Store 1
Cookout 20
Copper River Grill 1
Costa Vida 2
Costco 22
Culvers 13
Dave and Busters 3
Dunkin Donuts 9
Fazoli’s 2
Fresh Market 11
Fuddruckers 7
Go-Carts 17
Half-Price Books 4
Harris Teeter 7
Home Goods 3
IKEA 4
In-n-Out Burger 14
Indoor Bounce House 8
Jason’s Deli 8
Jimmy Johns 2
Krogers 7
Lidl 6
Logans 3
Lowe’s Foods 1
Marshall’s 8
McAlister’s 9
Menard’s 4
Mini Golf 10
Mo’ Bettahs 2
Movie Theater 3
Noodles & Company 12
Old Navy 1
Once Upon a Child (thrift) 2
Pappadeux Seafood 4
PDQ 3
Pei Wei 4
PF Changs 2
Portillo’s 5
Raising Cains 8
Red Bowl 1
Red Lobster 13
Red Robin 7
Roller Rink 5
Sam’s Club 21
Shake Shack 4
Smash Burger 4
SoftSurroundings Clothing 1
Spare Time 3
Taco Cabana 2
Taziki’s 1
Texas Roadhouse 58
Top Golf 1
Trader Joe’s 92
Trampoline Park 22
Tupelo and Honey 14
Ulta Beauty 3
Uno 2
Urban Air 17
Wegman’s 31
West Elm 7
Whataburger 20
Zoe’s Kitchen 10
Below are other images of sites Dustin Tenney and Daniel Holloway are working on in Simpsonville, SC. If you’re looking for help with retail in the area, these two are doing a great job!
A few weeks ago I was driving along Laurens Road in Greenville heading towards Verdae. On the northeast corner at Laurens and Verdae I noticed that the land had been cleared and it was a fairly large parcel. I’d never really noticed it before because it was so hidden by trees and brush along Laurens. Turns out this is going to be the new and very impressive headquarters for Southern First Bank.
The Upstate Business Journal does a great job of talking through how Southern First Bank decided they needed a new HQ and what their plans are for the building. This will be a stunning addition to the area and seems to be a great example of some of the beautiful new buildings going up in Greenville.