This week, both the City of Greenville as well as Spartanburg extended their mask mandates another two months. This means they will expire mid-December just in time for the final 10 days or so of Christmas shopping. Don’t hold your breath that they are going to drop their mask demands.
The City of Greenville took the mask mandate a step further. Whereas the previous mandate required masking in grocery stores and pharmacies, the new dictate is for ALL retail establishments across the city. The mask mandate carries with it a $25 fine if charged. This is for retail establishments just within the city limits. This does not pertain to the rest of Greenville County. The citizens seem to have mixed feelings about the latest mask ordinance based upon comments on the City of Greenville’s Official Facebook Page.
Greenville continues to get recognition as one of the best small cities in America. Coming in at #6 this year, that’s an improvement by 3 positions from last year. Number one of course was once again, Charleston, SC.
The rankings of the cities by Conde Naste Traveler’s readers are:
- Charleston, South Carolina
- Sante Fe, New Mexico
- Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
- Laguna Beach, California
- Alexandria, Virginia
- Greenville, South Carolina
- Aspen, Colorado
- Savannah, Georgia
- Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- Key West, Florida
Feel free to reach out if you have real estate questions. You might be looking to relocate to the area and need an agent. I’d be happy to talk – John Murphy, eXp Realty.
Check out GVLHomesAndLand.com to search for homes in the greater Greenville area.
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.
South Carolina State Parks just issued a mask mandate requiring visitors over the age of two to wear masks while visiting the parks.
According to the South Carolina State Parks Facebook Page:
“Effective immediately, visitors over the age of two years old are required to wear a mask in any state park facility staffed by employees or where the general public may congregate. This includes park offices, visitor centers, stores, nature centers, restrooms or while touring any indoor facility being considered for rent. In the event that visitors do not have a mask, they will be asked to remain outside of the facility and park employees will assist them and accommodate their needs, if possible.
Any park rental facility to include cabins, campsites, picnic shelters, group facilities, etc, are considered as having restricted use and will be the responsibility of the party renting that facility. It is recommended that they follow all CDC and SCDHEC guidelines regarding social distancing and mask wearing, but park staff will not be responsible for reinforcing those guidelines.
We thank you for your cooperation and understanding as we work to stop the spread and protect our visitors and employees.”
This sounds serious folks. The Greenville County Schools Board of Trustees are holding a meeting tomorrow morning at 9am to discuss the upcoming school year.
Given the incredible rise in positive coronavirus cases in the past 6-7 weeks here in South Carolina, I’ve been of the opinion that they will not be going back to school this year and that everything will be virtual. Just today, South Carolina DHEC announced that we had 1,532 new Covid-19 cases and 13 new deaths…205 are on ventilators. We’ll see what the Trustees have to say after tomorrow’s meeting.
Note, I’d like to see the students go back to face to face education. We’ve seen the sharp spike in Covid cases but not a corresponding rise in deaths fortunately. Perhaps we’ve nearly achieved herd immunity? Maybe the virus is weaking? I don’t know but just following the data, I personally don’t have big concerns at this time.
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 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
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.
This is an exciting development coming to Greenville’s Historic West End District. It was just announced that Kimpton Hotels will be building a 170 room hotel at the corner of Markley and Rhett Streets. I’ve stayed in Kimpton Hotels before. They have always been gorgeous with great service.
The new project is Greenville is is just one block off of Main Street. It’s on the other side of Main opposite Flour Field. It’s a great sign that development is moving off of Main Street. That’s a big deal and should lead to additional development.
The Upstate Business Journal has an excellent article about the new to-be-built Greenville Kimpton Hotel along with HospitalityNet has an article as well.