My two cents, incorporating this project into the area that it is going is going to be difficult. We all want something really nice and not just really nice big boxes but I think that is what will happen. Woodruff Road is all sprawl type development with huge parking lots and nothing else. It's an ugly road despite the fact that everything on it is new. The Shops at Greenridge are better than the rest of the road but they still are not that great, and trying to drive through there is just plain dangerous, just like the rest of the road. 20 years from now, maybe even less than that, Woodruff Road will be like Laurens Road and stores will move out and move on. If we are lucky, a wave of redevelopment will come in and make the area more urban (keyword). Magnolia Park Town Center is the first piece of this puzzle along with the verdae development not that far away. It is the first major redevelopment project on the road so it should be alot nicer than the other developments. It will be fronted by 385 and Woodruff road on it's sides so essestially it's surrounded by 5-7 lanes of traffic on both sides and 85 will be nearby too. I don't think that tall buildings will work well on this site. I think they will stick out very badly and with the amount of pavement around them they won't have good views of anything, unless you would enjoy a view of the Target parking lot. I think a mix of 3-6 story buildings would be the best fit for this development. I tried to find what some of Gulfside's other developments have looked like but I've found nothing so far so I don't what they are aiming for. We can only hope that they will think about what makes Greenville special and incorporate that into their designs. The site needs a development that has staying power for the long run, for example longer than 20-30 years. It's a large site so they should take their time building it up like a real city. Start around the movie theater and Sports Authority and work your way out. Hopefully they will design it with the car in mind but not in focus. Include a bus stop, it looks like it will have a lot of sidewalks, and maybe a park somewhere. This is an important site and I hope they really improve it and not just replace what is already there with something new. It should have a lot of connectivity to Woodruff Road and not just entrances off of the road. But I guess only time will tell how this turns out.
