Greenville County Square redevelopment

[ingvegas]

Can we have a thread on kinds of consumer commercial offerings this development will have, and also offerings we *HOPE* it will have? 

Confirmed (and please add others I'm sure I'm missing):
1. Whole Foods

My TOP-5 Wish List:
1. Upscale 24-hour gym. Cardio, lots of free weights, class studios, indoor lap pool. Basically, a YMCA or Prisma Life Center  on steroids (bigger) and higher-end. The lack of a premium 24-hour fitness gym DT is annoying. You either have to get up at 5 a.m., or go workout soon after dinner because they all close at 9 p.m.
2. Chipotle
3. Local coffee roaster / coffee-house offering early breakfast and lunch.
4. Local Bakery (fresh bread/bagels, donuts, cookies, and desserts) (* Probably a no-go since Whole Foods will be an anchor). 
5. Liquor/wine/beer store.

[MISTER GVL]

I think the original plan called for a dinner theater. Perhaps the CINERGY at Bridgeway will come to fruition. Another rooftop with a good food menu would be cool. 

I was hoping J Peters would locate downtown. 

[NewlyUpstate]

An urban Target and an upscale movie theater (doesn't necessarily need to have dinner service, just nice chairs, screens, and audio) are the biggest items on my wishlist

Edited July 19, 2023 by NewlyUpstate

[apaladin]

Went by today and nothing going on. Some equipment sitting but no workers anywhere. I guess they all are on vacation, 

[gman430]

19 minutes ago, apaladin said:

Went by today and nothing going on. Some equipment sitting but no workers anywhere. I guess they all are on vacation, 

There were lots of workers on the old DHEC and DMV sites when I drove by in the morning. You could even see the new road network starting to go in on the old DHEC site. Maybe they were at lunch? Don’t expect much movement on the old county office building for a few weeks and even months. EMS still has to move out and completion of their new facility at McAlister Square has been pushed back. It won’t be ready for move in until October or November now. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by gman430

[gman430]

Trees starting to come down at the old DHEC and DMV sites along the edge of University Ridge. Major site grading now underway at Whole Foods Market. Several other tenants have signed LOI’s. Full build out has been lowered from eight years to five-seven years due to demand. 

Edited July 27, 2023 by gman430

[gman430]

Well, I guess the people behind Perch at County Square can keep their restaurant name now. All of that complaining by the other Perch for nothing. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by gman430

[btoy]

Did it close already?

[gman430]

22 minutes ago, btoy said:

Did it close already?

Their last day is tomorrow: 

https://upstatebusinessjournal.com/eat-drink/greenvilles-perch-gastropub-is-closing-permanently/?fbclid=IwAR1klE7JymIud86Xg6fMkRwWm_XTPMP4Xi8ZVgf-pLnc7_RXNZhIXHXb1KI_aem_Afny2CPD9a_ZKA-cgTJwaPTHkSZURCDzk17PJsPWihE39egDYyCMIVbDV6NNqmoEhvQ&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

Edited August 4, 2023 by gman430

[PuppiesandKittens]

I'm still not convinced that this site will work for retail:

Church Street has a good amount of car traffic, but the new county office building blocks the site from view by people driving by.  

The West End has a good amount of car traffic and foot traffic, but the residential areas between Howe Street and Augusta Road/Street, and Falls Park, block the site from view by people driving and walking nearby.

So the site is basically invisible.  

The retail parts ought to have been built either up against Church Street, or the site ought to have been made to stretch all the way to Augusta Road and Main Street, with the retail along Augusta Road and Main Street.

When this site was a mall, it had the same problem: the mall was along University Ridge, which has relatively light traffic, and people driving down Church Street would see only the movie theater (which lasted a lot longer than the mall did) and a glimpse of the mall.

It's a beautiful walk from Main through Falls Park, though the County Square site, and up to Crescent Avenue, but heaven forbid anyone in Greenville walk that far.

Edited August 5, 2023 by PuppiesandKittens

[GvilleSC]

I think the point is to integrate the site into the downtown street network, AND to become a destination in itself. It shouldn’t need cheap visibility in theory. TBD. 

[GVLover]

8-12 story towers, though short, will also provide visibility to the site. It's not as if this is an outlet off an interstate that has to have excellent visibility to lure people off the interstate, it's a destination for people in Greenville primarily with visitors likely having destination retailers + restaurants + hotels to spend their money at while considering rather they should pull the trigger and move to Greenville. It may not be as pretty as I'd like for it to be, but its going to work without a single doubt in my heart. 

[PuppiesandKittens]

12 hours ago, GvilleSC said:

I think the point is to integrate the site into the downtown street network, AND to become a destination in itself. It shouldn’t need cheap visibility in theory. TBD. 

Great point, and agreed.  But I don't see that it will be easily integrated into downtown pedestrian streets, seamlessly, or become a destination into itself.  When it was a retail site before, it had a movie theater, multiple discount stores (the Targets and Walmarts of their day) and multiple grocery stores...and still failed.  (Yes, this development will have additional uses to keep people coming, but a large retail destination here didn't work before so we need to learn from that experience.)

[NewlyUpstate]

1 hour ago, PuppiesandKittens said:

Great point, and agreed.  But I don't see that it will be easily integrated into downtown pedestrian streets, seamlessly, or become a destination into itself.  When it was a retail site before, it had a movie theater, multiple discount stores (the Targets and Walmarts of their day) and multiple grocery stores...and still failed.  (Yes, this development will have additional uses to keep people coming, but a large retail destination here didn't work before so we need to learn from that experience.)

The key to this being successful is the very typical mixed-use philosophy - Live, Work, Play.

All 3 components need to be strong. It can't just be a destination.  You need people walking around weekdays and weekends, nights and afternoons. Shopping, working, living, exploring and having fun.  

The reason areas like this can fail is because they specialize too much in one aspect, which leads to people leaving during one of those periods.

Edited August 6, 2023 by NewlyUpstate

[PuppiesandKittens]

36 minutes ago, NewlyUpstate said:

The key to this being successful is the very typical mixed-use philosophy - Live, Work, Play.

All 3 components need to be strong. It can't just be a destination.  You need people walking around weekdays and weekends, nights and afternoons. Shopping, working, living, exploring and having fun.  

The reason areas like this can fail is because they specialize too much in one aspect, which leads to people leaving during one of those periods.

They can fail for a range of reasons: poor design, poor tenants, poor location, poor demographics, etc.

If a Whole Foods in a mixed-use urban area in Brookline, MA can't make it, that means it's not bulletproof: Whole Foods announces it's closing its Brookline store (wcvb.com)

At a minimum, the streets between the County Square site and the West End need to be beautified and made more pedestrian-friendly (with trees, attractive signage, attractive things to look at while walking by) so that people in the West End will keep walking over to the site.

 

[vicupstate]

Bell Tower was surrounded by a lower income working class neighborhood and was not integrated into its surroundings.  It depended on people driving in and anything there could be found elsewhere within the same or less distance by middle income areas. No one lived DT and there was  no really tourism draw in DT or elsewhere.  

[gman430]

No worries. This project will end up stalling like all of the other ones downtown before completion. The developer will then blame everything from rising interest rates to Covid to the war in Ukraine for it happening. 

[PuppiesandKittens]

1 hour ago, vicupstate said:

Bell Tower was surrounded by a lower income working class neighborhood and was not integrated into its surroundings.  It depended on people driving in and anything there could be found elsewhere within the same or less distance by middle income areas. No one lived DT and there was  no really tourism draw in DT or elsewhere.  

True, although Alta Vista is within half a mile and Greenville’s office and retail scenes were more focused on downtown (I.e., a larger percentage of retail and office space was downtown back then) than they are today.  My grandparents loved Bell Tower Mall since it was literally half a mile from the Crescent Avenue area.

Not saying that this project will fail, but saying that this site has failed before as a retail site and what killed it before- lack of visibility and tenants that weren’t the best- needs to be addressed this time.

It needs to have major destination tenants.  Stores that are found in every strip mall around town (figuratively) won’t work.  Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn and others of that caliber need to be there (and based on retail elsewhere downtown, they can be).  

And it needs to be woven into downtown, as a seamless extension of Main Street.  But it’s not.

Edited August 6, 2023 by PuppiesandKittens

[gman]

2 hours ago, gman430 said:

No worries. This project will end up stalling like all of the other ones downtown before completion. The developer will then blame everything from rising interest rates to Covid to the war in Ukraine for it happening. 

No worries. This project will not stall.

[Gville2012]

[GVLer]

You had me at upscale Mexican food and golf simulators.

[GvilleSC]

I need more information, but at the moment I'm not impressed.  At face value, there doesn't appear to be a mixture of uses. They're trying to wow the public with the concept (read: Whole Foods), but we need legitimate population density on site. Additional two story buildings (at what I assume is going to be the core of the development) is not going to cut it. Residential should absolutely be above these concepts, or they should have been incorporated with the Lima One building. 

Will this signal the end of Group Therapy?

[gman430]

Edit. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by gman430

[rabbit seisin]

26 minutes ago, GvilleSC said:

I need more information, but at the moment I'm not impressed.  At face value, there doesn't appear to be a mixture of uses. They're trying to wow the public with the concept (read: Whole Foods), but we need legitimate population density on site. Additional two story buildings (at what I assume is going to be the core of the development) is not going to cut it. Residential should absolutely be above these concepts, or they should have been incorporated with the Lima One building. 

Will this signal the end of Group Therapy?

Well said. Gimmick retail with gimmick architecture (the rendering for the bowling place is repellent); each of these “concepts” represents a shortsighted waste of prime real estate. 

But I’m sure there will be plenty of PARKING 

[NewlyUpstate]

1 hour ago, GvilleSC said:

I need more information, but at the moment I'm not impressed.  At face value, there doesn't appear to be a mixture of uses. They're trying to wow the public with the concept (read: Whole Foods), but we need legitimate population density on site. Additional two story buildings (at what I assume is going to be the core of the development) is not going to cut it. Residential should absolutely be above these concepts, or they should have been incorporated with the Lima One building. 

Will this signal the end of Group Therapy?

My same thoughts. These are all solid gets, but the individual lots absolutely need to be mixed use with office or residential above every building for this to work and become an urban area.  Or else it's just a woodruff road replicate closer to downtown.

Edit: one thing I'm thinking about.. it would be interesting to create a running spreadsheet of all the projects to see how we're tracking towards the "3.5 million sqft of mixed use space".  These 3 projects only total 40k square feet, which if there truly is no height above them, means the rest of the property is going to have to do a lot to stay on track.

Edited August 8, 2023 by NewlyUpstate