BridgeWay Station mixed use development-Mauldin, SC

[GvilleSC]

This is a big shift in design. I know some on here will rejoice at this, but I'm not sure how we've gotten to the old world / obnoxiously faux-Florida appearance. It will be all of this, plus the Charter building and whatever building they recently constructed. Ehhhhh 

Edit to clarify: This has potential to be done well, but that remains to be seen. The uses and scale seems right, but I'm not convinced we need a "theme" architecture. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by GvilleSC

[gman430]

Renderings and site plan for Phase 1: http://greenvillejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/BridgeWay-Station_Groundbreaking-marketing-package.pdf

[vicupstate]

Wow. Looks completely different now. Not sure I like it either.  I wish this would just go away. With the hit to the office market, this is competition that County Square and DT don't need. It is a greenfield site whereas the other two are not. 

 

[gman430]

16 minutes ago, GvilleSC said:

This is a big shift in design. I know some on here will rejoice at this, but I'm not sure how we've gotten to the old world / obnoxiously faux-Florida appearance. It will be all of this, plus the Charter building and whatever building they recently constructed. Ehhhhh 

Edit to clarify: This has potential to be done well, but that remains to be seen. The uses and scale seems right, but I'm not convinced we need a "theme" architecture. 

Yeah, it really depends on what materials are used on the exterior of the buildings to determine if this will be a gorgeous and true mixed use development or Disney World.

[gman430]

13 minutes ago, vicupstate said:

Wow. Looks completely different now. Not sure I like it either.  I wish this would just go away. With the hit to the office market, this is competition that County Square and DT don't need. It is a greenfield site whereas the other two are not. 

 

I don’t think County Square has anything to worry about. RocaPoint is a subsidiary of Georgetown Company. Yes...THAT Georgetown Company: https://georgetownco.com/university-ridge Hughes won’t be able to compete with a commercial real estate company that size. 

I definitely would rather have County Square be successful over Bridgeway Station.

Founded in 1978, The Georgetown Company is a privately-held diversified real estate company led by CEO Adam Flatto. Headquartered in New York, Georgetown has offices in Columbus, OH; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, GA; and Los Angeles, CA.  Over its 40+ year history, Georgetown and its principals have developed, owned and overseen in excess of 25 million square feet of office, residential, retail and recreational properties and currently control assets with a value of over $3 billion.

Edited April 8, 2021 by gman430

[Cityplanner]

I would think that the main "loser" from the Bridgeway Station development would be existing suburban office space.  There's already a glut of it, and in this real estate market, anyone who wants to upgrade to Bridgeway Station and get new, nice space could probably do so at a pretty reasonable cost.

I'm not sure if a larger office developer would necessarily prevail over a smaller one.  The Hughes Co. already landed some prime retail tenants downtown at ONE over Simon's Haywood Mall.

 

[gman430]

Construction equipment starting to arrive on site. 

[GvilleSC]

2 minutes ago, Cityplanner said:

I would think that the main "loser" from the Bridgeway Station development would be existing suburban office space.  There's already a glut of it, and in this real estate market, anyone who wants to upgrade to Bridgeway Station and get new, nice space could probably do so at a pretty reasonable cost.

I'm not sure if a larger office developer would necessarily prevail over a smaller one.  The Hughes Co. already landed some prime retail tenants downtown at ONE over Simon's Haywood Mall.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying.

[goodbye]

2 hours ago, adrockc2 said:

It's happening!!!

 

That does look nice, and I noticed a few elements reminiscent of early local buildings.  We cannot talk about our preference for enduring architectural details and then scoff when a proven local developer attempts to break the mold of bland design.  I don't see "more of the same" here, but rather something different (unique in this area) and actually attractive.  It may seem to some like a Disney-esque design, but it will function as a quality suburban neighborhood rather than a theme park.  I imagine Bridgeway as Greenville's version of Biltmore Park Town Square near Asheville.  Keep in mind, the renderings seem to show just the first phase.

[gman430]

13 minutes ago, Skyliner said:

That does look nice, and I noticed a few elements reminiscent of early local buildings.  We cannot talk about our preference for enduring architectural details and then scoff when a proven local developer attempts to break the mold of bland design.  I don't see "more of the same" here, but rather something different (unique in this area) and actually attractive.  It may seem to some like a Disney-esque design, but it will function as a quality suburban neighborhood rather than a theme park.  I imagine Bridgeway as Greenville's version of Biltmore Park Town Square near Asheville.  Keep in mind, the renderings seem to show just the first phase.

“He laid out his vision for the development, with renderings on display picturing stone facades, archways and towers that draw inspiration from Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City, the old Greenville City Hall, the old Furman bell tower and the old Greenville train station.”

[goodbye]

13 minutes ago, gman430 said:

“He laid out his vision for the development, with renderings on display picturing stone facades, archways and towers that draw inspiration from Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City, the old Greenville City Hall, the old Furman bell tower and the old Greenville train station.”

Those were the precise places I recognized without reading his quote beforehand.

[distortedlogic]

Wow I am floored! I know we have to wait to see the coloring and actual materials but that looks fantastic! I would love to see some of this stuff for downtown as well. Also, I am completely confounded by you naysayers. This may be the most original thinking design for a major project I have seen in the county. This is so much nicer and classier than all the modern boxes going up downtown, and I love the bridge over the interstate. It reminds me of a European city, with great elements and character. I love this concept and hope it gets built, and would like to see more of this. Imagine if a denser version had been designed for county square!

Edited April 8, 2021 by distortedlogic

[goodbye]

This is one of the rare moments when I am eagerly anticipating a project's completion so that I can experience it in person.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Skyliner

[Cityplanner]

1 hour ago, GvilleSC said:

I'm not sure what you're saying.

I don't think that this will hurt downtown.  (The Hughes have so much invested in downtown that they wouldn't want to cannibalize their own buildings there.)  This will hurt dinky suburban office buildings.  It's such a tenant-friendly market that surely tenants who are already in suburbia would jump to upgrade their space by moving to Bridgeway.

I don't think that this project will suffer by having a smaller developer behind it (vs. a large national developer like the County Square developer).  

[GvilleSC]

20 minutes ago, Cityplanner said:

I don't think that this will hurt downtown.  (The Hughes have so much invested in downtown that they wouldn't want to cannibalize their own buildings there.)  This will hurt dinky suburban office buildings.  It's such a tenant-friendly market that surely tenants who are already in suburbia would jump to upgrade their space by moving to Bridgeway.

But, we have seen exactly this sort of departure from downtown. The most recent example is BB&T's move from what is now "Canvas".

The point being that the Greenville office market as a whole can only absorb "X" amount of space in a given timeframe. If you start to have substantial office inventory being introduced simultaneously in several sub-sectors of the market, they WILL affect one another. 

I will say this: the pedestrian bridge across 385 is going to be very important, and it looks like they're putting it to good use as a place-maker and establishing an identity for the development. Money well spent. 

Hopefully, Mauldin can use the tax dollars generated by this new productive use of land to help clean up its image as a truck stop and pump energy into their execution of a downtown. Unless, of course, they just kissed those visions goodbye with this Greenfield development. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by GvilleSC

[vicupstate]

There is retail space aplenty as it is and now we are going to  add >300k SF more?  Same for office space.  

Let's drop old Greenville building replicas and an totally irrelevant Italian motif into a MAULDIN project that already has modern architecture abutting it.  No thanks, lets develop the South Downtown Master Plan instead.  Let's do the Laurens Road redevelopment that has been on hold for more than a decade already.    

[gman430]

36 minutes ago, vicupstate said:

There is retail space aplenty as it is and now we are going to  add >300k SF more?  Same for office space.  

Let's drop old Greenville building replicas and an totally irrelevant Italian motif into a MAULDIN project that already has modern architecture abutting it.  No thanks, lets develop the South Downtown Master Plan instead.  Let's do the Laurens Road redevelopment that has been on hold for more than a decade already.    

I would like to hear your reasoning as to why you think they all can’t happen and coexist? Just north of here, Biltmore Park Town Square and downtown Asheville coexist just fine. Why can’t these? 

Some of these retail and especially office spaces have been empty for so long now that I don’t think they will ever get filled no matter if any additional space gets built or not. I’m looking at you Landmark building.

Edited April 8, 2021 by gman430

[motonenterprises]

15 minutes ago, vicupstate said:

There is retail space aplenty as it is and now we are going to  add >300k SF more?  Same for office space.  

Let's drop old Greenville building replicas and an totally irrelevant Italian motif into a MAULDIN project that already has modern architecture abutting it.  No thanks, lets develop the South Downtown Master Plan instead.  Let's do the Laurens Road redevelopment that has been on hold for more than a decade already.    

Why can't it all happen? I like this. We are some spoiled people in this area. Lol.

[gman430]

1 hour ago, GvilleSC said:

But, we have seen exactly this sort of departure from downtown. The most recent example is BB&T's move from what is now "Canvas".

The City of Greenville has nobody to blame but themselves for that. They could have gotten aggressive and offered tax incentives to keep BB&T downtown and expand but refused to so they packed up and headed to Mauldin. And at least they’re still located in the county. Much better than heading somewhere like Atla....errr...Charlotte. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by gman430

[vicupstate]

19 minutes ago, gman430 said:

The City of Greenville has nobody to blame but themselves for that. They could have gotten aggressive and offered tax incentives to keep BB&T downtown and expand but refused to so they packed up and headed to Mauldin. And at least they’re still located in the county. Much better than heading somewhere like Atla....errr...Charlotte. 

Did BB&T give the city a chance to do so?  Did BB&T expand or just move the employees/functions they already had to Mauldin? Paying someone not to move (without expansion) is not something I want my tax dollars doing. That would open up a spigot of blackmail opportunities.      

[gman430]

5 minutes ago, vicupstate said:

Did BB&T give the city a chance to do so?  Did BB&T expand or just move the employees/functions they already had to Mauldin? Paying someone not to move (without expansion) is not something I want my tax dollars doing. That would open up a spigot of blackmail opportunities.      

They would be crazy if they didn’t especially if it involves tax incentives. I might be wrong but I could have sworn new jobs were added with the move. 

[vicupstate]

What this project will do is accelerate the demise of Haywood Rd. , hamper the redevelopment of Laurens Rd. , compete with DT, County Square and ICAR for office tenants. It has already taken an auto office user that would seem to be a fit for ICAR, IIRC.  

DT has struggled to get below a 15% vacancy rate for years.  Cheap greenfield suburban buildings will just add to the problem.  

 

[gman430]

 

42 minutes ago, vicupstate said:

What this project will do is accelerate the demise of Haywood Rd. , hamper the redevelopment of Laurens Rd. , compete with DT, County Square and ICAR for office tenants. It has already taken an auto office user that would seem to be a fit for ICAR, IIRC.  

DT has struggled to get below a 15% vacancy rate for years.  Cheap greenfield suburban buildings will just add to the problem.  

 

No complaints about Camperdown which caused a bunch of office tenants downtown to relocate adding to the vacancy rate? 

Haywood Road is already in a demise because Simon refuses to fix Haywood Mall and the city is too scared to do anything about it. This project might be a blessing in disguise as Simon will see it as competition and possibly make them take action. 

Jackson was already in the surburbs. No real loss there when it comes to ICAR. 

Also, remember that Phil Hughes is greatly involved with the new downtown convention center so even he thinks both places can coexist. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by gman430

[gman430]

Another thing is why didn’t the city try harder to land Southern First downtown instead of having them build a new office building at Verdae? Same goes with Carolina First (TD Bank) back in 2006? Hmmm. The City of Greenville is not aggressive enough in trying to land new office tenants downtown. They’re more worried about affordable housing and a new overpriced park. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by gman430

[vistatiger]

Is this a joke.? The original design was way better. This looks hideous.. Who is going to be the anchor tenant - Medieval Times?????