Women's Clothing Boutique Near Me Greenville, SC

The industrial real estate market in the Greenville-Spartanburg metro area appears to be rebalancing after a 3-year construction tear, according to a new report by Colliers, a global commercial real estate firm.

Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina's largest metro, doubled its rate of new residents arriving during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading the state and close to the front of the pack nationally.

In the third quarter, industrial vacancy fell to 11.06 percent — the lowest level this year. That was coupled with about 944,413 square feet of net absorption, the report said.

Nearly 36.5 million square feet of industrial space has been delivered in the market in the last three years, which Colliers said has kept vacancy high relative to historical averages. About 4.4 million square feet remain under construction, which is lower, year-over-year.

Nevertheless, steady-state leasing volume has increased, the report said. Half of the market’s vacancy remains concentrated in newer speculative buildings, but in-market tenants are starting to trade older, Class C and Class B structures for newer Class A buildings.

“Continued high activity and overall market interest from distribution and manufacturing prospects portend strong absorption through 2025 with labor issues at the Port of Charleston the primary threat,” the report said.

Luxury planned community east of Greenville adds 4 new tenants to village

New tenants were announced for the mixed-use village at Hartness, the 480-acre luxury planned community east of Greenville.

Brio Primary Care, Wine House, Chestnut Coffee House and Cork Beauty Bar will occupy a new, two-story, 12,000-square foot building at The Village Center at Hartness.

“The Village Center was conceived as a hub for entertainment and daily conveniences,” said Sean Hartness, CEO of Hartness Development. “We're thrilled to bring these celebrated businesses to Hartness and advance our vision for an innovative mixed-use village that seamlessly integrates natural and built amenities.”

The village is walking distance to Hotel Hartness, Spa H and Patterson Kitchen + Bar, and it features a farm, grand lawn, sports garden, resort-style pool complex, and a 180-acre nature preserve with 10 miles of trails.

Hartness was founded by members of the Hartness family, who in the 1940s acquired the bottling rights to Pepsi-Cola in Greenville. They later expanded into a global company and sold Hartness International in 2009.

Economic development leader tied with $2.6B investment, 11,300 jobs, retires

Tony Smith, a key leader in the economic development of Greenville County, has retired after 16 years of service with the Greenville Area Development Corporation.

A senior project manager, Smith’s expertise directly led to $2.6 billion in capital investment and the creation of 11,300 jobs in the area, the GADC said in a Nov. 4 news release. He has more than 25 years of experience in economic development, on topics like site selection, incentive negotiation, industrial site development, and strategic planning.

Since 2008, Smith has worked to attract and develop key industries in the region, from automotive, advanced materials, aerospace, bioscience, and life sciences, where he has served as GADC’s lead recruiter.

“It has been a privilege to work alongside such a talented and dedicated team,” Smith said in the news release. “Together, we’ve helped shape Greenville into the vibrant and growing community it is today. I’m proud of the work we’ve accomplished and am excited to see what the future holds for GADC and Greenville County.”

Tool & equipment retailer opening new Anderson Co. presence with $30M investment

Harbor Freight Tools, a tools and equipment retailer, announced it will invest $30 million and create 36 new jobs in Piedmont.

The company will lease a 76,171-square-foot research, development and innovation complex in Anderson County, the governor’s office announced. The property will consist of office space, research and development labs, and a warehouse for the design, development and testing of tools.

Founded in 1977, the company sells value-priced but high-quality tools and equipment, including hand, power, automotive and industrial tools. It first established a South Carolina operation in Dillon County in 2002.

The company established its first South Carolina operation, a distribution center located in Dillon County, in 2002.

Operations are expected to be online in late 2025. The Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved job development credits related to the project.

At an elemental level, Hurricane Helene’s recent rampage through the Carolinas demonstrated both the power of moving water and the importance of riparian buffers to mitigate some of that power.

With the storm’s impact as a backdrop, Greenville Water unveiled progress on a streambank restoration project along the Callahan Branch near the utility’s North Saluda reservoir in northern Greenville County.

The Oct. 30 event brought together Greenville Water officials and community stakeholders to highlight the importance of the project on a small tributary of the North Saluda River.

Reducing impacts

The roughly $300,000 Callahan Branch project was funded in large part by a grant from the state Department of Environmental Services, which was formed when the Department of Health and Environmental Control split into two agencies in July. It distributes federal grant funding from the Environmental Protection Agency under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act.

Among other things, such grant funding supports projects aimed at restoring healthy riparian buffers along waterways to reduce sediment and other runoff.

Greenville Water’s 319 project along the Callahan Branch involved restoring about 1,000 linear feet of streambank by placing 20 in-stream structures like rocks and toe wood revetments — a kind of woven mat that stabilizes banks and encourages growth of plants that further shore up streambanks.

Another big part of the project was removing invasive species like kudzu and using heavy earthmoving equipment to partially reconfigure the stream’s path, all with the goal of reducing erosion and the amount of sediment making it into the stream, according to Austin Williams, conservation technician supervisor with Greenville Water.

Helene and its aftermath have delayed the project’s final phase of planting native species of trees, shrubs and other plants that naturally capture sediment and other runoff.

In some ways, the whole point of projects like this is to mitigate the impact of storms like Helene, Williams said.

“We’re building for resilience from these storms,” he said.

Being good neighbors

The project does not directly benefit or change the quality of Greenville’s water, since the utility’s North Saluda reservoir sits above the Callahan Branch and within a pristine watershed basin entirely owned, controlled and protected by Greenville Water.

The project is more about being good neighbors, according to Phillip Kilgore, chairman of the Greenville Water Commission.

By reducing the amount of sediment getting into the Callahan Branch, the project also aims to reduce the amount getting into the North Saluda River, which supplies water for tens of thousands of people downstream.

Williams said the project has also given his team valuable experience in how to do these projects. That will enable the utility to tackle similar projects on other waterways as and when opportunity and funding is available.

GREENVILLE — County voters have rejected a capital project sales tax that would have gone toward updating the area’s deteriorating road inventory.

The referendum failed by a margin of 126,293 votes (51.5 percent) to 118,948 (48.5 percent).

The additional 1-percent levy would have raised more than $1 billion over eight years that would have funded a list of more than 1,500 roads projects across the county.

It would have applied to purchases excluding groceries, prescription drugs, and gas.

Proponents had pointed to the penny sales tax as the area’s only option to address the poor condition of Greenville County’s transportation infrastructure. According to county staff, 60 percent of the area’s roads are in fair or poor condition, and to complete needed repaving projects alone would cost an estimated $2 billion.

County Council voted in June to send the tax to voters, just under a year after approving an unpopular property tax increase, the county’s first in roughly three decades.

Opposition to the levy has been fierce in the months preceding this election, with several members of council, as well as multiple council members-elect, rallying against it.

That concerted opposition was enough to sink the levy in a conservative, tax-averse area. With the referendum defeated, it is unclear how the county will bridge a multi-billion-dollar gap in infrastructure funding.

Spartanburg Politics

Currently, the county raises about $12 million a year in revenue for roads, and major local projects are not slated to receive state funding for years, if they are at all.

Detractors who encouraged voters to reject the penny sales tax have offered multiple alternatives, including creating an internal road maintenance department, cutting the county’s budget and charging impact fees for developers. But proponents argued that none of those options would raise the necessary funds and could have serious negative consequences, including hamstringing county services and raising the cost of housing.

This is the second time the county has asked voters to approve a penny sales tax that would go to funding roads. The first was in 2014, a referendum that failed by a wide margin. At the time, officials attributed the defeat of the tax to the fact that it included a levy on groceries, goods that would not be included in the tax that was on the ballot Nov. 5.

In 2014, the Greenville Chamber of Commerce headed a full-court press effort to promote the referendum. While the chamber voiced support for the penny tax this year, there was no organized effort of the same scale to convince residents to vote yes.

Still, the 2024 tax performed better than the levy that went before voters in 2014, which failed by a margin of roughly two to one.

GREENVILLE, S.C. —

Voters across the United States will head to the polls today.

If you are planning to vote in South Carolina, we have all the information you need to know to prepare for early voting or Election Day.

EARLY VOTING NUMBERS STATE-BY-STATE HERE

Election officials break down important reminders for Election Day

QUICK LINKS: Sample ballot for South Carolina voters | When and where to vote| What's on my ballot? | Voting demonstration| Meet the candidates | Greenville County road tax explanation | Understanding The Citizen Only Voting Amendment on the S.C. election ballot | Reporting problems at the polls |

For poll hours and polling locations in North Carolina, Georgia click here

North and South Carolina, Georgia officials share when presidential election results will be released

When voting in person, you will be asked to show one of the following Photo IDs at your polling place:

Yes! Tap or click here, then fill in your registration information at the South Carolina Election Commission's website.

To report fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement, or misconduct within or involving a state agency, call the State Inspector General at 1-855-723-7283 (1-855-SC-Fraud), or visit the State Inspector General’s website to file a complaint online.

Visit the South Carolina Voter FAQ for more information.

GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. —

Millions of people across the Carolinas and Georgia have already cast their ballots in this year's presidential election, and officials are sharing how long it will take their areas to count all of the votes.

Conway Belangia, director of Greenville County Elections and Voter Registration, said officials are not allowed to post results before polls close at 7 p.m.

"If we had to wait until 7 to even start that process, it'd be two or three in the morning, but we will start that process during the day, but no numbers can be produced," Belangia said.

More than 143,000 people voted early in Greenville County in the 2024 election. According to the University of Florida's Election Lab, more than 1.4 million people voted early across South Carolina, more than 4 million people have voted in Georgia and more than 4.4 million people have voted in North Carolina.

Belangia said the election office is changing its process to be faster, opting away from posting precinct results on the walls of McAlister Square.

"Printing these reports to go on the wall that has that just slows down our process, so we're not going to print," he said. "We're just going to try to get them in and then try to get them posted on the website."

Belangia expects some of the first Election Day precincts to report at around 9 p.m., but officials will be posting early and absentee voting results prior to that.

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Meanwhile, election officials in Stephens County, Georgia, said its board of elections will be sequestered beginning at 5 p.m. Tuesday to begin counting its early voting and absentee ballots.

"They'll have to remain in a room away from public," Election Supervisor Bruce Carlisle said. "They won't be allowed to get on their cellphones or make phone calls."

Carlisle said following the 2020 election, Georgia passed a law requiring most absentee and early voting ballots to be counted by 8 p.m., one hour after polls close.

"When you start seeing results come in the next day, in the middle of the night, when people are going to bed, then that's when all your conspiracy theories begin to start," Carlisle said. "If you can get the numbers in and get them out quickly to the public, and that's why that law passed."

Henderson County, North Carolina, said it will start tallying votes on Election Day. Officials added some precincts may take longer to report due to lingering damage from Hurricane Helene.

"I'm not trying to rush our precincts or chief judges," election specialist Aaron Troutman said. "I want them to, to do their, their process thoroughly and accurately, but I do still anticipate that we're going to be, we're going to have everything counted in a timely manner."

Polls in South Carolina and Georgia close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Polls in North Carolina close at 7:30 p.m.

Officials said people in line at the time polls close should remain in line to be able to cast their ballot.