If the sprawling community known as Verdae is anything, it is a promise filled with potential and prospects of a bright future in need of a leader who can take the area from what it is now and bring all of that potential to life.
This is the role Verdae Development Inc. CEO Dan Klausner took over in 2022, and he has spent the past 10 months learning the community and settling into the responsibility he bears for guiding Verdae into the future.
Embracing the vision
Klausner has spent the past 20 years in real estate development and served as vice president of commercial real estate for the East Coast for San Diego-based Newland Real Estate Group.
He and his wife, along with their two children, thought they were living in their “forever home” in Raleigh, North Carolina, when he got a call about the top job at Verdae Development. Having been to Greenville numerous times, he knew the 1,100-acre planned development known as Verdae was a significant project, but he didn’t grasp the scope of the vision behind the project until interviewing for the job.
With his background at Newland in developing other planned communities, Klausner saw the promise and potential at Verdae and became excited by the prospect of steering the community through the next steps, which include finalizing plans for Legacy Square and the 90-acre Laurens Road corridor.
“Coming here to all of that, and the thought processes of all of that, was very exciting,” he says. “It’s what I have done previously with Newland communities.”
Klausner says Verdae and many of the planned communities he worked on with Newland reflect what a great many people want in today’s world — an urban environment in a suburban setting.
“We’re teed up perfectly to deliver on that with a strong partnership with the city,” he says.
As Klausner sees it, the vision for Verdae fits neatly into the city’s GVL2040 plan which focuses on developing nodes and corridors. This is significant, as that plan and the city’s new development code will guide the ultimate development of the Laurens Road corridor.
Executing the vision
In major projects like Verdae and its residential centerpiece, Hollingsworth Park, one of the most important aspects to consider is how each new aspect of the development enhances the brand, Klausner says.
And an integral part of that brand is creating a sense of place.
“What happens when you create great places incrementally, every deal you do creates more value,” he says. “That’s the promise of what we need to deliver on.”
The time taken in the past three years to develop a strategic plan while pausing most new development has created pent-up demand for Verdae projects, he says.
Going forward, Klausner believes the immediate priority is fine-tuning plans for Legacy Square and developing the Legacy Connector — the portion of the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail running through the heart of Verdae.
Part of that process is contingent on working with the city to ensure the area has the right zoning designation to accommodate plans for Legacy Square. Currently, plans call for a mix of 156 multifamily housing units, 11 residential lots, 25,000 square feet of new office space, 19,000 square feet of new retail space and 10,000 square feet of new food and beverage space. Plans also call for more than 100,000 square feet of open space.
The city’s proposed zoning for the area under the new development code is RMX-C — residential mixed use — which would not allow some of the uses in current Legacy Square plans.
“Thankfully, we’ve got a great partnership with the city and their vision is aligned with ours,” Klausner says.
Verdae fast facts
Verdae is a 1,100-acre community development formed from property holdings of the late J.D. Hollingsworth Jr. in an area bounded by Woodruff and Laurens roads and Interstate 85.
The development includes:
- Hollingsworth Park — the residential heart of Verdae with about 800 homes and a collection of office, restaurant and other commercial enterprises
- A roughly 1.5-mile frontage along Laurens Road that will form the heart of the planned Laurens Road corridor
- Legacy Square — a planned mixed-use project within Hollingsworth Park along Rocky Slope Road and bounded by Cheddington Drive, Chatsworth Drive and Darden Way. It will incorporate multifamily housing, office, retail, and food and beverage spaces.
