Marla Lockaby

Aventura, Fla.-based Trade Street Residential, an owner and operator of apartment communities located primarily in the Southeast, announced Thursday that it purchased The Aventine Greenville apartments for $42 million.

Adding to the mix of recently announced downtown projects, the Stadium Apartments will be set in Greenville’s West End on Rhett and Markley streets, just blocks away from Fluor Field.

The shopping center at 400 S. Pleasantburg Drive with anchor tenant Honeybaked Ham is getting a makeover. Exterior renovations are currently underway. Honeybaked Ham renewed its lease last year for seven more years. The store is the second highest-grossing Honeybaked Ham store in the U.S.

With the economy improving and recent announcements of new development projects downtown such as hotels, apartments and retail, Greenville is once again wondering what will be done with the sprawling, 31-acre County Square property.

Construction continues at Magnolia Park, the 550,000-square-foot retail behemoth strategically located at the intersections of Woodruff Road, I-85 and I-385, with new stores and restaurants slated to open soon. Many buildings are in various stages of construction, but “we expect everything to be open by the end of this year,” said Marc Yavinsky, executive vice president for Menin Development.

In the competitive market of commercial real estate, having a designation after your name seems almost commonplace. But what do these letters mean, what does it take to get them and are they worth it?

“It was a banner year,” according to the 2013 annual housing market report released last week from the South Carolina Realtors Association. According to the report, nearly every metropolitan housing market embarked upon or continued along the road to recovery.

Results are in for the fourth quarter of 2013, and quarterly commercial real estate market reports just released show that industrial, office and retail sectors finished out the year strong, and area commercial real estate firms expect an upward trend continuing in 2014.

In our first commercial real estate-themed issue of 2014, UBJ reached out to four industry veterans to get their takes on the current state of the Upstate industrial, retail, office and land commercial real estate markets.

Touted as a new way to work, shared flexible office space is becoming a popular option, especially as businesses become more mobile. Entrepreneurs and startup companies can immediately have a professional office environment to work in and greet clients, all without the high overhead expenses and long-term leases.