[ All Photography by Will Crooks ]
A decade ago, Erik Weir left California for Greenville. With his help, the Camperdown project will change the city’s future.
Dallas-based Trammell Crow and Greenville-based Centennial American Properties were scheduled to develop the site of The Greenville News property on South Main Street, but Trammell Crow subsequently pulled out, providing an opportunity for a new investor.
Enter Erik Weir.
A 27-year veteran of finance and investing, Weir is providing the capital needed for the Camperdown project to move forward in downtown Greenville.
As manager of Greenville-based WCM Global Wealth, Weir, 49, and his team work with individuals, business owners, executives and entrepreneurs in the wealth-planning process.
A black belt in the martial art of Tang So Do, a licensed private pilot and an investor in faith-based movies, Weir recently sat down with Senior Business Writer David Dykes to discuss his involvement in the Camperdown project and his hopes for Greenville moving forward.
Here are excerpts from that conversation, which took place in Weir’s RiverPlace office in downtown Greenville.
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UBJ: Why did you choose Greenville to live and do business?
Weir: We had a home in the Bay Area [of Northern California] and a home in Lake Tahoe [Calif.], and we’re looking around, saying, ‘We don’t want our children growing up — as nice as this is, as beautiful as it is, as great as the business climate is — I’d rather have them grow up like we did.’ I had a friend from who had retired from Home Depot who lived here locally and we came to visit him. While I was here, we got tricked. We went to something called Fall for Greenville [in 2005] and I could not believe how beautiful the city was, all that was here. There were restaurants serving food. There were bands, live music, and there were kids everywhere. We visited Asheville. We visited other areas and other states along the Eastern Seaboard and just loved Greenville.
We met with the mayor [Knox White]. He spent probably a half a day with us and talked to me and my family about Greenville, what’s going on. He showed us the area, where it’s growing and all the growth that Greenville’s experiencing. And really, Knox played a key role in us moving here and just spending time with us, showing us around, introducing us to a few people in town. We opened up our business here in 2006.
UBJ: What was the first transaction you did here or the first deal you put together?
Weir: Most of what I did initially was just buying things individually for myself — rental properties and self-storage and raw land.
UBJ: How has Greenville changed in the last 10 years?
Weir: It’s changed remarkably. It’s growing. It’s more vibrant. It seems more youthful. It seems more energetic. It seems even more cosmopolitan.
UBJ: What makes this economy attractive to both you at this stage of your career but also somebody who is younger?
Weir: If you look out the window, you see young people walking around. You see people with strollers, people jogging down the street. They’re drinking coffee. You look at people’s faces. They all look really happy. It’s just a joyful, great place to be.
I see cranes. I see buildings under construction in every direction that I look so that gives you a sense of vibrancy, of growth, of expansion, of energy.
When you look at the parks we have downtown and the beautiful walk areas and the investment the city has made in really thinking of the appearance — the view corridors are in every direction. It’s not just in one place.
UBJ: When you look at Charlotte and Atlanta and then Greenville, are there lessons we should learn?
Weir: If you look at each of those cities, every city will have whatever their growth engine happens to be. They’ll have their own culture, their own view, their own growth plans.
And if you look at what we’re doing here, it seems to be all viewed with the mind of being pro-business and pro-family and enjoying the outdoors and making the city a walkable city and an enjoyable city and a safe city. There’s a feeling of openness. You see grass. You see water. It’s growing in a way, in my mind’s eye, that it’s only improving.
There’s oftentimes a fear of change, that change will be adverse, and change will take away our culture. But even the new buildings, you’ll see the brick, links to the past – of the mill – and it pays tribute to Greenville’s history. But at the same time, you’ll see the glass and more of the modern things looking to Greenville’s future. That’s a nice balance.
UBJ: What about the real estate market here? From an investment perspective, is this an especially strong market, or is it a maturing market or an emerging market?
Weir: To me, it’s a steady, growing market. Companies want to be here. If you look at the combination of taxes, from all the different levels, South Carolina is one of the lowest 10 tax states. If you look at the environment, the weather, it’s one of the better places to live.
My personal experience is very pro-business. People are accessible. They are friendly. You can meet people. You can get involved in the area.
UBJ: And commercial real estate?
Weir: I like commercial real estate here. I like commercial, residential, industrial. This is going to be an area that continues to grow.
I had a meeting at my office probably a month ago. I had people in from Chicago, from Denver, from Anchorage, from California, around the country.
I haven’t had anybody in 10 years who has come here and wasn’t surprised of what they thought of Greenville, S.C. They had a mental image of what Greenville looked like and when they got here they, to the last person, were blown away. It’s a nice size. It’s not overwhelming.
The traffic may feel overwhelming if you’ve lived here your whole life. But if you’re from other cities, it’s quite manageable, even where it is today. It’s more than it was, without a doubt. But it’s manageable.
UBJ: Talk about the Camperdown project and how you got involved.
Weir: There was a situation where a developer backed out of a deal and was not going to move ahead. And that was Trammell Crow. They had their own reasons for doing that that were specific to them.
Then I was made aware of the opportunity, of there being room for a developer to come in and partner, provide financing or capital for the project.
I was very excited to look at it. I spent a lot of time analyzing it. I spent time with Mack [Whittle, former chairman, president and CEO of the South Financial Group, a bank holding company, and now a member of the WCM advisory board] and he helped to look at it with me. We brought in other consultants that we use around the country to help evaluate the deal.
I was thrilled to be able to be part of the solution to help put that back together.
UBJ: What was you role in that solution?
Weir: It was financing. The Glenns [developers David and Brody] have done an amazing job in their developments in the Greenville area. They have an outstanding reputation.
They were going to be partners in developing that [Camperdown] with Trammell Crow.
And when Trammell Crow departed the transaction, that left an opportunity for someone who could provide capital to help the project to move ahead. My role was providing the capital to move ahead with the project.
UBJ: In terms of arranging financing, is it mostly local? Is it part local, part outside South Carolina?
Weir: At this point and time, it’s part local but it would be substantially outside of the state.
There are people who I talked to about the project. They’ve seen the property. They’ve walked the land. They’ve been to Greenville with me. And they are the people I talk about — so impressed with our community that they want to invest in it.
UBJ: Can you talk about the financing vehicle used for Camperdown?
Weir: We invested in a group, with probably 12 individuals. It’s an LLC that provided the funding.
UBJ: How much equity capital are you putting in?
Weir: It’s in the millions of dollars.
